design principles

Being the dean of a Design School is no easy job today. Design schools is struggling to serve three masters: to the student and the industry and to the society, the last one is a new one as designers generally have come to a consensus that design for social change is part of the design agenda.

El·e·gant, an adjective and defined or characterized by or exhibiting refined, tasteful beauty of manner, form, or style. Mark Jacob? Chanel? Jil Sander? Hermes? All are elegant by design. What about Amazon Kindle? Apple iPhone? Or GE? Or P&G? Are they elegant? It is a word reserved for the design world.

I've been a Bauhaus follower for 30 years. I am still fascinated by some of work produced during that period. A Bauhaus Summer School workshop was hosted last month by Michael Zinganel who is a freelance architecture theorist, cultural historian, curator, and artist from Austria.

by: Design Translator

My first exposure to Dieter Rams was through a German lecturer I had at school that really idolized him. Perhaps it was his constant, “Dieter did this” or “Dieter would have done that” that really put me off! Now that I think about it, my former lecturer even looked and dressed like him! However through out the years, I have come to recognize Dieter’s extensive and important influence over modern industrial design.

Also called Wabi - Sabi (I know I had to re-read it after thinking it was Wasabi too), the Zen principles of Aesthetics are derived from the Buddhism beliefs of Anicca or Impermanence where “everything, without exception, is constantly in flux, even planets, stars and gods”.

by: Design Translator

This is an interesting presentation by Yves Behar from Fuse Project on designing in the near future. He talks about his work with Swarovski, his controversial Leaf Lamp with Herman Miller and the One Laptop Per Child project (my favorite discussion topic!)

by: Design Translator

According to Gizmodo there is an uncanny resemblance between the great work of Dieter Rams to the work of Jonathan Ive head of Industrial Design at Apple.

by: Design Translator

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. Particularly because I frequently like to consolidate my design thinking, and had noticed many designer anchoring their work on some kind of design philosophy or thinking. Similarly, Dieter Rams’ 10 Commandments helped define him as a designer, and perhaps by identifying these Principles or Laws could do the same for me as well.

by: Design Translator

First of all, I like to apologize for the lack of my usual “insanely useful” design articles lately. I have been in the last couple of months really busy resettling back in Singapore. Not only that, work has been really busy as we have kicked off a good year of product development. Lastly as the title of this post alludes to, I have been working on something that I would like to give back to the Design Industry that I love so much.

by: Design Translator

Now this guy below has to be one or my all time favorite Industrial Designers. Simply because he has been able to successfully combine his unique design philosophy with a very obvious sensitivity to manufacturing constraints. Something a lot of designers these days do not seem to be able to do well.