Design Translator

Everyone knows who David Ogilvy is.

He is probably one of the worlds greatest “ad men” and the likely inspiration to Mad Men. In 1948, David started Ogilvy & Mather, an advertising agency responsible for some of the world’s most iconic ad campaigns such as Dove beauty products featuring real women, and American Express’ “Don’t Leave Home without it”. However, not many people know that he is a lousy copywriter, at least, not in the traditional sense.

When Tim Brown said that ”design is getting big again”, he meant that Design is moving (or has moved, in my humble opinion) from a form giving exercise and into the boardroom where is have become a much bigger strategic activity.

I was shocked how hard it was preparing for Pecha Kucha Night. Even after seven iterations, I was still not done! Despite being a seasoned presenter, Pecha Kucha was a brand new experience and a challenge indeed.

So it looks like The Designer Fund, a VC fund that specifically invests in Startup companies that have designers as founders is starting to gain traction. It seems that suddenly everyone seems to have an opinion on the premium placed on designers.

I was presently surprised to find out that Chip Kidd presented at TED.

Chip is one of my favorite book cover designers. I especially like the cover he did for a book (which I own) on Concept Artwork for the Batman Animated series. So I really enjoyed this talk, and his super quirky sense of humor, at TED called “Designing books is no laughing matter. OK, it is.” It is fascinating to see how his personality merges with his design philosophy.

Often designers design stuff (products/services/interfaces etc.): to fit user personas, to solve problems, to make it beautiful etc. but don’t often consider the how it psychologically interfaces with the user.

Design Juices recently published an interview with Michael DiTullo, a designer I greatly respect, where he shares his insights and challenges he faced to get to where he is today, namely a Creative Director at Frog. (Actually it seems he is now the Chief Design Officer at DEI Holdings, Inc. Congrats Michael!)

Guy Kawasaki, at a Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Lecture Series at Stamford, shares insights on why start-up businesses should tell a story and plant many seeds. I believe that any company (not just start-ups) interested in getting their products (or services) out there or wanting making a difference will find his few words of wisdom very useful. You will find this very applicable in a Design Thinking context as well. Enjoy!

It was not very long ago that the world was filled with objects like the dreaded VCR. That piece of crap was supposed to make our lives better by recording our favorite TV shows so that we could do more important stuff like going for dinner.

You would probably have caught wind of Sir Jony Ive’s rare interview with the London Evening Standard by now. I was not planning to blog about this as I figured that this would just become a pointless re-post. Except something dawned on me as I read the post. My suspicions that Apple’s Design Process is nothing special was confirmed!