The Prepared Mind Discussion about designing human interaction.

Next week (November 1st and 2nd) Niti and I — along with 8 other very distinguished panelists — will be jurying the ReBrand 100 2007. Not only is it a thrill and an honor to have been selected as a juror for this distinguished panel (what were these guys smoking?) but it’s also a personal thrill to have the opportunity to meet Niti in person.

I’ll be bringing my trusty laptop with me to Providence and will blog my experience there. Maybe I’ll even be able to squeeze in a short podcast or two?

.chris{}

This past September, when my wife was in Germany visiting her family, we really used videoconferencing for the first time in any real fashion. She and I had both just recently upgraded to a Macbook and Macbook pro, respectively, and both our laptops now have built-in iSight.

Since she was taking her laptop to Germany with her, we figured, why spend all that money on long distance calls when we could now see each other while chatting? WE LOVED IT!!!!

I could show her our doggies over the web cam. My in-laws could come into the room and say “hi” (or in their case, “hallo”). And the mundane daily telephone call was livened up by being able to see your loved one face to face. It really did make it feel like we weren’t so far away from each other, even though we were 4,000 miles apart.

So of course I started asking, why don’t we do this more with our clients? Some of our clients are very much into the whole video conferencing thing. In the past, I was loathe to appear on screen having not shaved or while still wearing my sweats. But those are really silly reasons, as it doesn’t take much time to put on different shirt. And who cares if I shaved that morning or not?

I love the idea of being able to “be there” even when I can’t necessarily. We have made a concentrated effort to give more “face time” to our clients this year but with today’s technology, just because I can’t make it into the office doesn’t mean I can’t “see” a client.

This, of course, got me thinking about the possibilities of remote collaboration. Like many of you, there are vendors and clients I deal with exclusively over the web. Many I have never seen and would not know if they bumped into me on the street. While so far these relationships have worked out well, I can’t say it wouldn’t make me feel a bit better sometimes to be able to see the face of someone I’m dealing with.

.chris{}

We’ve been quiet here of late, so I thought I’d add a little note to excuse my tardiness here -

I’ve been busy, as some of you know, with the Core77/BusinessWeek Design Directory website. Just launched it officially yesterday.

The Monday Morning Must Read is a newsletter for those whose responsibility includes sourcing and selecting design services - new product introductions, product marketing, marketing, design and creative departments - at companies. You could, of course, skip straight to subscription here.

The Industry News site is based on blog publishing software, for the convenience of Core77 and myself, to update it periodically with short posts that we believe would be of interest to professionals managing design, innovation and creative consultancies and individuals. We aren’t assuming that our audience is aware of the nitty gritty details of design.

For the launch and initial time period, I’m the editor. I’d love feedback on this initiative, with tips or information on what you think would be of interest to our audience. Our aim is to maximize your ROI in design. Story and post pitches welcome. Email me at niti at core77 dot com, but don’t expect a reply till the 30th of March, I’m going to Paris for my birthday. Merci Beaucoup, mes amies.

Well hot off the presses, the shoes I ordered from the Nike iD system have finally arrived! Here are the photos, as promised!!!!

(more…)

I’m excited! Like millions of people around the globe, I noticed after the holidays ended that there was considerably more of me to love than there was in the days and weeks prior to Thanksgiving and Christmas 2005. Determined to keep my impending battle of the bulge from exploding into an out of control insurgency, I started hitting the gym — hard – even before New Years came around. By the time all of the New Years resolution weight losers descended onto my gym, I felt comfortable enough to give them the same air of superiority, “move over new kid” scowls the other regulars had given me only a week prior!

Daddy needs a new pair of shoes!
I quickly learned that the workout gear I used to wear to the gym is in serious need of replacement. Starting with the shoes. Have any of you been into your local sporting goods store lately? There was an entire wall filled with cross trainer shoes alone and yet another wall full of running shoes! It was overload for me. I’ve had the same pair of Reeboks for almost a year and they could probably hold on for another 3-4 months, which is a disgusting reminder of how infrequently I’ve been in the gym of late. (more…)

I didn’t have the opportunity to make it to the AIGA Design Conference 2005 but thanks to their new podcasting feature, I was able to listen to some of the speaches that were given during the event. One of the most riveting addresses given was one by Nicholas Negropante, the legendary chairman and co-founder of the MIT Media Lab. During his address, he spoke about the fact that his lab was developing, and close to producing, a $100 notebook that would be only available to schools via large government initiatives and programs. The $100 notebook was conceived as a way of doing away with the digital divide with respect to technology. The idea is that now price would not be a factor in whether or not low-income families could have access to computers in their homes. (more…)

We’re very happy to have been named by HOWdesign.com, the web site of HOW Magazine, as one of the Top 10 Web Sites for the month of January.

We’re absolutely thrilled and hope to continue to bring the readers and listeners of The Prepared Mind more and more compelling content about design in 2006.

.chris{}

We tend to see Asia as a source for high tech electronic products at affordable prices, low cost manufacturing of clothes and shoes and, of course, curios and exotic handicrafts. And if it impinges the design industry, as the news media claims, it’s only the areas of product design and design engineering. As Chris mentions in his previous post,

Graphic designers have typically not been the type to embrace the future or deal with future problems before they confront us. Graphic designers have always preferred to burry our collective heads in the sand and ignore change until it smacks us in the behind with a 2 X 4.

