Industrial Design & User Experience
Insights on industrial design, product development and user experience from a design expert. Sources include Wired, Fast Company Design, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Gizmodo, Tech Crunch, and Engadget. If you’d like to chat about anything you see, feel free to reach out or connect with me on LinkedIn.
After an accidental omission on the design model and a stroke of brilliance, the reborn Mini got inspiration from an unexpected source.
People are surprised to learn how designers sometimes "borrow" design elements from the world around us (we actually do it all the time...) Great story from one of the world's foremost car designers offers good advice if you get caught:
Another huge loss in the world of design... Iris was a fascinating woman, with more style in her pinky than most of us muster head to toe. Just pure class.
She came to fame in the fashion world in her 80s and 90s, and her wildly eclectic closet of clothes formed a hit exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Calling herself a “geriatric starlet,” Ms. Apfel in her 80s and 90s set trends with clamorous, irreverent ensembles: a boxy, multicolored Bill Blass jacket with tinted Hopi dancing skirt and hairy goatskin boots; a fluffy evening coat of red and green rooster feathers with suede pants slashed to the knees; a rose angora sweater set and 19th-century Chinese brocade panel skirt.
Want a top auto safety rating in the EU? Better put some buttons on that dashboard...
EU regulators are proposing new rules that would mandate the use of in order for cars to receive the top safety rating available
Form is temporary, function is permanent. The most important inventions are the ones that relate to the human condition, and they crop up over and over again.
Writing, counting, and calculation are all bound up in the same histories, peoples, and places that crop up over and over again. This shouldn’t be surprising. We’re all human, after all, and humans like to acquire information, record it, and manipulate it. That’s exactly what writing and math are for. The most important inventions are the ones that relate to the human condition, and they crop up over and over again.
Have suspected for a while that Boeing's engineering and design teams were getting an unfairly bad rap... Great article discusses why (as so often the case) it's probably Wall Street's fault. I have friends in private equity, but I try to ignore what they do...
Just a photo and a design observation today... IMO the C Pillar trim on the Kia Carnival is truly revolutionary in the world of auto design.
Just a photo and a design observation today... IMO the C Pillar trim on the Kia Carnival is truly revolutionary in the world of auto design. Like it or not, I can't think of another car with patterned, highly textured metal surfaces like this (aside from Kia's other models). If you know of other examples please comment below, thanks!
Great slideshow about two of my favorite things, old cars and branding... Highly recommended Friday read!
My annual holiday reminder that there is only one right way to install a toilet paper roll, as protected by a US patent issued just before Christmas 1891
I've always believed there are significant costs to wearing noise-canceling devices, some more obvious than others... Great to see an article that lays it all out
Polaroid's success in the digital era is a testament to its brand's proposition: The value of a Polaroid camera is authenticity. Life isn’t perfect, neither is a Polaroid picture. I'm a huge fan of modern instant cameras, highly recommend Fuji's Evo Mini for anyone thinking of dipping a toe.
Best user interface news of the year... IMO, that more people want to shift for themselves reflects a sea change in the most fundamental man / machine interface humans have ever created.
Love the way they used researched to prioritize drivers' needs in the design... Most used control? Hazard lights for frequent stops, so it has a dedicated mechanical switch (everything else is touchscreen-based.)
Brilliant idea… “Disposable Digital” camera brings old school film experience to modern picture taking (full disclosure, I enthusiastically backed this Kickstarter)
For my auto design colleagues and fellow car people… I think Dieter Rams is credited with saying “good design is just enough design”, and it’s so refreshing to see the comeback of simple, purposeful wheels. Other manufacturers take a lesson, and yes I’m looking at you Audi…