DesignBytes

There is a running joke: “I got so good at designing, I never get to do it anymore.” For young designers, the message is that to be successful, you need to stop designing and start directing.

Life’s too short to build something nobody wants…

Just how much consideration do you give to the colour of your clothes? Flitting through the clothes store rails, you're probably processing two or three garments a second, until one inexplicably stands out and makes it to the changing room. Colour will probably play an important but not decisive role. But is there a subconscious process going into your decision?

Pretty much any time we design something new, we start at the middle. This is all fine and good. Starting at the middle is not the problem. The problem is that we often neglect to design the beginning until the very end.

A series of 3D-printed sculptures designed with proportions corresponding to the Fibonacci Sequence come alive when spun.

We’re using systems and techniques that are thousands of years old. The role of time in society has changed, the technology has changed, yet the imperfect system lives on.

Store bought shoes rarely fit perfectly, and bespoke options are too expensive for many. Italian shoe maker Vibram, more commonly known for its military footwear, has come up with a solution to this problem with its Furoshiki Shoes. Furoshiki (風呂敷) are a traditional Japanese wrapping cloth used for transporting goods. Furoshiki shoes, created by Japanese designer Masaya Hashimoto, have no laces and instead wrap around the foot–hence the name–fastening with velcro.

Don Norman, IDSA, delivers a talk on design and emotion. (from 2003)

People living with dementia commonly spill their food, are left confused by intricate patterns on dinnerware and frequently eat less than they should out of frustration.

If you’ve got a hankering for nugget ice–you know, the tiny, chewable frozen pellets that restaurant chains like Sonic use to chill sodas–then GE has an appliance for you. Aside from feeding one of the stranger compulsions in American dining, the Opal is different from other GE appliances in other ways: It wasn’t the brainchild of GE industrial designers and engineers, nor will it hit Home Depot shelves when it first appears. Instead, the Opal is the product of crowd-sourcing through GE’s new online community, FirstBuild, and it’ll be sold only through crowdfunding site Indiegogo.

... Isn’t crazy-expensive. The MultiFab was thrown together with roughly $7,000 of off-the-shelf parts.

When you visit a foreign (or not so foreign) city, maneuvering the streets can either fill you with ease or utter frustration. This is all due to wayfinding design.

CCS industrial design grad, Doug Hanes, 37, is one of a five-person crew at Mobsteel, a Detroit-based car restoration shop. A new reality series will follow the daily life of the Mobsteel crew as they dismantle and rebuild classic cars.

The delivery of health care is evolving to take into account the entire patient experience. Medical products and devices have a significant impact on that experience.

Tasked with re-packaging an existing product, student Jessica Stoll turned to creating a new user experience for The Big Mac Value Meal.

This new watch lets blind people read real-time smartphone data in braille.

When you toss manky lettuce or moldy berries think about this: Globally, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, we waste more than a third of the food we produce.

Is a lack of funding affecting our valuable problem-solving skills?

In a recent graduation show in London, Royal College of Art student YiWen Tseng displayed a wildly speculative concept for a future bio-powered car, with petrol tanks and pistons replaced with the digestive system of a cow.

How vulnerable is your car to hackers? The short answer is that modern cars are ripe for cyber mayhem.

“Design is the rendering of intent.” When the intent isn’t clear, the project stakeholders can’t agree on goals, or two founders veer in two directions to take their company, no amount of design can solve that situation. Design doesn’t work if you don’t know your intent. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself in the land of mullets, half-cafs, cran-grape drinks, platypuses and El Caminos. (Granted, platypuses are pretty cool. But they’re filled with poison.)

"We have a philosophy that less screens is often better. We [technically] have a screen, but that only comes on when it’s needed. The reflective mirrors serves to reflect the home environment."

In an age when every day dumps a new whizbang product—a me-too smartphone, watch, tablet, fitness tracker, sound system, app—on consumers’ laps, there is something critical, something deeply human, being lost: design.

If you were to ask a surfer to pinpoint one issue that they wish they could resolve, it would probably be the fact that it is extremely difficult to transport a surfboard from place to place.