That, I believe, was written in response to an article of mine that he claimed to find “scary”. Chris, I’ve just had a few conversations here in Singapore that have made me sit up and think about the graphic design industry, branding and identity design, publishing and new media, interaction design and animation - in short, visual communication and content creation. (more…)

I just read an excellent, and perhaps scary, article written by our own Niti Bhan and published on the BusinessWeek.com Innovation Blog.

Her article, A Competitive Nation, by Design, notes that the United States, long a leader in innovation and design, runs the risk of falling behind in this category as nations like India and China — today regarded as low cost manufacturing centers — are pouring far greater resources and placing far greater emphasis into design than the United States:

Niti observes that policy-makers and professionals in the U.S. have acknowledged the threat on the part of China and India — not to mention Korea and Japan — to the U.S.’s dominance in technology and innovation and have taken steps to both grow domestic and attract foreign scientific and technological talent. However she also notes that there is no corresponding effort to grow and attract future design leaders.

However, one must raise the concern: What about design? Is any of the increased funding to the National Science Foundation and other basic research focused on design methodology and tools, the building blocks of innovation? We’ve all heard the success stories in which design-led innovation has directly increased existing market share, grown new markets, added value to the bottom line, and raised the visibility of brands.

(more…)

What a great honor it is to have been named to “The Top 10 Design Blogs of 2005″, compiled by the guys over at Industrial Brand.

2005 has been a special and very unpredictable year. Here’s to hoping that 2006 brings also so many pleasant surprises!

.chris{}

I admit that is a very sensational headline, but it caught your attention, I hope! Core77, the industrial design supersite, has just posted the results of their 2005 Salary Survey online and I couldn’t help but note this factoid.

If you look at the Overall Results Summary, you’ll note that the graphic design discipline has the highest percentage of high school graduates and the lowest percentage of masters degree holders. Their highest salary reported is also second from the bottom, fourth out of the five disciplines listed. The five disciplines reported by the survey respondents (# of respondents in brackets) are:

Design Management (212)
Graphic Design (648)
Industrial Design (1127)
Interactive Design (212)
Interior Design (91)

Naturally, given the proportion of respondents, I wouldn’t place much emphasis on interior design, but certainly there is a sufficient sample of graphic designers that the results are statistically significant. The results can be sorted by job title and discipline, but even before I drilled down any deeper, these points in the summary were a matter of concern. Or are they? How important are qualifications in today’s economy for a practicing professional designer? Is an advanced degree required? I’m going to ask the Core77 guys to tell me if they found any correlation between the high end annual salaries (200K+) and graduate degrees, but until then, I’d love to hear your views and comments on this topic.

Noted graphic design author and editor, Steven Heller, has added another title to his list of over ninety books. Actually, The Education of a Graphic Designer, has been a staple for design educators since 1998. The recently published second edition seamlessly picks up where the first edition left off. Edited by Heller, this edition has forty new essays, bringing the title into the 21st Century.

The Education of a Graphic Designer, tackles tough issues about how we learn what we learn and how we teach what we teach. Contributors explore ideas and methods to enhance design education and produce better equipped graphic designers. The book is comprehensive with topics ranging from design theory to the problem with problem solving, the designer as producer to the designer as author, motion graphics to environmental responsibility.

Gone are the days of starting a graphic design career with 50 bucks, a couple of markers, a 360 pad and a t-square. Whether working for a firm, corporation or independently, today’s professional graphic designer is part artist, typographer, technician, business person, marketer, anthropologist, researcher and more. Heller and his contributors provide a map through the maze of a very complex educational process.

Thought provoking, challenging and inspirational, this tome isn’t just for educators. It’s also an excellent resource for practitioners. The concepts discussed in the book will no doubt get novice and seasoned veterans thinking. Thought spawns ideas. Ideas spark dialogue and dialogue is good for the graphic design industry-at-large.

Whether you’re a graphic design educator, student, recent grad or an experienced pro, The Education of a Graphic Designer will be a valuable addition to your library.

I want to take this opportunity to welcome Niti Bhan to the The Prepared Mind family! Niti has founded her personal blog, Perspective, as well as the blog Does Size Matter?. You’ve probably also seen her writings on the Core77 website as well as heard her in The Prepared Mind podcast #7, when we talked about D-Schools and new design thinking.

Niti has agreed to join our family, blog here from time to time and embark in a few other exciting things we’ve got in store (shhhhh, it’s a secret!). I always love reading Niti’s writing and am looking forward to reading her words right here on this very blog.

Welcome Niti!

.chris{}

I’m published! I gotta tell my Mom! Some time ago, I was notified that the folks over at Speak Up wanted to include one of my comments in the third volume of their Stop Being Sheep publication.

Thanks to all the folks over at Speak Up for finding something I said worthy of repeating, rather than vociferously shouting down!

.chris{}

Hello all! I’m sorry it’s taken me so long for me to update content on this blog as well as add new podcasts. I plan to add a new podcast in the next couple of days. However, the time away did give me a lot of things to think about and to observe.

Not having to prepare for, record and edit my own podcasts, I amused myself in listening to other podcasts while I was vacationing in Germany the past 2 weeks. One of those podcasts was one in a series of podcasts recorded at the AIGA Design Conference 2005 featuring Milton Glaser and Nicholas Negroponte. (more…)