Much nothing about ado

Well a little while back I posted my first post in just over a year. As I said I've been quite busy.

I've been working on a couple of toys, fun, challenging (First time I've worked on toys) tight budgets, shot deadlines. Always good to learn about new things.

I gave a work related learning workshop at Richard Lander School for the year 10 pupils studying Design Technology, resistant materials and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed that. Those young folk really got to grips with some model making, they also had really great ideas, but perhaps most encouraging of all, they really understood how design has created many problems for our society but how design also will deliver some answers to some serious commercial, social and environmental issues.

I've been working on a long standing consumer product design project, helping James Williams of Keebunga get ever closer to bringing his waterproof car key case to market. With budgets getting tighter and funding being ever more difficult to acquire, it's been a long haul but the end is finally in sight. Just about to receive final pre-production samples and the toolmaker ran into some difficulties. Thankfully they've spotted the error, which was too high a barrel pressure on the injection moulding machine, so a couple of mould tweaks and another run this Saturday means James is on the cards for receiving samples on Tuesday 17th August. After some pressure testing with help from the very nice chaps at AP Valve in Helston, its off to do some field trials (shouldn't that be sea trials?). Some product photography from the very lovely Anj at Andrea Michele Photography, in Truro. (OK I'm biased, she's my missus), a bit of coding to the website by Jump Media, a bit of graphic design for the website layout and then let the sales begin (much nervously finger crossing).

I've been doing some SEO work on my own website and experimenting with graphic layouts, though still not happy with it, (I doubt Ill every be happy with it to be truly honest). I had most of the test re-written for me by the very excellent copymonkey company in Bude, owned by Martin Dorey, who has himself written a cracking book called 'The Campervan Cookbook' where Martin shares his insight and skill in the art of two burner hob culinary creations.

On and off I've been working on a EV (Electric Vehicular) concept with some help from the very tallentd concept artist, Phil Pendlebury of Sursurus Art. More on this at some point in the hopefully not too distant future.

Is there anything else?

Oh yes. I'm happy to report that the delivery of the first 10,000 Frontier stoves have been delivered to Shelterbox, to help those affected by some of the most terrible natural disasters in Haiti, Pakistan, Chile and others. More stoves are on the way.

On a personal note, I was particularly pleas at how well the project went. Straight from Drawings to production standard. No changes where necessary. We worked hard to produce a specification on the Frontier stove that would ensure repeatable and economical manufacture. I would like to say and give a big thank you to Matt, Jeanette and Dan of Gait International who did so much to help communicate with the manufacturer and ensure product arrived on time and to budget.

Design Council are busy bees apparently

Recently I read an article on the Design council’s website written by the CEO David Kester advocating support for design businesses to help boost the economy, as indeed we should expect of the Design council

It was a good article by and large. However I found myself agreeing more with the commentators than I did with the article itself.

This is what David had to say:-

“So what does
this mean for economic policy? It needs to say, ‘people first’. The
customer or the citizen must be at the very centre of everything we
create. Our companies and public services have to provide more choice and
better experience using the best and latest technologies.”

Well, as for giving customers what they want, I'm reminded than a once great industrialist said "If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse".

Now I'm not suggesting that all customers don't know what they want, but I am certain all customers know what they don't want. Also the same with choice is in my experience somewhat different. So many times too much choice confuses and delays decision. Mostly these pitfalls are circumvented by good design. Sadly most design is actually quite poor.

Never fear however, because given time enough, the consumer let us know what designs are bad. The article upholds Apple as some sort of bastion of all things good with design and customer service, but just look how long it took for the public to proclaim the short comings of the illustrious Apple's iPhone4.

The article also slated UK manufacturing stating

“on what should
we build our (economic) plan? What will be our bread and butter for the
next hundred years? And please don’t say manufacturing because the numbers
just don’t stack up. “

Well I’m quite staggered. Yes its true our manufacturing has declined from 25% of 50 years ago to 9% of GDP today, but those that remain are some of the very best in the world and compete well on price and much better on quality. What good is a product in a world that is sustainability aware, if the cheap import lasts but a year or the alternative at twice the money lasts five or more? Consumers are becoming increasingly aware not just of environmental sustainability, but more recently of economic sustainability. Here in the UK we are at the cutting edge of sustainable design.

