QUARTERLY OF THE INDUSTRIAL DESIGNERS SOCIETY OF AMERICA  SUMMER 2020
A pandemic grips the world. What can designers do about it? As it turns out, a lot. A pandemic grips the world. What can design do about it? As it turns out, a lot.
IDSA MEMBERS RESPOND TO URGENT NEEDS Seth Orsborn, IDSA | Research Professor at Southern Methodist University and Director of SMU’s Deason Innovation Gym in Dallas, TX Orsborn and his team used Deason Innovation Gym’s 3D printers to produce DtM-v3.0 face shields (a design developed by Prusa and approved by the NIH) for donation to Dallas-area hospitals and clinics.
Jonathan Thai, IDSA | Principal Industrial Designer and Co-founder of the industrial design firm Hatch Duo in Santa Clara, CA Thai and his team made and manufactured face shields to donate to local hospitals and provided a DIY walkthrough of how to make them without a 3D printer.
Russ Henning, IDSA | Chair of IDSA-San Jose and Director of Industrial Design at Paramit, a product design and FDA-registered manufacturer of medical devices and instruments in Morgan Hill, CA Henning started a mask-making program at Paramit and shared DIY resources, from Archimedic’s instructions on making origami-style masks to information on how to join Open Medical’s Origami Mask Project.
Lauren Dern, IDSA | Chair of IDSA-Northern Lakes and Senior Product Designer at the plastic fabrication company Schoeneck Containers, Inc. in New Berlin, WI Dern volunteered to design and make TogetherMasks for frontline healthcare workers with RoddyMedical and a team of engineers at the University of Wisconsin– Milwaukee’s prototyping center.
Marco Perry, IDSA | Partner and Co-founder of the product design and engineering consultancy Pensa in Brooklyn, NY Perry and the team at Pensa have been leveraging their own design and engineering teams, as well as tapping into their material suppliers and connections with manufacturers, to design and produce face shields and intubation shields.
Peter Clarke, IDSA | Founder and CEO of the product and packaging design agency Product Ventures, headquartered in Fairfield, CT Product Ventures’ Prototyping and Realization Lab in Plano, TX, partnered with PepsiCo to fabricate, package, and ship face shields to healthcare workers in Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.
Scott Henderson, IDSA | Industrial Designer and Founder of the design agency Scott Henderson Inc. in Brooklyn, NY Henderson designed the ZShield Flex face shield for ZVerse, a 3D solutions and digital manufacturing company based in Columbia, SC.
Xue (Stella) Dong, IDSA | Assistant Professor at East Stroudsberg University in East Stroudsberg, PA Dong is working with ESU’s Art + Design Faculty and Verde Mantis 3-D Printing Company to make face shields, fabric masks, and stethoscopes.
IDSA members: Share your industrial design accomplishments with IDSA for a chance to be featured on IDSA’s website, social media channels, INNOVATION magazine, and monthly designBytes e-newsletter. Submit to IDSA.org/member-spotlight-form. INNOVATION SUMMER 2020
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QUARTERLY OF THE INDUSTRIAL DESIGNERS SOCIETY OF AMERICA
SUMMER 2020 ®
Publisher IDSA 950 Herndon Pkwy, Suite 250, Herndon, VA 20170 P: 703.707.6000 idsa.org/innovation
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The quarterly publication of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), INNOVATION provides in-depth coverage of design issues and long-term trends while communicating the value of design to business and society at large. Above: ZShield Flex by Scott Henderson, IDSA
URGENT DESIGN 32 Design to Advance Human Progress by Federico Casalegno, PhD, IDSA 34 Origami to the Rescue by Shujan Bertrand, IDSA
IDSA AMBASSADORS 28 The Virtual Debut of the Sustainability Deep Dive 31 Boast Your Toast: Ecodesign Challenge
3M Design, St. Paul, MN Cesaroni Design Associates Inc., Glenview, IL; Santa Barbara, CA Covestro, Pittsburgh, PA Crown Equipment, New Bremen, OH
38 Quarantined ’n Chillin’ by Meghan Preiss
IDC 2020
40 And Then We All Taught Online... by Verena Paepcke-Hjeltness, IDSA
22 The False Tale of Efficiency by Kristine Arth
20 IDC Goes Virtual
Eastman Chemical Co., Kingsport, TN McAndrews, Held & Malloy, Ltd., Chicago, IL Metaphase Design Group Inc., St. Louis, MO Samsung Design America, San Francisco, CA TEAGUE, Seattle, WA
44 All in the Family by Beau Oyler
24 You + Your Work by Spencer Nugent
Tupperware, Orlando, FL
46 The Virtual Watercooler: Moving Collaboration Online by Alden Rose, IDSA
26 IDC Schedule
Charter supporters indicated in bold.
