Just a reminder that Bill Strickland is in the Hammer tomorrow night if you're in the area. It's free & he's an amazing speaker!

Posted last notes on DesignThinkers 2009 http://ping.fm/Yo6rO ... Kyle Cooper. I emailed him to repeat his Paul Rand quotes - nothing :(

DesignThinkers 2009 {7 and last one}

Kyle Cooper – Prologue

Editorial based/driven
Typography & animation
Henry the V – theme of exile
Analog solution; hand-made
Shoots on table top

Interface for work includes grandfather’s liscence plate that reads, “OTHERS”

About community & collaborations
Whole intention of titles, audience involvement emotionally about others

Gestalt – involve them & they’ll remember

How can the type help create meaning?
Handmade
Kyle@prologue.com (I wrote him and asked for his Rand quotes the he said so fast I couldn’t write down – yet to respond)

Table top shoots – No After Effects (Handmade – keeps repeating)
Learn how to use your hands – don’t telephone it in!

Paul Rand – logo designer: Noble
Good at one thing
Resourceful > cross dissolve contact sheets
Not relying on digital effects

(watched “To Kill a Mockingbird” titles)
Make a mess – Get your hands messy
Restrict yourself to be {Frame}?
Where’s the contrast?

Relationships are the most important of reason…

Read script > Photoshop frames

Watching Haques Constructive Capitalism: http://ping.fm/suOPs after hanging with Thea @BestBuyPartyPackagersChapters#In

DesignThinkers 2009 Notes {7}

Terry O’Reilly – Age of Persuasion CBC & Pirate Radio

Be SURPRISING – it’s sticky but How?
Doesn’t’ sell itself
Understand human behaviour
Be curious > it’s how to be interesting
Message - packaging must be new > not necessarily new message
Make people feel EMOTION

Noise is deafening
Examples of surprises:
3M transit shelter money b/w glass – Need to ask the right question!
Leadership example Honda example
Demonstration is bedrock – benefits

Rethink Orkin pest control collecting flies
British Rail making client wait to build empathy

Demonstrate & Convince – don’t just inform
Compelling story about product

Emotions must be felt, never stated
Tell story > … show you service/product can be trusted. Don’t tell
Emotion in story – use old stories
10Km speed difference (kid being hit by car) 80% likelihood of survival if 10Km slower otherwise 10Km faster 80% likelihood the child will be killed
Lego crane, fresh salad billboard for McDees, bus shelter seat scale for weight, fleas on dog from high view are people

Invite people to be active members
It’s about making the box bigger!
Take stuff everyone ignores
Most compelling message is that you understand your customer’s needs!
In order to identify the obstacles they need you to empathize – understand and you win

Razor compared to lawn billboard – Surprise

Technologies are NOT ideas
Excite – strive to teach them; teacher, educate, provoke & inspire
Don’t cost a lot of money
Toronto Symphony – fear of not knowing what to do


Carter – Font guy

Understand history if you use it
He did research – mathematical approach (didn’t sketch)

“Accuracy is not the truth” – Henri Matisse
Fonts – Caslon, Vincent, Carter.. Snell
All caps – thoughts on how to do
Bembo – 16pt should look best! If it doesn’t look good @ 16pt you’re in trouble

Reviving types
Invented Georgia & Verdana

Ikea – Futura to Verdana

Funny man on tweets! http://ping.fm/KRUMx Thanks to Mitch Joel for posting it on 6degressofseparation! :)

What's your take on smart growth? Principals here: http://ping.fm/eiG0P Is smart smart or just dumb?

Smart Growth Principals from Bubblegeneration.

1. Outcomes, not income - how much better off are people? 2. Connections, not transactions - are you amplifying connections & community? 3. People, not product - are you pushing skill, dedication & skill of people? 4. Creativity, not productivity - hard to measure, manage and model but creates new value!

Grow smart instead of dumb.

Tracking Seifried, Whigham & Seddon for IRONMAN Arizona today: http://ping.fm/N7Hki

DesignThinkers 2009 Notes {6}

Stephen Doyle & Gael Towey

Martha Stewart

Editorialize – tell stories
Laboratory – create from scratch

Warm people up to stuff and then sell them i.e. glitter > glitter by number (Application on web?)
Colour sensibility
Vision (BIG idea) Figure out how to do it.



