Posted by
hipstomp | 20 Nov 2009
I love the titling of the sub-sectors of Singapore's rigidly-defined design sectors: "Placemaking" (environments design, architecture), "Objectmaking" (industrial, product, and fashion design), "Imagemaking" (graphics, visual communications and advertising design). Singapore takes design seriously, as evidenced not only by its forthcoming Singapore Design Festival, but by the fact that
The government here is supporting the design sector. For example, the Design For Enterprises initiative is a $12 million collaboration to help Singapore enterprises tap the creativity and design expertise of top designers and assist them in coming up with successful products and services.
Another initiative is the Design Capability Development Programme by the DesignSingapore Council which has earmarked $10 million to provide grants and co-funding for mentorship, overseas promotion, participation in competitions, scholarship and other capability development schemes.
This from an article in The Business Times about both the Festival and the city-state's efforts to "bring design to the forefront, emphasising the key role that it plays in contributing to the triple bottom line - where the interests of business, society and the environment come together," as Robert Tomlin, chairman of the DesignSingapore Council put it. Read all about it here.
Posted by
Mark Vanderbeeken | 20 Nov 2009
Portugal's newest daily newspaper, i, was launched in early May and has attracted a significant amount of attention due to its rising circulation figures and innovative approach. It recently won a design award from the Society of News Design.
The Editors Weblog spoke to editor-in-chief Martim Avillez Figueiredo, managing editor for online Mónica Bello and art director Nick Mrozowski, to find out more about i's approach and the reasons behind its success.
"I is not structured like a traditional paper. The paper's team worked with media consultancy Innovation to come up with a new way to organise the product. "Our feeling was," said Figueiredo, who came on board at an early stage, moving from Diário Económico, "that people were not concerned about traditional sections any more. Traditionally, journalists have to fill a politics section even if there is nothing relevant going on in politics. We wanted to come up with something different." So the team came up with five key needs that they wanted the paper to address, with five key words."
>> Read article
(via Haddock blogs)
Posted by
Lisa Smith | 17 Nov 2009
The Shelter is an "innovation campus" that opened earlier this year in Dubai with the support of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority. The center aims to support small businesses in the creative industries by minimizing operational headaches. The campus also aims to foster the development of dialogue among creative types by providing a space for ideas to coexist.
These guys have thought of almost everything. In addition to ergonomic, flexible workspaces (with provided secretarial services), the facilities include a cinema/auditorium for lectures and screenings, a library housing over a thousand books on cultural and creative topics (including up to date reference texts), a small shop offering tools of the trade as well as design objects, a brasserie offering affordable and healthful fare, and a garden, for much needed breaks from work.
Amazingly, this will only set you back around 80 dollars a month. If only we were in Dubai....
Posted by
Mark Vanderbeeken | 16 Nov 2009
SEE is a network of eleven European partners sharing knowledge and experience on how design can be integrated into regional and national policies to boost innovation, entrepreneurship, sustainability and social and economic development.
In a new policy document, they highlight six priorities for European innovation policy:
Stimulating demand for innovation can be achieved through 'public procurement' and public services as catalysts for 'innovation in services'.
Fostering an innovative environment requires policy intervention in order to provide protection through 'intellectual property rights' and forging closer links between academia and industry by promoting 'collaborative clusters and networks'.
Removing market barriers to innovation refers to creating favourable conditions for 'lead markets' to emerge, for example 'eco-innovation' and sustainability, as well as 'broadening the scope of innovation' in order to address societal challenges and champion a user-centred approach to innovation.
SEE is operating from September 2008 to June 2011, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the INTERREG IVC programme.
Posted by
Allan Chochinov | 10 Nov 2009
Above: Proposed, and actual buildings
Rob Walker pitches a great concept for some collective street art action: Signs advertising fanciful future-use development plans
There's a little building around the corner from me with this sign posted on it--a rendering of its supposed future. It's been there for years, and it's pretty obvious that it's at best a hypothetical future, and arguably a fictitious one. The actual building remains vacant, and in fact is for sale. Any development that may take place some day depends on someone buying it, and what they might want to do. Till then, it's just another empty building.