48 Designing with Speed for a Critical Need by Michael Hammond, IDSA
and Corin Frost
51 For People, Not Profit by Dominic Peralta, IDSA
IN EVERY ISSUE
14 The Logic of Story: A Search for Narrative by Byron Wilson 17 A Lesson in Collaboration by Kyle Ellison, IDSA, and Veronica Orecchia, IDSA
an Ambassador, please contact IDSA at 703.707.6000.
4 In This Issue by INNOVATION Editorial Team 6 IDSA HQ by Chris Livaudais, IDSA 8 Beautility by Tucker Viemeister, FIDSA,
FEATURES
For more information about becoming
with John-Michael Ekeblad
10 Design Defined by Esmerly Simé Segura, IDSA 12 Design DNA by Scott Henderson, IDSA 56 A Final Thought by Hector Silva with Dominic Montante
Innovation is the quarterly journal of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), the professional organization serving the needs of US industrial designers. Reproduction in whole or in part—in any form—without the written permission of the publisher is prohibited. The opinions expressed in the bylined articles are those of the writers and not necessarily those of IDSA. IDSA reserves the right to decline any advertisement that is contrary to the mission, goals and guiding principles of the Society. The appearance of an ad does not constitute an endorsement by IDSA. All design and photo credits are listed as provided by the submitter. Innovation is printed on recycled paper with soy-based inks. The use of IDSA and FIDSA after a name is a registered collective membership mark. Innovation (ISSN No. 0731-2334 and USPS No. 0016-067) is published quarterly by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA)/Innovation, 950 Herndon Pkwy, Suite 250, Herndon, VA 20170. Periodical postage at Sterling, VA 20164 and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to IDSA/Innovation, 950 Herndon Pkwy, Suite 250, Herndon, VA 20170, USA. ©2020 Industrial Designers Society of America. Vol. 41, No. 2, 2020; Library of Congress Catalog No. 82-640971; ISSN No. 0731-2334; USPS 0016-067.
Cover: Aplat Face Mask
INNOVATION SUMMER 2020
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I N T H I S I SSUE
MEANINGFUL AND EQUITABLE SOLUTIONS
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hen we began to compose the theme of this issue, we took a moment to reflect on how to create something that would be relevant to current times and showcase the actions of our community. In the weeks since that initial planning session, so much has changed. It’s fair to say that 2020 has been one of the most surreal, devastating, and challenging years in recent history. The COVID-19 pandemic has swept through almost every nation on earth, with several million cases of the novel coronavirus reported. Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide have died from the virus while countless lives have been painfully disrupted and irrevocably altered. Amid this global health crisis, public attention in the U.S. turned to a series of racist attacks and horrific incidents of police brutality. The murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis on Memorial Day, captured on smartphone video and shared around the world, triggered a wave of protests and pushed myriad organizations, included our own, to confront issues of racial injustice, reexamine the ways in which the design industry could be helpful and harmful to our communities, and work to dismantle biased and unequal systems. We have a lot of work to do and are grateful for all we have learned. We will not stop showing up, or speaking up, for what is right. So how, given this context, could we begin to craft this issue of INNOVATION? The answer is simple. We turned once again to our community. IDSA is proud of our community for volunteering their time, efforts, and resources to help others during this
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incredibly difficult time. Members have stepped up to make masks and face shields and to share templates, 3D printing tools, and best practices. We’ve seen you team up to hold virtual events to keep your communities connected and to discuss issues related to COVID-19 and racial justice. We are inspired by your strength, ingenuity, and empathy in the face of so much tragedy, uncertainty, and strife. As a Society, we are stronger together and better for using our unique skills and talents as industrial designers for the greater good. Designing meaningful and equitable solutions to improve the lives of others and make the world a better place has never been more important. The challenges we’ve faced have made our mission as a Society clearer as we refocus on our core pillars of education, information, community, and advocacy for the highest purpose. We encourage all of you to take heart in your resilience and know that IDSA exists because of you and for you. In this and whatever else comes, we are here to support you. In solidarity, INNOVATION Editorial Team P.S. Fresh off the heels of our Sustainability Deep Dive virtual event, we’re excited to share revised details for the IDC 2020 as a 24-hour virtual live stream. While we know we cannot directly replace the experience of an in-person conference, we’ve devised a new plan that we think is really special.
