Check out some interesting new design thinking with Teague's Tad Toulis new blog, just below and at Clark Kellogg's Design@Large blog and other views about design here at D/Views. Please send your thoughts to dviews @ sparkawards.com. DESIGN@LARGE: THE "S" WORD July 23, 2009 by Clark Kellogg
It’s hard to find a person who is against sustainability. I can think of only two people I know. Sustainability is in the same league as Motherhood and Apple Pie. But in most conversations, sustainability’s approval rating nosedives somewhere between 14 and 31 seconds later. That’s usually the time when the gauzy notion of sustainability inevitably gives way to defining what it is (30 point drop in approval rating) or doing something about it (free fall).
What’s going on here? For one, humans are good at using our big brains to know a lot. But it doesn’t always translate into doing a lot. Second, we are on sustainability overwhelm. Staying current is like drinking from a fire hose – everyday. And that’s hard to swallow. Third, amid this explosive growth in knowledge and information the very meaning of sustainability has been diluted to the point of meaning just about anything, and thus meaning nothing.
We all support motherhood, apple pie and sustainability. We know what the first two mean and we know how to create them. Not so for sustainability. Even the Brundtland Commission’s definition – development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs – is difficult to apply to the here-and-now of one’s own life. Paper or plastic?
Without an explicit shared agreement about the meaning of sustainability even the well-informed and well meaning among us cannot make much progress. Indeed, this lack of clarity enables avoiding the most neglected problem in sustainable design today: time. There are many projections about when catastrophic environmental events will take place (GHG, ice shelf melting, sea-level rise, water wars). It’s hard to know how accurate they are and it doesn’t matter. The plain fact is that we don’t have time to wait and find out if the projections are correct. What matters is taking smart bold steps now because here’s what we do know: the longer it takes to start meaningful healing of the earth, the less likely we are to have a viable future. In short, we don’t have time to waste.
Is there any hope? Yes, and its not false hope. Design – and design thinking – as a set of solution-seeking tools is spreading to every corner of the world. Indeed, we are all designers now and optimism is an onboard skill of designers (sustainable or otherwise). More importantly, healing the earth is igniting the largest movement of human energy in the history of the planet. It is a movement without precedent; amorphous, unorganized, instinctive, and blessedly uncontrollable. Literally billions of people are on the job. It is already the single largest public works project ever.
If we can get as good at making sustainability as we are at making motherhood and making apple pie we just could be very happy, be well-fed and live long, balanced lives. Cloth or disposable?
FREE: The Web as Big Box Retailer July 15 by Tad Toulis
A few days ago I stumbled across an interesting pair of companion pieces: Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker review of FREE and Chris Anderson’s response to that review - Dear Malcolm: Why So Threatened? Read back to back, the two pieces make for an interesting, if disjointed, debate.
Anderson has shrewdly tapped into (and consequently helped frame) an emerging and controversial debate over the future of business. Taking a page from Stewart Brand’s “information wants to be free”, the core observation of Anderson’s book is that the triple threat of ever cheaper processing, unlimited storage and increased bandwidth conspire to drive web based business models toward a no-cost formula. It’s a sexy premise and one that’s clearly in evidence all over the web.
While I generally agree with the observations Anderson sets forth in FREE, I can’t help but find the premise worrisome. The present recession not withstanding, the information economy is in full swing all around us - and there are some troubling signs amidst its apparent success. The 24/7 media culture that started with the mainstreaming of cable television some twenty odd years ago has taken up full residence on the web. That’s hardly surprising given the role that cable providers had in helping to boost broadband subscriptions. With the proliferation of cheap ubiquitous internet access, the hucksterism many of us sought to steer clear of, by turning to the web, has increasingly become standard practice. Which raises a question very much at odds with FREE’s premise. What chance does ‘free’ on the web have of avoiding the ‘Buy one Get one Free’ culture that defines ‘free’ in big box culture?
Many, including Anderson himself, believe that the meritocracy of the web will somehow help it circumvent a noisy future full of digital penny-saver equivalents and cash back coupons – but I for one remain doubtful. Sure, the web has a great history of fighting to maintain its neutrality but those days fueled by an academic altruism are fast receding. The popularization of broadband brought about through bundled cable packages and device offerings like the iPhone, the PalmPre and $300 Netbooks have introduced more and more consumers to the possibilities of the web. This surge in demand has helped fuel the web’s meteoric growth and made much of it easier to use, but this same influx has meant that the web has necessarily had to change, becoming increasingly reflective of the world beyond it.
While much is made of the web’s ability to support a place for everyone and everything, recent events in China and Iran demonstrate that like all other broadcast media– the web can be manipulated and controlled. If that strikes you as paranoid think of it this way-- control need not come from an organized nation-state, it can come from the passive censure of popularity and relativism. Within the fresh vision that FREE sets forth, resides a parochial soul: more stuff to more people for way less. That vision should inspire as it simultaneously cautions us. Given that the consumer in both the physical and digital world remains us, the dynamics that drive commerce are still dangerously subject to the same old same old: Business as Usual. FEATURISM IS FAT - AND NOT THE GOOD KIND Lessons on consumerism from the organic food movement June 19, 2009 by Tad Toulis
A month or so ago I attended a conference in Portland, Oregon held by the APDF where I caught a presentation by Benjamin Linder from Franklin W. Olin’s College of Engineering. Among the slides in Linder’s lecture was one which re-imagined Michael Pollan’s bestseller In Defense of Food as “In Defense of Product”. This idea struck me so violently; I stood up, walked out of the auditorium, went directly to Powell’s and bought a copy.
