I love great design and I admire both Steve Jobs and Don Norman. However, when Don is quoted as saying “We need breakthroughs. They don’t come from an experimental process. They come from the mind of a great designer.” in Steve Hamm’s article “Richard Sapper: Fifty Years at the Drawing Board” in the January 10th issue of BusinessWeek, I feel compelled to weigh in further.

The article seems to imply that there is a divide between the process used by “star” designers and studios that apply a more interdisciplinary and collaborative process. I don’t think this is entirely accurate. Great designers like Richard Sapper stand on the shoulders of countless skilled individuals who happen to reside in their client companies. Engineers, market researchers, strategists, etc. do much of the leg work required to identify, develop, and commercialize a great idea. What studios like Continuum do is integrate that process, which doesn’t exclude, but rather facilitates the opportunity for talented designers to address real problems in comprehensive and user-delighting ways. It’s not only about predictable sales results, it’s about doing the right thing, and sometimes the “right thing” doesn’t necessarily generate high profile press or win design awards.

I love my Tizio Lamp and Richard Sapper’s creativity and talent has resulted in a 20th century icon, but today, design problems are more challenging than designing a lamp. The design of a device that may save someone’s life or of a design strategy that may revive or save a company is too complex for a single individual to address. Furthermore, at a time of raised environmental consciousness, we don’t need more iconic stuff, but rather, we need better, more thoughtful solutions where products and services delight people while making a minimal impact on the planet.

Gianfranco Zaccai