INNOVATION SUMMER 2020
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IDSA HQ
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INNOVATION SUMMER 2020
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BE A U T I L I T Y
STEP UP!
I
magine life on this planet as one long baseball game: humans vs. nature. For most of the first innings, nature was hammering us with snow, big animals, and floods. After we found some caves and made some tools, we started scoring with fire, bronze, and gunpowder. Around the seventh inning stretch, the Industrial Revolution got our factories cranking. Humans were doing pretty good with computers when nature started to fight back. Then with global warming loading the bases, COVID-19 steps up to the plate and hits a home run way outta the park, causing global disruptions and awakening social justice. On October 28, 1929, the day before the stock market crashed, the new dean of Pratt, James Boudreau, was featured in an article in the New York Times. (He’s the guy who would later bring Donald Dohner, Alexander Kostellow, and Rowena Reed Kostellow, FIDSA, to Pratt to create the industrial design program. They used the design process on itself, turned things inside out to develop a new pedagogy that set the standard for our profession.) The Times headline says it all: “New Pratt Institute Head to Carry Art to the Public.” And in fact, during the Great Depression the new industrial design profession brought our “art” to the people and prosperity to the world. Like the Great Depression, the current pandemic is a game changer that is accelerating and amplifying all kinds of problems we made for ourselves. You’ll probably know more about it, since I’m writing this a long time before you’re reading it (well, about three months, but these days that’s ages)! And I bet things will still be changing when this piece reaches you. As Lenin said, “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” It’s impossible to really see what will happen, but it is clear that we are at a fork in the road. As Yogi Berra advised, “Take it!” Many of us designers jumped on the PPE challenge in January, helping fill gaps in the security of health workers, and have been working on more systemic problems too. As a transdisciplinary profession, we have our fingers in the whole supply chain. This gives us a clearer view of what’s possible and how to actually deliver better results to the frontline and the backend users. There is more to do
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today than ever before: We need better filters, ventilators, sneeze guards, and air-filters that harvest energy as they clean. We can apply design to cultural needs, for instance, changing attitudes to encourage wearing masks to protect our neighbors—rather than selfishly wearing masks in a futile effort to shield ourselves. Lots of us have jobs and clients who are pivoting to address the new normal. In May, John-Michael Ekeblad and I just finished teaching business practices to a great cohort of Parsons ID graduate students. At the beginning of the semester, we tried to help them find their place in the changing industrial design profession. Then the pandemic turned our class inside out! Now everyone needs to look for where change is happening, because that’s where we can be the most effective. What kind of work will fresh graduates do? We ended our class giving them some ideas that seem appropriate for everyone: Build community. It is the time to come together and build a community around yourself and your name that will become your physical community and network as you move forward. Your business is a social contract; your studio is social place, a key element in the community that supports families and neighbors too. We are all part of a complex ecology—humans are not like trees and birds; we are like smart bees. Now industrial designers are in demand to solve new problems and to design products people can make to support themselves and their network. Sustainability rests on ecology, the economy, and maintaining health and the infrastructure. Be a redesigner. The “new normal” brings an opportunity for you to expand your capabilities beyond being a product designer. Businesses need to rebuild themselves and rearticulate their business models and create new visions of where they want to go. As Fahrenheit 212 says, “It’s about chasing new openings, many of which could only have been born in this moment. Doubling down on innovation in downcycles can be a strong catalyst for long-term growth.”
Rethink value exchange. Think: client, problem, solution, the why, the impact. There are other ways to get paid. Who says money is the only way to measure value? OK, money is a pretty good marker (especially for high denominations), but it’s not everything. As my dad joked: “What good is happiness? You can’t buy money with it!” Designers add all kinds of value by making things easier and more economical to produce. We create knowledge. We create systems. Making things intuitive to use makes us all smarter. Form and function are health. Beautility. Be a problem-solver. Companies don’t need problems; they need sustainable answers. And there are lots of solutions that don’t have problems. Design thinking is systems thinking, and designers are strategists by default. Deliverables are an answer to a problem. Think of ways to shape your creative entrepreneurship. How can you help companies leverage their assets and surpass their potential? Designers are the critical yeast that makes the company rise. Collaborate. Working together makes things happen faster. Companies are adaptable now more than ever, and they need help finding new ways to work and new ways to move forward. Focus your work on collaborative efforts and build your pitch to melt the silos and open minds to new possibilities. Up your social proof. Influencers are the currency of social proof. Social media is public evidence in the new normal. Working it is not just for students. You must be able to showcase who you are, what you do, how you do it, why you do, and what you did to contribute to the success. Pratt Institute’s motto is: “Be true to your work and your work will be true to you.” Well, that’s not enough. Somebody has to tell the story! The products can’t talk as well as you do, especially in a world where everything is a story (or a tweet) and the issues are complex and contradictory. Open discourse is how the truth changes behavior.