Robert Brunner – Ammunition

Ideas, not just objects
Token product guy

Disruption – How to harness
Connection - ?
Partnership – Has to be a balance
Do you matter? (Not for us)
Would they shed any tears if your company would no longer be around?

Bullshit meter > no veneer
Harley Davidson – tatooes > business guy thinks he’s a bad-ass

iPod > Apple Logo > Video > iTunes > iMovies > Packaging = My Music

Accessorize by leading designers
Look for clients in trouble! They are willing to take risks – simple Nook (two part – top read and bottom navigation)
Useable DOES NOT = Desirable
Useable > Useful > Desirable
Risk is NOT a four letter word > Innovation = Risk

4 Ideas
1. Playing with fire – BBQ “Fuego”
2. Sound matters – Beats by Dr. Dre “A lot of people owe me a lot of favours” – Jimmy
3. Wake up call – Dream surface – iPod App clock radio app Excitement fit & finish
4. Seeing the light – Regen; powered by light – solar calculator
Energy harvestor USB Collect and use power

Has to engage people – Interface to tell you stuff i.e. Energy use…
Fast Company magazine – Focus

It’s all about the idea

Awesome-ness!!! Innovation just doesn't cut it anymore. http://ping.fm/oyDMx

Finished reading You Inc.. Reading The Opposable Mind now... very cool so far. http://ping.fm/jhZxm

DesignThinkers 2009 Notes {5}

Steven Heller

Iron fists
Branding the 20th Century: Totalitarian State

1. Cult of the Leader
2. Cult of Kids (capture kids hearts & minds)
3. Cult of signs (& logos)
4. Cult of uniformity
5. Cult of hate
6. Cult of souvenirs
7. Cult of stupidity

The darker side of design thinking


Marty Neumeier – Are you zagging or lagging?

Vision (what could be)
Critique magazine > Teach designers what they are doing…
Tool to be innovative – keep innovating, Steve Jobs
Herbert Simon says, “Changing existing situation > preface anyone change situations

Design NOT decide the future
Dragon’s Den KNOW – MAKE(design) – DO
We’ve gone from cheap, good & fast TO free, ? & now
Competition comes from clutter – 5 Kinds

(pauses for water)

Whose done this before?
Radical = Loser thus not equal Power

Barriers from physical > mental
Barriers from company > customer

Be REALLY different – radical differientation
Tool > Good Different Chart … see Zag
Sweet spot is b/w Good and Different – See the BIG picture

Soft focus
Empathy – Experience – Intuition – Judgement
Different scares companies > but Powerful
Good & Different is Gold!
Does poorly in tests but then people associate different with good – use examples like the Herman Miller chair to convince people not to play it safe
Warhol twist – companies will be famous for 15 minutes
Be REALLY different – no more me too

Prototype & Test… de-risk and make choices clear for customers
Have to put time in & help them make steps – speak their language and lead them to a bold solution by de-risking them

Make them ready to embrace design – look at Roger Martin’s books
Prototype bolder solutions!

DesignThinkers 2009 Notes {4}

Warren Berger - Glimmer

Everyone can learn from the way designers solve problems
Outside > Question > Fresh solutions and perspectives
Brian Collins, “Design is hope made visible”

Design to solve problems
Cheetah prosthetic vs. High heels
Seek the story of the Cheetah creator

Lateral thinking… outside influences to change existing reality
*intention, planning & make things better
Check these out: X02 Laptop, Luke arm, Deborah Adler, OXO tools, Tim Brown of –IDEO. Rewatch TED video

Design Thinking… How designers solve problems

Designers – hoard, huddle together, communal
Attack each other & caring

How Designers Work: Open possibility, will find a better way & challenge assumptions
1. Ask stupid questions – guts to ask why?
2. ?
3. Jumping fences
4. Make hope visible
5. Embrace constraints
6. Begin anywhere

Optimism – still possible to solve BIG problems1
Immerse yourself & go deep
Become a student of human behaviour
Understand audiences, be empathetic
Ask isn’t there a better way?