Read the rest of the post here.
Posted by
Carl Alviani | 5 Nov 2009
The numbers are in, and they are both great and terrible. Coroflot's Designer Salary Survey, now in its ninth year (true!), broke the 5000 response barrier this time around, with strong showings from every design field that calls the site home. The findings are a combination of expected and astonishing.
First, the expected:
Salaries took a tumble this year, almost across the board: the Design Management and Interaction Design fields in particular saw their meteoric 3-year rise come to a sharp and dramatic end, though they're still the highest paid among the eight fields covered. Other disciplines saw gentler declines, with the peculiar exception of Fashion and Apparel, which bucked the downward trend in a big way, showing a nearly US$3,000 increase over last year. Fashion also bucked the experience trend, with mid-level designers in the field out-earning their more venerable counterparts:
Graphic and Interior designers continue to languish at the bottom of the pay scale, and those very few web designers who've been at it since the beginning (Mosaic, Hotbot, blinky text...ah the mid-90s) are making an absolute killing.
Here's another noteworthy shift from last year:
Corporate design studios are losing their dominance. While last year's survey showed more than 60% of respondents working in-house in every field but web design, this year flips that around: all but two fields saw the in-house fraction drop below 60%, with the Freelance and Consultancy categories taking up the slack. The temping of design, it appears, accelerates during dark financial days.
This is just scratching the surface though. For lots more analysis, including regional and international comparisons, salaries by job title, and the influence of education on design salaries, plus a customizable database of all Survey results, go to the 2009 Salary Survey Results page on Coroflot. We've broken it down for you into The Six New Realities of Creative Work, and you know you want to read about those.
>>Read the full analysis and see the entire 2009 data set here.
Posted by
core jr | 29 Oct 2009
The second in I.D. Magazine's new series of webcast goes live today at 4:00 pm EST. Presenters Masuma Henry, and Martjin Van Tilburg from Artefact group will discuss the opportunities for and implications of "Designing Products for Emerging Markets."
Here's I.D.'s writeup:
As countries such as India and China continue to grow and become more accessible, they represent expanding opportunities for product development. How can product designers create unique and meaningful user experiences for people in these populations? Masuma Henry and Martijn Van Tilburg of the Seattle-based design consultancy Artefact will explain how to do just this, outlining an effective process for developing compelling products for customers in emerging markets.
Drawing from their experience designing technology experiences for these users, they will dispel common misconceptions and reveal practical insights and methods for undergoing this design process. Specifically, they will explain how to conduct the discovery phase, including the planning and execution of fieldwork, remote data collection, and concept generation in the field. They will also demonstrate how to make sense of fieldwork results and how to choose the most relevant concepts to pursue further. They'll highlight examples of successful and failed products, discuss the reasons for these outcomes, and show examples of their recent work in this exciting space.
The webcast is at 4:00 pm EST TODAY. Registration is $39.99—sign up here.
Posted by
core jr | 26 Oct 2009
The economy's still down, but how far down is it? Are designers weathering the storm with ease and grace, or are they catching the full brunt?
To answer these questions, you need information, and to get that information, The Coroflot Design Salary Survey needs your response. If you haven't responded to the call yet, there's still time, but don't dawdle--the survey closes at 11:59pm, EST on Thursday, October 29.
Now in its ninth incarnation, this is the world's largest and longest-running survey specifically targeted at the creative professions in all their diversity. Whether you're in ID, IxD, Graphic Design, Architecture, Art Direction, or any of the other myriad specialties that hang out on Coroflot, this is the place to let the world know that it pays--or doesn't pay--to be a creative professional. And as always, more responses equals more reliable results, so painting a clear picture of the current state of the profession is in your hands.
Responding is simple, and takes all of 2 minutes. Just click over to Coroflot and fill out the form--it looks like this:
Please remember to give your annual salary (not monthly or weekly), and while readers from all countries are eagerly encouraged to participate, salaries should be converted to US Dollars for comparison purposes. See the Survey page for more details.
