Hasta La Ideas

Though the phrase “Design Thinking” has been gaining in popularity for the better part of the last decade, it really entered the mainstream design vernacular last year with the introduction of several articles and books on the topic from designers and educators such as Tim Brown, Roger Martin, Roberto Verganti and Harmut Esslinger.

Unfortunately, judging by a popular January 9th New York Times article, very little has trickled into a mainstream conversation. The article, entitled “Multicultural Critical Theory. At B-School?,” attempts to tackle the shifting landscape of MBA business education by using Roger Martin and the Rotman School of Management as a case study but actually frames the argument not around “design thinking,” which has been his main selling point for rotman, but rather around “critical thinking.” The article goes on to elaborate on the specific practice of “Design Works” at Rotman but uses this as the one single “design thinking” example among a list of other programs.

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Don’t miss Ralph Caplan’s beautiful essay on I.D. Magazine and it’s history on AIGA’s Voice. It’s very hard to choose a paragraph to sample here, but this story is truly to be dined out on:

Our chronic lack of money led me to what I think of fondly as my most daring editorial innovation as editor-in-chief, although it had nothing to do with either design or journalism. Almost every day corporations launching new products held press parties to announce them. We received several invitations each week that looked too interesting to turn down. But sending an editor to attend them was costly, entailing not only an editor’s time away from the office, but if alcohol were served, as invariably it was, the additional loss of the editor’s productivity when and if he or she returned (one didn’t). So I.D. officially eschewed many parties, but we needed the press kits for pictures and information.

I can’t think why, but for the first few years I lived in New York I happened to know an unusually large number of actors, who spent their days auditioning. They did rounds. Doing rounds meant presenting themselves at casting calls to be judged. This humiliating daily drill required that they be well dressed and well groomed. Being broke and hungry was not required, but they usually were. Moreover, they were attractive, personable and articulate. I had generic business cards printed, identifying the card carrier as an associate editor of I.D., and distributed them to actors I knew, asking them to occasionally attend events as representatives of the magazine. All I asked of them was that they bring me press kits. What they got in return were free drinks and free lunch. True, lunch frequently consisted only of cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. But these events tended to be lavishly catered affairs and the snacks were substantial.

The actors loved it. After all, they were role-playing, which was the business they were in. And I.D. developed a reputation for having an uncommonly large and spectacularly good-looking staff.

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What design firms are doing well in the downturn? Surprisingly, luxury goods designer Porsche Design Studio recently told the Moodie Report that their “travel retail business has surged by more than +170% over the past two years”–and this was even before the holiday season.

“If you analyze the function of an object,” says their recently re-designed website, “its form often becomes obvious.” What’s not obvious to us is where the heck that uptick in sales came from, given that they sell largely in airports, which is not exactly destination shopping.

In any case, they’ll be dumping some of their newfound profits into expansion: “The number of Porsche Design Stores and Shops is to increase from our current 84 to more than 100 worldwide,” says President & CEO Dr Juergen Gessler. “This offensive will create a further upturn.”

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The collectible toy and design company Kidrobot is preparing to say goodbye to their big city confines soon, at least in part, as it’s been announced that company founder Paul Budnitz has decided to move half of the organization to Boulder, Colorado, making the college town and Denver suburb its new headquarters (just like Threadless‘ parent company skinnyCorp did a while back). They still plan on maintaining an office in New York, but half the Kidrobot crew will make the journey west, to start anew at the base of the Rockies. Here’s a bit from Budnitz about the decision:

“About a year and a half ago, I moved to Montana. I felt New York City was a wonderful place, but creatively, it seemed I was doing my best work when I was away from the noise,” he said.

…Once in Boulder, the hope is to hire about 20 to 25 additional people locally, he said, adding that he hopes to grow the company as large as possible with “the caveat being we don’t give up the vision of what we are.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Roger Dennis spoke to Ed Burak of Formway Furniture about the product development phases involved in the award winning “Hum” range of furniture. The lead time spanned 5 years – a serious investment in time and money in this day and age – as Dennis says “In this current economic climate it’s tempting to cut back on innovation and design, but the Formway example illustrates that development times can span economic cycles.” Here’s a snippet from their conversation:

What was the spark that started Formway down the path to design the Hum range?

We started with the question – does the world need another desk?

We began to explore this by removing the desk and trying to understand what’s left – the artefacts, the communication, the tasks and the human and how these elements are both supported & suppressed by conventional/current workspace design.
We were also aware that we have witnessed a significant shift in the purpose of coming to a place of work. By this I mean that in the past, we came to work to read and write and do ‘other stuff.’

Now things are different – the reading and writing can occur almost anywhere now, at home, on the kitchen bench, in the corridor or even a park. We are gathering together at this place we call work more and more for this ‘other stuff’ – the meeting of minds – to problem solve, socialise, share and collaborate.

Three significant research themes emerged from our early investigation into what goes on at your desk in the workplace – attentiveness, interaction and cognition – in other words focused or individual work, collaborative and making sense of the information and space around us.

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