And finally; to echo the sentiments of one of the commentators, Maxine Horn et.al. regarding funding for UK businesses. I am increasingly frustrated that my clients looking for some assistance find the bureaucratic and time consuming hoops they have to leap through, to finally get a refusal because they have asked for too little seems to me that the many events (media friendly parties) that are staged are more focused on protecting the organisations own funding stream than they are in helping others. One I know of has a £9m budget to help 50 businesses get funding. Yes, that’s right, they don’t actually give any funding, they only help companies get it from another source and thus far have been alarmingly ineffective at anything other than quaffing champagne.

As a QANGO we could assume that the DC is vulnerable to cuts in funding, but then I suppose it depends on who writes the reports and who they in turn know as to how vulnerable the DC really is. Personally I see it much the same as others. An expensive toothless tiger more interested in media exposure to help retain its own place in the system.

If I am wrong then the DC should put its money where its mouth is and, to quote, the Design Council’s £150,000 per year CEO, David Kester;

“That means taking some risks and backing key sectors rather than picking winners. Here one has to make a distinction between the sources of wealth and the enablers that we will depend on.”

Then how about this? Start putting funds into the bee hive and stop spending on the bee keeper

You can read the article here

Design Thinking. Who owns it?

I read a comment on another blog recently from an engineer who objected to designers wanting to “own” design thinking as if were a special skill only they (designers) posses.

I feel the commentator was justified in feeling that design thinking is being attempted to be owned, but from reading and participating in many debates on design thinking, I don’t think it is designers trying to hog the limelight.

True Many designers have commented that to be a true design thinker you need to be a designer, but I disagree. Even as children we design and everything we see, touch and experience has been designed. The question is, “is it good design?”

I am a mechanical engineer turned industrial designer. I don’t think designers are trying to own some esoteric process. In fact much has been debated that corporate, business and finance types are trying to own design and use it as the next breakthrough competitive edge.

The debate goes further into the differences between finance oriented thinking, where shareholder value is most important, and design oriented thinking is as the article suggests more people, solution, emotion oriented thinking.

Having the world witness the successes of design oriented companies (or design oriented at least at face value) seen a surge in profits in recent years, some are heralding design thinking as being the saviour of business.

Many designers protest that those would prostitute the art, dilute the very essence of design and devalue it.

It is however folly to think that design oriented thinking or finance oriented thinking alone can make any company successful. Any successful business is a combination of finely balanced and optimised parameters, (perhaps it’s the engineers thinking that will rule then?) working in harmony.

For some time the design industry has levied complaint at education saying that graduates have little or no commercial understanding. Now there is complaint that business doesn’t have enough design understanding.

In truth everything is designed and engineered and of course financed. Be that a business process, a service, a product of some advertising graphic. Where those designs embody the four behaviours of a designer

Inquisitive; where question after question is asked, (often very stupid ones but nonetheless effective by process of iteration and elimination).

Empathic; where designers go beyond simple user centred design study or focus groups and actually submerge themselves in the world of the consumer; much like a method actor would when preparing for a role in a play or film.

Lateral thinking; where designers often meld ideas not just from one sector but often make the most obscure connections between materials, mechanisms, functions and most importantly, people.

Passion; designers are sickeningly passionately to an idea and give up their whole sense of self to move an idea forward into realisation.

Merged with sound business reasoning (the fifth behavior of design thinking then) there will be success if that design is good. However we all know there are good design, good engineering, and good business and there is also the bad... sometime even the downright ugly.

***'Design orientation' and its derivitives is a phrase/s coined by Raymond Pirouz

Dear blogger, please forgive me for I have sinned.

Dear blogger it's been 1 year since my last blog post! Crikey!

Well I have been rather busy with projects such as the product design project, waterproof car key case for Keebunga and the Frontier Stove sustainable product design project that is distributed to areas of natural disaster by Shelterbox. We've also been working on a couple of fun projects, designing games and toys... how cool is that?

Well I've made myself a promise to blog at least once a week. I'll continue the popular inventors themed thread "I've got an idea... it's gonna make millions" and carry on venting my spleen in the "you know what really grinds my gears" courtesy of Peter Griffin.

Watch this space as they say.

by the way... anyone know who 'THEY' are?