On Friday, Samsung introduced its latest wireless marvel, the Instinct phone–and marvelous it is. The company is known for introducing quality phones, but with the debut of the iPhone, Samsung and the entire industry were set back on their heels. Not for long, it seems. This new phone is Samsung’s haptic touch screen retort to Apple’s hand candy. While the Instinct is similar to iPhone in many ways, its new force feedback feature is completely unexpected and delightful.

Force feedback is not new. It was first introduced through video games years ago. It’s the rumble you felt through the steering wheel, when you trashed exotic racecars on your PC. Now thoughtfully reapplied, the Instinct brings back a wonderful tactile feedback that emulates the gentle clicking of a roulette wheel, as you scroll through your contact list. You have to feel it, to believe it.

Many of us pursue design partly because we wanted a life of creativity, and partly because we had our dreams of being a doctor crushed out of us by the first chemistry class in college. That nagging desire to do good in the world doesn’t have to go unfulfilled just because we chose to push around pixels and prototypes for our professional career. These organizations do a good job of helping designers find out how to do the right thing, by connecting them to causes and people in desperate need of a little design. Check them out, then use your creative powers for good.

http://www.designcanchange.org
http://www.design21sdn.com
http://www.themightyodo.com

I’m a few weeks behind but have been letting all I saw at ICFF fully soak in and am finally ready to report. This was an odd year, I thought. Unlike the strong and new themes that emerged last year, 2008’s crop felt a bit more mild-mannered, honest, retrospective. It lacked some of what I interpreted as bleakness last year, and I appreciated the positive, straightforward quality to the work I saw.

Among the things I noticed were:

• A hyperactive take on craft. DIY is far from new, but the – shall we say – enthusiasm with which I saw designers embrace it was notable. Embroidered wood chairs, popsicle stick lamps; it was just shy of a ceramic ashtray to bring home to dad for Father’s Day.

• Wood love. Sure, wood’s been around for a while, but it made quite a showing this year. The wood radio has been a popular and extreme example, but there was also plenty of end grain to be ogled in chairs, headboards, lamps, credenzas, calculators…My favorite was actually a hefty wood coffee table coated in silver. It’s taken a lot of flack for immodesty of concept and price, but my feeling is this is just two years ahead of the curve. They’re so far over wood, it’s metallic.

• Muted colors. That hot pink keeps sticking around, if only to keep Karim from needing a new wardrobe, but the colors that caught my attention were not so eye-popping, namely flat grays, moderate purples and a putty here or there.

• The big reveal. Lots of furniture was unabashed in sharing details of its construction, from leather chairs that took their form from simple perforation patterns, to more literal examples of exposed screws, joints or actual construction materials.

• My long shot is what I’ll call global localism. This is a thin thread, but I have a hunch it’s worth commenting on. When two of the big guys cross brainstorms, something may be happening. Tord Boontje showed Witches Kitchen at Artecnica, a reinterpretation of South American cooking vessels. Meanwhile on the glam side of the aisle, Tom Dixon added to his spectacular repertoire of lighting with a series of beaten copper pendants with a sort of Moroccan mid-century flair. First-world fabu but for me the shapes had that we-love-the-(rest of the)-world vibe of Paul Simon in the 80s. We’ll see what comes of it.

Came across a great survey published by AIGA and Adobe. What skills will the Designer of 2015 need?

http://designerof2015.aiga.org/

True Designers should be required to go on a Pilgrimage, once in a lifetime, to experience the spiritual source of all meaning in design – Il Salone del Mobile. Put on your horn-rimmed glasses and black turtlenecks and join the celebration of everything you can sit on, sleep in and eat at. Trust me, you won’t regret it!

From April 16-21, the Milan Furniture Fair attracted over 300.000 designers, architects, etc, and some 2,000 exhibitors who showcased the latest and greatest in furniture, lighting, and accessories – A designers’ dream.