For some time I, like so many in design, have been trying to conceive of the next ‘big’ model. Seeking to reconcile, often with mixed results, what it is I do for a living with the world I see taking shape around me. Equating product with food isn’t new, but when re-examined in the contemporary context, the corollaries between organic agriculture, low impact manufacturing and environmental sustainability become as numerous as they are thought provoking. What’s more, having achieved critical mass, the mechanics of the organic movement are finally mature enough to start informing other sectors of the economy.
The premise of Pollan’s book is summed up in his eater’s manifesto: Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Central to his argument is the notion that nutritional marketing is a shell game devised to sell processed foods as the technical equivalent of their natural counterparts: whole foods. Pollan goes on to explain how longstanding scientific tampering with nutrients has left the North American diet chemically rich but nutritionally vacant. When seen through the product lens, the practice of adding nutritional value to industrial foods reveals itself as the produce equivalent of adding features and upgrades to poorly conceived product lines. It’s self-deluding tomfoolery: a myopic focus on capability over need that ultimately leads to systemic and environmental ruin.
Extending the metaphor, the strategies that Pollan describes for coping with industrial agriculture can be viewed as sketches for how we might re-imagine our relationship with mass production as a whole. Viewed in this light, the growing popularity of Community Supported Agriculture programs (CSAs), Cow-Pooling and the interest in Urban Farming become potential benchmarks for tomorrow’s production, distribution and revenue schemes. By artfully wedding long-standing components of small and mid sized production with hyper coordinated demand and delivery, these programs successfully and consistently deliver high quality produce in a schema that’s both efficient and sustainable.
Most provocative of all, food – cutting as elegantly as it does across issues of sustenance, commerce, and culture - has the capacity to affect societal change on a massive scale. Perhaps, motivated by the growing body of evidence implicating industrial agriculture in rising rates of obesity and Type 2 diabetes, consumers may yet surprise us all and demand the type of legislative change so sorely needed to bring about real change. Something, which the comparatively abstract issue of sustainability, has thus far failed to do.
I’ll leave it to you to imagine the full depth to which the food movement could invigorate design. But incase you find this whole conceit laughable consider this, in preparing this piece I debated a comparison between slow food and slow design only to find the concept already well established. So let me leave you with this my fellow traveler: Buy Stuff. Not too much. Mostly services.
Tad Toulis, Creative Director, Product Studio, Teague Former lead industrial designer at Motorola advanced concepts group, design manager at Samsung Telecom, senior industrial designer at Lunar Design and Fulbright Scholar, Tad understands Process, and this is part of his focus at the Spark Blogs
THINK LIKE A DESIGNER June 13, 2009 by Clark Kellogg
"Everywhere you look today, Design has taken on new meaning. Design isn't just about decoration; it's a critical component of how we communicate, collaborate and compete. But behind the "look and feel" of any good design are a host of carefully conceived principles; fundamental propositions that define the essence of the design. The trick is to learn those underlying rules--to think like designers." - "Design Rules," Fast Co. Mag, October, 1999
Two things about this quote stand out. First, it recognizes design as a useful process beyond object-making. And, it was published ten years ago. It was also ten years ago that I started teaching a course at UC Berkeley’s architecture school called, “Beyond Buildings; New Sites for Designers.” The purpose was to help students understand what habits of mind they come to know (often tacitly) through the design studio sequence of classes. Then, we looked at how those skills can be used to make things other than buildings. Over time, that work has boiled down to a list of qualities – or habits of mind – that one could arguably title “How to Think Like a Designer.”
It would be foolhardy to claim this list is absolute or even complete. It has started many conversations and some debates. We are reproducing it here in that spirit. For now, here is the whole list. Your comments and insights are welcome.
Design Thinking: Clark Kellogg's Ten Habits of Mind: 1. Focused Creativity 2. Generous Collaboration 3. Drawing and Thinking in Pictures 4. Comfort with Ambiguity 5. Non-linear Information Processing 6. Multiple Solutions 7. Learning by Doing 8. Communicate for Understanding 9. Charrette Culture: Shaped by constraints and bounded by time 10. Curiosity is better than Judgment
Clark Kellogg, Partner, Collective Invention From his perspective as a consultant, architect and graphic designer, Clark holds forth on Design At Large in the D/Views Blog. Clark Kellogg is a designer and partner at Collective Invention, found HERE
How are you or your firm proactively dealing with the economy?
Spark is often asked our opinion about the impact of this miserable downturn on the design field. I'm much more interested in ideas about how to fix things--especially solutions that designers can contribute. What do you do--and suggest?
Interior Design/Furniture Design Professor at University of San Carlos
Hi Peter, First let me thank you for the invite. Spark is intelligent and creative platform for us designers. With our small design firm, we use contractors of different design needs and fabrication,instead of hiring people permanently. This way, we lower our overhead cost and keep our expenses at minimum. We also recycle, materials (office and project) and try to explore what is in the market/environment and use it creatively (ex. car tire as upholstery).
Hi Cheryl-- Thanks for the compliments... Spark can be a great platform--if designers make it so. So we appreciate your comments.
Your use of contractors is a solid technique. That's how Spark works with the ebb and flow of the competition. We do try to keep utilizing the same team each time, thus building a skill-set and knowledge base.
Tweaking processes. Lightweight pipeline, alternative materials, client niches and cutting not so rational expenses. To put it in a simple way. Fat horses don't win races, so basically, growing into "Fat free" studio. The morale needs naturally extra work, We enjoy the "spartan approach".
Tad Toulis, Creative Director, Product Studio, Teague
Clark Kellogg, Partner, Collective Invention