>>Heed the call and make your voice heard here.
Posted by
hipstomp | 23 Oct 2009
Indian bureaucracy can be a huge, lumbering machine. Question is, can it churn its wheels in the service of design? The India Design Council (set up under the National Design Policy by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, but separate from the National Design Council and the National Institute of Design--here's our justification for that first sentence) hopes so.
The IDC is pushing forth the idea of an Indian Design Mark, a sort of quality assurance stamp that would be placed on manufactured goods in order to "certify the minimum design intervention for a product."
The mark will assure a certain process that the product's design would have gone through to ensure that not only the quality but also the ingredients and the way of production is design-sensitive," said the director of National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, Pradyuman Vyas, who is also the member secretary of the National Design Council.
To introduce the I' mark, the design council is studying the different design standardisation marks that exist in other countries like Red Dot Award of Germany, The Good Design Award of Japan and Index Award of Denmark.
"This mark also signifies the social relevance of the product where levels of pollution and carbon emission are also taken into consideration," said Vyas, who had recently visited Japan for a function organised by Design Office, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in Japan.
Next step in making it happen? An upcoming December meeting where "the matter will be discussed further."
via times of india
Posted by
Mark Vanderbeeken | 14 Oct 2009
Market Forces is the theme of the fifth edition of Piemonte Share Festival, guest curated by Andy Cameron: which the relation between contemporary culture and market, how new media integrate the artistic languages and the economy, which the convergences between interactive art and advertising?
Piemonte Share Festival will be in Turin, Italy from the 3rd till the 8th of November 2009. Below is an overview of the exhibitions. Information on lectures, conferences and events, as well as a series of interviews, can be found online.
Share Prize Exhibition
Launched in 2007, the Share Prize is the pride and joy of the Festival. Designed to discover, promote and support the digital arts, artists from all around the world take part in the contest every year.
This year, the six finalists short-listed by the international panel of judges are: Ernesto Klar Convergenze parallele | Lia Proximity of needs | Andreas Muxel Connect | Francesco Meneghini-William Bottin Sciame 1 | Ralf Baecker Calculating Space | Random International / Chris O'Shea Audience
4th-8th November, 10 AM-7 PM, Regional Museum of Natural Sciences, Via Giolitti 36, Turin
Squatting Supermarkets
Artist Salvatore Iaconesi aka xDxD.vs.xDxD looks at how our everyday lives have evolved through shopping, piercing into the pulsating heart of Market Forces. Browsing products on shelves, choosing, paying, running up debt, being convinced and seduced, relating to places, messages and other people: shopping is an experience that fills our days, an experience constructed through images, suggestions and strategies that are all so complex that we, as final users, systematically fail to perceive them.
4th-8th November, 10 AM-7 PM, Regional Museum of Natural Sciences, Via Giolitti 36, Turin
Market Forces Exhibition
Taking as its starting point Salvatore Iaconesi's special project for Share Festival 2009, Squatting Supermarkets, which narrates how our everyday lives have evolved through "augmented" shopping, the statement made by the exhibition, curated by Simona Lodi, explores the issue of whether artists can be an alternative source of information on the economy.
4th-8th November, 10 AM-7 PM, Regional Museum of Natural Sciences, Via Giolitti 36, Turin
Until the End of Cinema
Curated by Luca Barbeni, this exhibition screens a series of audio-visual works that begin where the cinema ceases to exist, taking us from the linear to the interactive, from the collective to an individual perspective. The works can no longer be said to be cinema, but nor are they something else.
4th-8th November, 10 AM-7 PM, Regional Museum of Natural Sciences, Via Giolitti 36, Turin
Form Follows Nature - Erik Natzke Exhibition
Erik Natzke, artist, designer and programmer, creates and gives material substance to his ideas through immaterial computer code. His sensibility, combined with his stubborn resolve, has enabled him to push back the limits of his medium, beyond known methods and approaches. Natzke's work focuses on aesthetics and methodology, in which code and numbers generate beauty. When Natzke wants to draw something, he doesn't pick up a pencil. He opens his Flash software editor and starts programming.