I won’t bore you with how much I enjoyed Moooi’s work or how many Negroni’s we had at Bar Basso. I just wanted to take a moment and pay homage to the often misunderstood “Classic” Pavilion. Check out some of our pictures from the Fair. Enjoy!

Join Dan Buchner, Vice President of Innovation and Design, and designers from Continuum for a one-day workshop — an interactive journey into the world of design thinking. Through short lectures and fast moving and interactive work sessions, our designers will take you through the design thinking process from concept to realization.

Partnering with the Business Innovation Factory in Providence has been a fantastic experience and we are really looking forward to the session.

You can register here.

Read up on the workshop and BIF here.

Business Innovation Factory
315 Iron Horse Way, Suite 101
Providence, RI 02908

I just can’t stop thinking about American Living.

So Ralph Lauren and JCPenney partnered to create a new brand called American Living. As the web site states, the brand is exclusive to JCPenney and jcp.com (btw, they own jcpenney.com as well, and it redirects to jcp.com, but that is a discussion for another day). What I can’t help thinking about is the brand look and feel. It is very aspirational, which I love, but does it have meaning for this retail audience? The imagery is evocative of the Hampton-set, but targeting individuals more comfortable with Hampton Inn.

I like the move, but will it resonate?

CNN’s take on the new brand:

http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/29/magazines/fortune/Its_Ralphs_World.fortune/index.htm

I just returned from something that is new in the world of brand experience–the opening of the new Sprint Studio Store in Kansas City, a project we have worked closely with Sprint and other design partners on for over two years. The store is located in the “up and coming” neighborhood of Kansas City called the Power and Light District.

The turnout has been amazing, there’s a huge buzz. Why are people so interested in these studio and concept stores? It’s all about experience, and a store like this provides a new one for consumers. Not just for the wireless industry, but for retail in general.

These stores are first and foremost great for consumers—they provide that neighborhood feel and sense of belonging, they provide a very cool place to play, talk with customer service, and check out new products and capabilities. It is an invitation to become something special and unique.

These studio store and concept experience type endeavors are also great for brands; to engender brand loyalty and drive purchase decisions, to increase the mental and emotional footprint of a brand to a community and an audience.

While previous retail stores are generally “experiential” in name only (i.e. Samsung Experience Store, Verizon Experience Store), the Sprint Studio delivers a true experience to consumers by presenting the innovation behind the Sprint brand in fresh, new and exciting ways.

And if you are in Kansas City-stop by.

We talked with Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School at the University of Toronto, on his new book, The Opposable Mind. In the book, Martin shares how successful leaders win through integrative thinking. What results is a study on the power of creativity and design thinking.

Q: Can you describe to us in a few sentences what integrative thinking is and why it is so powerful?

A: Integrative Thinking is the ability to constructively face the tension of opposing models and, instead of choosing one at the expense of the other, generating a creative resolution of the tension in the form of a new model.

The new model contains elements of the individual models but is superior to each.

This means that Integrative Thinkers are model creators not model takers. Because of this, they are disproportionately able to come up with breakthrough ways of doing things. They emerge as the admired and revered innovators.

Q: Why is the design world such an important force in all this?

A: The best of design education and design practice is about the creation of options or models that don’t now exist. This is an essential part of Integrative Thinking. This is why I have taken a deep dive into design and design thinking with the help of great designers– including the folks at Continuum.

Read more

Harry West has spent the last 20 years helping companies all over the world see the value of design thinking and innovation as a means to identify opportunities for new growth and success in the marketplace. In addition to leading design strategy for the development of the Swiffer—Procter and Gamble’s best selling product ever—Harry uses ethnography, storytelling, rigorous analysis and informed creativity to help companies like BMW, Sprint, Motorola and Coca–Cola drive business results through design.

Friday, March 7 2008
2:00PM to 3:00PM
Patil/Kiva Seminar Room G449
Hosted by Rob Miller, MIT CSAIL

MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL)
The Stata Center, Building 32 - 32 Vassar Street - Cambridge, MA 02139 - USA