Lateral thinking – jumping fields, brining it back
Smart recombinations
A+ B = C
Connect things in new ways
Don’t reinvent the wheel
Don’t be afaid to imitate – put your spin on it
Don’t look in the usual places

Reread Edward De Bono’s Thinking Course book on Lateral thinking (I have it somewhere)

Ok to failure – Fail forward
Basement problem solvers
Example: Taxi’s Homeless jacket. Designer asked himself to solve the problem
Experience, empathize, question > solve the problems

Seek problems & solve them!!!

Redesign behaviour i.e. Pedigree – integrated so people could believe in you

Dog breeding > design?

More DT http://ping.fm/o2ghP & Roger Martin on CBC for the drive home. Think I've found my passion to "Crush"!

DesignThinkers 2009 - Notes {3}

Shanky

Trends – The chocolate room (poetics of space)
Looking how people behave
Be in a non-safe place to do work
10-20% time is charity work
No gambling
No cigarettes
No fast food
RFid Chips (know where they are when entering a building)
10 languages die every year
Evidence based design “ “ provide the framework with the brackets
Others put the stuff in the “ “
Bathroom stall graffiti
There is no free time, you have to make it


John Bredenfoerder – Colour strategy

Fridge magnet for pizza – where the customer makes the decision
Anticipate colour trends
Proof in final environment where its going to be seen

Tints – colour + white
Tone – colour + grey
Shade – colour + black

Medamerism – things look different in different lights
Red has physical effect
Colour phsycology – graph of influences & forecasts
But test context in context
Fads, trends and cycles influences > forecasting what direction is it 2010?

Facebook, United Nations bluc – community, earth light blue white
Mylife beige John Lennon’s imagine

Reread Jobs on dots (while on break) http://ping.fm/22RLJ waiting for my dots to connect 1 day

DesignThinkers 2009 - Notes {2}

Dana Arnett

Shop class as Soulcraft – M. Crawford


Ben Blumenfeld – Facebook

3 approaches:
1. Ship & Interate (Beta) good enough
2. Data Informed – not driven
A-B Test
It’s all about the tease
3. Leverage (most important)
Using existing tools or building new ones
“I voted” button during election w/counter

Pixelcloud (Skitch) screen shot: working on…
Camp fire – collaborate
Crowdsourcing: translation tool – available
Find basketball games > map to bring people together

Facebook – YouTube – GooleDocs
Huge impact to effect change & make world a better place
Light version (paired down)

Wish I lived in Toronto. Roger Martin live twice on Integrated Thinking http://ping.fm/cF1Qc

Posted last part of my Roger Martin on Integrated Thinking posts. find it here: http://ping.fm/gLlMq

Roger Martin & Integrated Thinking... (Part 3)

Integrated Thinking (continued...)

See the value of validity AND reliability. Bring the two together. Obey the 5 rules on either side.

Strategies are about shortening your odds - not perfection. If you try to be right (perfect), you will never have a good strategy.

The tension b/w validity & reliability is important - especially in business sustainability.

Business can help edit out the designer's vision of the future. Use the power of the paradox. Caught between a rock and a hard place, create a new model. The relationship may at times seem like oil & water.

You have no choice. These ideas are at the root of great solutions.

Reject the notion that existing models = reality. Fight against such notions and ignore the status quo. Look for ways to build better and newer models!

Use cues from existing models to build a better model still. Embrace the paradox & change the world.

Let the idea kill itself... and this works only with deep conversations.

Learn more about Roger Martin's ideas. I have ordered his books and will review them in the future. :)

Awesome day with my eldest daughter. Great conversation on the train 2 T. Then saw the friggin amazing "August: Osage County" - What acting!

Posting notes for DesignThinkers 2009. 4th time together with Jared & Iles http://ping.fm/kmJju Anyone else go? What u think?

DesignThinkers 2009 - Notes {1}

Will be posting notes (sometimes really rough) from this year's DesignThinkers that I attended with Jared & Iles...

Micheal Beruit:

1. Keep it simple
2. Don’t reinvent the wheel
3. Don’t reinvent the wheel, rotate the tires
4. Do as you’re told (like limitations)
5. Steal (what else is this like?)
6. Once you come up with something, never let it go…
7. Make other people do the work i.e. Kids library

The easy way out IS fun.