Hasta La Ideas

Some potentially sad local news here. The Tribune‘s Blair Kamin reports that the forty-eight year old Prairie Avenue Bookshop in downtown Chicago is facing closure, unless they can find a new buyer for the building. The bookshop, which specializes in architecture books, and is the first place any building buff should stop if you’re visiting town, had been hit by the economy, the city’s continuing sales tax hikes, and customers leaving to buy online. It’s difficult to see how they’d be able to pull off saving the store, as several of their options, like teaming with the Chicago Architecture Foundation, have fallen through and the economy certainly isn’t rising anytime soon. Though they certainly are interested in hearing any plans anyone might have, including leaving the brick and mortar and moving online. So should you be visiting Chicago before September 1st, when their lease runs out, make sure to either stop by the Prairie Avenue Bookstore with either lots of money, a few nice parting words, or some incredible idea that will propel the business along.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

In a bid to contribute to a cleaner and greener world, Autodesk announced at the Clean Tech Open renewable energy symposium earlier this week that they’ll be giving nearly $150,000 of design software–each–to 100 companies as part of its Clean Tech Partner Program.

The goal of the program is to spur innovation and speed the time-to-market for pathbreaking clean technologies. Although the grants are loosely aimed at renewable energy innovators, applications are open to anyone working in designing more sustainable products.

“We are looking for some of the best and most exciting ideas that we think can be transformative in the marketplace,” explained Lynelle Cameron, director of sustainability for Autodesk. “These are the [companies] that we want to partner with and learn from in future releases of our products.”

Grant recipients will receive up to five seats of each of the following Autodesk design applications: AutoCAD Inventor Professional, Autodesk Showcase Professional, Autodesk Vault Manufacturing, Autodesk Navisworks Manage, Autodesk Revit Architecture, and Autodesk Alias Design. This suite of software can streamline the entire product-design lifecycle, according to Keith Perrin, Industry Solution Manager at Autodesk.

Reuters reports that Autodesk will have applications for the program up on their website; but at the time of posting this entry, it did not yet appear to be in place.

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A recent article in the sexily-named Plastic News points out that the “Factory of the World,” a/k/a China, has been hit hard by the downturn. A sagging worldwide demand for products has placed Chinese manufacturing overcapacity at a staggering 30-40%. What to do?

Eric Chan, a native of China’s Guangdong province and now president of industrial design firm Ecco Design in New York, said Chinese firms should think less about the export model of mega-factories, and instead put more attention to developing niche products….

The article points out that that would require better industrial design, which is a bit of an uphill battle in China:

“It is very difficult for [Chinese manufacturers] to understand why they need design,” said Alan Yip, director of Yip Design.

A recent study of industrial design among about 250 PRD manufacturing firms said that while most consider design important, they don’t give enough weight to the decisions of industrial designers, and too often only consider design a visual skill, rather than integrating it into product development.

Will the efforts of Chan and Yip help? Time will tell. In the meantime, check out the rest of the article here.

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“‘The profession was invented in this room,'” says Richard Rogers, president of the College for Creative Studies (CCS), as he stands in the dusty construction site that used to be the General Motors Argonaut Building.”

The profession Rogers is referring to is automotive design, and the excerpt is from Autoweek’s article on GM’s Argonaut Building in Detroit, GM’s former design center and the birthplace of many American motoring classics. The building is being donated to the Center for Creative Studies, to help breathe life into a new crop of designers:

The massive 11-story Argonaut Building, built in stages in 1928 and 1936, is in the midst of a $145 million renovation. It is one of the few bright spots on Detroit’s horizon these days. The project will redevelop the 760,000-square-foot building, donated by GM, as “an integrated educational community focused on art and design.”

…The Argonaut will offer space for CCS programs, including new graduate programs, with dining and dorm space for 300. The building also will house a new sort of middle and secondary school, devoted to design. The idea is to hook inner-city kids early in the creative process and foster them along the way. Students of all ages will be able to learn from one another so, the theory goes, talent can be seamlessly encouraged and developed from first budding to full blooming.

Read all about it here.

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Steve Portigal‘s got a couple of perfect bookends in Interactions Magazine (and online), looking at the implications of design without research, and vice versa. The essays are packed with anecdotes and insights, and as with most of Steve’s pieces, will provide delight and encouragement to all flavors of design practitioner. Here’s a choice bit:

I used to think there was a certain class of company for which “design for yourself” would work: Companies founded (and staffed) by enthusiasts for products like pro-audio gear, mountain bikes, or camping gear. Those companies tend to brand themselves as active participants who know what an extreme backpacker or serious dirt rider or gigging bass player would need. By extension, they hope customers will perceive their products as authentic and high quality. But I had my eyes opened a few months ago in a conversation with Steve Brown, head of design and user experience at Nortel, and formerly a partner at Fiori Product Development. Steve suggested that this approach may be fine for an entrepreneur who is starting a company, but he has seen many larger companies who believed they were the customer and were thus unable to innovate because they couldn’t see the market differently.

While user-research–eschewing Apple is everyone’s poster child for “design for yourself,” I find Harley-Davidson to be a more compelling example (although I may be comparing Apple(s) and oranges). At Harley, Willie G. Davidson is the grandson of the original Davidson. Senior vice president and chief styling officer, he is known as Willie G. And he looks exactly like a guy who rides a Harley: big, bearded, and leather-clad. If we judge a bike by its fairing, the designer is the customer. That’s part of the Harley brand: In a recent Harley-Davidson annual report, executives appear next to their bikes, and we know that they all ride. A crucial part of Willie G.’s role is to preserve the legacy of the brand; the company communicates that it is (and always has been) part of the culture for which it’s designing. People at Harley, we believe, use the products and live the lifestyle. But underneath it all is a sense that Harley-Davidson, through its history, has created the brand (i.e., the products and their meaning) in partnership with its customers. For all the tribal connectedness Apple has facilitated, the company itself is not a participant. It is a benefactor.

Ships in the Night (Part i): Design Without Research?
Ships in the Night (Part II): Research Without Design?

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