design

What will it take for the Western world to change its mind about what "Made in China" signifies? Unfortunately, for most people, those three words - "Made in China" - carry all kinds of unintended economic baggage: cheap, shoddily-made goods; the loss of tens of thousands U.S. jobs; inhuman factory conditions in urban sweatshops; and a giant export machine that is causing a massive trade deficit for the U.S.

When people think of Black History Month in America, they tend to think of famous African-Americans who managed to make a mark for themselves in American society despite conditions of severe inequality and nearly unsurmountable obstacles.

The idea of how effective a national design policy is came up a few times this week during casual conversations with my friends in the design world. I am generally unimpressed with these activities because I am a result-oriented person and I don't waste time on just talking. I've seen many of these paper written up that don't worth the paper that they were printed on.

I'm a big fan of testing and optimisation. When user feedback is so valuable, yet so readily available, and real-time, can you really justify not incorporating it into your working practices and developing a culture around test and learn? Smart, digitally focused businesses like ASOS, Netflix and Zynga have been enormously successful through doing just that.

The current issue of Wallpaper* magazine - in addition to its feature on the global Design Awards 2011 Winners - has a wonderfully thought-provoking article about the growing popularity of "live performances" in the design world. In short, design is moving from a mysterious, tightly-guarded secret that happens behind closed doors to something that is performed in full public view:

Good design and designers everywhere, just browse the Internet and you will see.

From the comfort of your laptop you can consume the hottest cars, furniture, digital cameras, laptops or mobile phones etc. Sure there are some great designs, but the rest of the majority are getting pretty good. Moreover where there is good design, there are also good designers.

Let the design team be the design experts. Your job is to be the business expert. Ask them how their design solutions meet your business goals. If you trust your design team, and they can explain how their recommendations map to those goals, you’re fine. If you neither trust them, nor can they defend their choices it’s time to get a new design team. ~ Mike Monteiro

A cool video compilation of design quotes from design luminaries as well as the clients of interaction design consultancy Vostok. If only we all had clients like Vostok’s…

This article was originally published on Yanko Design and is reproduced here for reference as well as for Design Sojourn readers that do not frequent that site.

Why do we love our digital devices? The answer might surprise you -- it's not because they look good, feel good or are somehow aspirational of where we want to be in life. It's because they are increasingly becoming a "second self" that we carry with ourselves wherever we go.