Sometimes, you read stuff which is just what you meant to say - only so much better. Here are some quotes from the Fastcompany section 'Master of design'.
So no pictures here, just a nice read.
MASTERS OF DESIGN
More from the Mentors to the Masters
http://www.fastcompany.com/design/2005/design-mentors-extra.html
Design ideas and insights from the six-person, all-star jury -- drawn from academia, business, and design -- who helped select this year's masters.
Companies that want to win in the future have to understand how to make the most of design thinking. That means non-designers need to learn how to think like designers. Here's how, from the six jurors who helped select our Masters of Design.
For designers: try not to design.
For non-designers, try to design!
Toshiko Mori
Principal, Toshiko Mori Architect,
New York, New York
"Design is a process of abstraction. If you really analyze it, you don't reduce something. You try to get the best out of it and make it essential. In fact, the word "design" comes originally from Latin "designare," which means to draw the essence of. One way designers do that is through drawing, and anybody can learn to draw. It's true.
Drawing is as much an intellectual process as it is a manual skill. By engaging your hand and your head, you begin the hard work of really seeing. It begins with the selection of what you decide to draw in, say, diagramming the structure of a company, or work process. From there, you are forced to observe and deconstruct something in a series of decisions. It's about hierarchy and structure, so you have to think about what comes first, second, third and so on. But there is no right answer. It's a constant process of evaluation. In design school, for example, students come up with one approach, but they can't simply accept it as the answer. There are seven different ways to criticize it. You're constantly evaluating one approach against another, and the process itself facilitates collaboration. Ultimately, that process is as important as the end product."
For more than two decades, Mori has been a pioneer in bringing innovative materials and fabrication methods to architecture. Her projects range from museums to homes. A widely sought-after speaker, she also heads the architecture department at the Harvard Design School.
Bruce Claxton
Director, Design Integration, Motorola,
Plantation, Florida
"Defer judgment. Designers tend to live with an uneasy idea longer and let them percolate to see how they settle in. Businesspeople like to say things like, "Hey, wait, woah, woah, woah!" Just like that, they've killed an opportunity for a breakthrough right out of the gate. At the same time, too often in business today an idea is formulated at a high level and someone says this is going to be our next product... go! The result is a lot of dud endings, because it's not founded on an intensive understanding of the customer. What's needed is focus on front-end opportunities -- the end user -- before any ideation begins. At Motorola, I'm introducing social scientists, who have that deep understanding of people's behaviors, to design, engineering, and manufacturing processes. Design thinking calls on multidisciplinary collaboration. If you came to our office you would see a psychologist sitting next to an industrial designer next to an anthropologist and so on. We call it design integration. And now we're replicating the model with our team in Asia."
With more than 30 years in industrial design and even more U.S. patents to his name, Claxton drives design strategy for Motorola, where he has worked for more than two decades. He's also chair of the Industrial Designers Society of America, the world's largest design organization.
David Kelley
Founder and chairman, Ideo,
Palo Alto, California
"Let's say you have an idea. In a traditional company, given the chance to present the idea to a senior vice president, you're going to knock yourself out to dot all the "I's" and cross all the "T's." The goal is to make it perfect. There's a focus on one solution. We say the better approach is to go and see that person with nine half-baked ideas. Design thinking is iterative. It's okay to be approximate in the beginning and then narrow and narrow. But in companies today the present way of thinking doesn't really allow that to happen. Design thinking is also empathic. Being sensitive and responsive to people at different levels and disciplines will lead to a different kind of thinking. It embraces being intuitive. No self-respecting business thinker takes a creative leap of faith. Everything has to be evidenced based. That's not a bad idea, but creative leaps of faith are part of how innovation happens. So design thinking is fundamentally optimistic. Instead of pulling things down, it challenges everybody to rise up and break through barriers."
In 1991, Kelley launched Ideo, the groundbreaking design shop, to help change the way companies like Apple and Cisco innovate. Now, as head of Stanford University's new d.school, he's helping to shape the next generation of designers -- as well as thinkers from other disciplines.
Peter Lawrence
Chairman and founder, Corporate Design Foundation,
Boston, Massachusetts
"One way designers come to really understand the user is by making stuff. It's not the idea of a model as artifact. It's about discovery. What managers, non-designers, need to understand is that prototypes provide a common language for multidisciplinary teams. The designer might bring a crude foam model to the meeting, but that model, however crude, provides a clear, single definition that everybody can look at and argue over at the outset. It's not a bunch of words and numbers, which mean different things to different people. Design thinking, then, is inclusive -- the more information and perspectives, the better -- and creates an environment conducive to innovation. Managers also need to understand that you don't just hire a designer and then walk away. You have to be part of the discovery process. Marketers might be threatened by design thinking. Traditionally, user research has been their domain. But you have to ask, what's the definition of marketing? Is it marketing as sales, or is it marketing the way Drucker defines it -- really understanding needs and serving those needs? The good marketers will become allies. Of course, one of the challenges is that the reward structure of companies and executives is incredibly short term. And people have to recognize that design thinking is a longer term investment than the next quarter."
For the past 30 years, Lawrence has worked at the intersection of business and design. He helped launch a seminal product-development course, and has collaborated with CEOs and architects on how they reimagine the work space. He is a trusted voice many designers turn to.
Clement Mok
Principal, the Office of Clement Mok,
San Francisco, California
"Read the book Designing as Managing. It's a series of essays about design written primarily in the language of business, and it translates between the two worlds. Business thinking is about crisp, binary conditions: Here's the problem, and here is the course of action. It assumes there are good and bad choices. Design thinking assumes that there are alternative options, some there and some not even on the table yet. Decisions happen through a series of iterations largely based on a deep understanding of drivers. I'm not talking about economic ones, either. Instead of looking at what people buy look at how they behave. How do they react? Retail is a good place to start, because many people can relate to it. The next time you're in Starbucks, really look at where and how the items are placed. Don't just think, Oh, that caught my eye -- ask yourself, Why? Is it the color, or the funny headline? Pick an item and do a close deconstructive exercise in simply understanding why. If you do these mental exercises four or five times in a day, patterns begin to emerge. They're around. But you have to do more than just look to see them."
As a consultant, publisher, and software developer, Mok has helped companies use design to outpace competitors. In the early 1980s, he was the art director on the Macintosh launch team. Currently, for Sapient, he strives to realize the promise of technology through the power of design.
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