7th-14th November - Allegretti Contemporanea Gallery, via San Francesco D'Assisi 14, Turin
Inauguration Saturday 7th November, 7 PM
Posted by
Mark Vanderbeeken | 14 Oct 2009
The results of the European Commission's public consultation on its working document "Design as a driver of user-centred innovation," which provides an analysis of the rationale for making design an integral part of European innovation policy, are now online.
The response was very good. In total, the Commission received 535 online replies - 309 from organisations, 226 from individuals.
91 percent of responding organisations consider that design is very important for the future competitiveness of the EU economy. 96 percent consider that initiatives in support of design should be an integral part of innovation policy in general, 91 percent that initiatives in support of design should be taken at EU level in addition to Member State and regional level.
On this basis, the Commission is now considering its next steps in better integrating design into European innovation policy and support.
For those of you interested in contributing further to EU policy development, the Commission recently launched a similar consultation on the broader question of future innovation policy.
Posted by
Mark Vanderbeeken | 13 Oct 2009
It's 2023. Climate change, oil shortages, and population growth have become pressing issues. What will the tourism industry look--and more importantly, will there even be a tourism industry?
That's the question that Tourism 2023, an initiative from Forum of the Future, is aiming to find out, reports Fast Company.
Tourism 2023 partnered with companies like British Airways, Carnival UK, and Advantage Travel Centres to analyze the impact our ever-growing ecological footprint will have on travel in the UK. The results, presented in four scenarios (Boom and Burst; Divided Disquiet; Price and Privilege; and Carbon Clampdown), are somewhat surprising.
>> Read article
Posted by
Xanthe Matychak | 12 Oct 2009
Among the slew of "Design Thinking Is Magic" hoopla we hear these days, Peter Merholz offers a refreshingly honest little piece in the Harvard Business Review entitled: "Why Design Thinking Won't Save You."
In it he warns business folk about throwing the baby out with the bath water. He proposes that right-brained tactics should be brought in to an organization to enhance left-brained thinking, not replace it.
Design thinking is trotted out as a salve for businesses who need help with innovation. The idea is that the left-brained, MBA-trained, spreadsheet-driven crowd has squeezed all the value they can out of their methods. To fix things, all you need to do is apply some right-brained turtleneck-wearing "creatives," "ideating" tons of concepts and creating new opportunities for value out of whole cloth.
Merholz also claims that Design Thinking is not new but that it is, simply, a new name for sociology and anthropology.
A not-so-secret truth about "design thinking" is that a big chunk of it is actually "social science thinking." Design thinkers talk about being "human-centered" and "empathic," and the tools they use to achieve that are methods borrowed from anthropology and sociology. Believe me, until very recently, they didn't teach customer research at design schools.
He makes many interesting points - each of them surrounded by many interesting counter-arguments. So let us ask you: What distinguishes Design Thinking from other types of social science thinking?
Read the entire piece here
Posted by
hipstomp | 5 Oct 2009
China is "The World's Factory," right?
Actually, no. Surprisingly, the U.S. still leads in that area, producing 22% of the world's goods versus China's 13%. (Also surprising, Japan is not that far behind China, with 11%.)
These facts are taken from Karen E. Klein's BusinessWeek article "Finding a U.S. Manufacturer to Make Your Product Idea," where the writer discusses the importance of prototypes, business plans, consulting a manufacturing engineer, understanding whatever product industry you're targeting, et cetera. A must-read for you designers thinking of "going rogue."
Posted by
core jr | 30 Sep 2009
The winners of The 4th Bin Design Competition are in! Congratulations to the winners and runners up, and be sure to check out more pics and full-on descriptions at the site. To get you started though, here's a quick taste (yup, there were 3 2nd-place winners; judges couldn't make themselves rank 'em!):
BINS
1st Place
"Expand Recycling"
Springtime
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2nd Place Winner
Smart Design
Colin Kelly
Carolina Krupinska
Alistair Bramley
NYC, USA
2nd Place Winner
"e-Bin"
Studio Bagherian
London, UK
2nd Place Winner
"Private E-Waste Bin"
ampm studios
Derry, New Hampshire, USA
LOGOS
1st Place Winner
Two Twelve
New York, New York, USA
2nd Place Winner
Kevin Elliot James
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Posted by
Xanthe Matychak | 30 Sep 2009
It's always good practice to note the moment when a cutting-edge design issue makes its way in to a mainstream business magazine. The online, laser-cut-on-demand service, Ponoko.com, is on the cover of Inc. this month.
Here's a taste from the feature:
One day, [David ten Have] believes, perhaps 50 years from now, [laser-cutters] like this will be inexpensive enough to be in every home and will be capable of making almost anything. Buying a physical product - a cell phone, for instance - will be as easy as buying an MP3 on iTunes. Products won't be shipped in containers; they will be downloaded as digital design files and then printed on our desks while we sip our morning coffee. Not only will this be exceedingly convenient, but ten Have says that it will reorder the global economy, green the planet, and unleash an unprecedented wave of creativity as regular people design their own stuff.
Posted by
core jr | 29 Sep 2009
On the occasion of the publication of Tim Brown's book, Change By Design (reviewed here by Robert Blinn), Tim will join Bruce Nussbaum in an evening conversation tomorrow night at The New School. Here's the pitch:
What does the future hold for design and innovation? IDEO's Tim Brown and BusinessWeek's Bruce Nussbaum will tackle this question on September 30 in a free public lecture at The New School. The conversation will range from design's evolution from creator of goods to a creator of systems to IDEO's work applying design solutions to poverty. This event kicks off a series of discussions The New School is organizing this fall around the topic of design and ethnography.
More info at the site.
Posted by
Mark Vanderbeeken | 28 Sep 2009
SEE is a network of eleven European partners sharing knowledge and experience on how design can be integrated into regional and national policies to boost innovation, entrepreneurship, sustainability and social and economic development.
Their first bulletin is now online. Make sure to check out their article on the future EU innovation policy which gives an excellent update on what the European Union is doing to stimulate design and user-driven innovation.
Posted by
core jr | 28 Sep 2009
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Comments (0)
Jon Kolko, just back from the IDSA Conference in Miami, has some provocative ideas about the future of industrial design and the IDSA. Here's the start:
I've just returned from the IDSA conference in Miami, and I'm both convinced that, in ten years, there won't be an IDSA conference to go to - and that isn't a bad thing. I don't mean this in a disparaging sense; I enjoyed the conference, caught up with old friends, made new friends, and learned a bit. But a trend that I've observed at past conferences is only more evident this year, and it's patronizing to continue to skirt what is becoming increasingly obvious: the IDSA has served a valuable role in the evolution of design as a professional discipline, and has helped advance the field to a point where the IDSA is now essentially irrelevant. Design has outgrown "Industrial Design", and a professional organization cannot exist only in the form of self-maintenance.
While there are a number of valid points in his article, perhaps his conclusion goes too far, too fast. Certainly there is a greater need for integration with interaction, experience and service design, as virtually every electronic device has a web site or subscription model behind it these days. But to claim that the business of artifact production is so commoditized that every business should simply outsource it to the cheapest provider is doing a disservice to a specialization that has many facets to it.
The need to evolve the definition of industrial design as a profession is real. And programming a high-profile annual event is one of the biggest opportunities to do so. So before the rumors of the death of an organization become too widespread perhaps a more important discussion to have is to how to best do this? What are the topics that should be discussed in a gathering like this? Are these topics being discussed in a more meaningful way elsewhere? If so is there a need to replicate those discussions? Or can the organization bring something new to the table? If so, what is it?
Read Jon's full entry the at frog's DesignMind. Got another take? Comment away.
DUTCH DESIGN WEEK 2009
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