Be a guardian of beauty. Who cares about beauty and how something looks when you are struggling with life and death at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? In moments of crisis, the meaning of life seems clear, and you’ll see that beauty actually plays an important role. Beautility. Industrial designers are the guardians of beauty. Remember, designers are the only profession with the responsibility to make things look attractive. It’s our job. Although accountants won’t admit it, it’s one of the most important things we offer. Listen. Keep a positive, constructive mindset. You need to trust yourself and your ability to move forward and manage change. Check in with yourself. Listen to others in your community to see how they are coping with the moment and how they navigate their energy through their work. Listen to what people need. Although you are reading this in the future, from here this pandemic looks like it is only beginning. Are you experiencing a relapse? All our systems are under stress. Normal never changed so fast or so big since that meteor hit the dinosaurs. This microscopic virus meteor has hit everyone— all humans are feeling it. The pandemic shows that we have to work together for the good of all. It demonstrates that collaboration is necessary to fight this human disease and the ecological battle and for social justice. It’s our turn at bat. We have only 10 years to clean up the CO2 to slow the climate crisis. We must take this opportunity to renovate and reopen with a stronger global team for a more sustainable world and deeply equitable society. What will we make our future life? . —Tucker Viemeister, FIDSA, with John-Michael Ekeblad www.tuckerviemeister.com; ekeblad@gmail.com
INNOVATION SUMMER 2020
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D E S I G N DE F I NE D
SPARK: JUMP-STARTING YOUR INNER CREATIVE
Calling creatives May rules of your discipline Belong to the past
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do not remember the first time I heard the word “design.” I do remember the first time I felt it, a wholesome feeling in the warmth of the Caribbean. I felt at home, the adrenaline from discovery and the joy from creativity coming together. It happened during a collaborative effort: a collective of five 10-year-old kids dreaming without limits to solve a middle school Spanish class brief. The solution never left the four walls of that classroom, but the feeling was plastered in my memory for eternity. I carry it with me now. The excitement from invention and curiosity to explore more has remained a highlight of that day. Moments after that feeling first arose, I decided to become a designer without knowing it. Years later, I find myself dancing to the rhythm of design as my profession. Designing is composing a song, with its high and low notes, that takes its target listener on an emotional experience. It conveys the right tune before, during, and after. As creatives, we learn through practice to establish an individual process, a pattern that kickstarts our creativity and gets us into work mode to design—to compose. This process is supported by curated physical spaces and mindsets that exist primarily to stimulate our creativity and critical thinking. It can range from our studio setup, desk, and the office environment to the comfort of the workspace in our home. It becomes our routine; it is second nature to our day-to-day encounters and embedded into our subconscious. Design in a Time of Change What happens when an external force redefines our creative safe haven at no one’s request? What happens when our process becomes outdated? How do we evolve? Recently, we have all had to redefine how we interact with other humans and the outside world. We, as designers, have been forced to redefine how we design. Some creatives have been able to seamlessly re-create the illusion of their previous creative safe haven. In contrast, others have had to rebuild an entirely new space and mindset with experimental tools to ignite their creative process. Confined to the inside world, we see our creative process becoming outdated, and another shift is imminent. While many tools have surfaced to collaborate virtually across teams with co-workers, classmates, and clients, change is always accompanied by a learning curve. Sometimes we might find ourselves confined not just physically but also mentally. Our bodies may adapt quickly to a new space, a new process; our minds, however, prefer to take an extra minute. This extra minute is full of feelings spiraling out of control and coming back to balance. There
are many minutes like this when adapting to change. Amid the noise, we need to listen to these emotions to pinpoint which parts of our new creative process are halting our creativity, our ability to flourish. Creativity is fueled by emotion. Some argue it is driven by passion. We often place our perceived identity as designers on our creative nuances and the supporting tools, approaches, and spaces that uphold this. However, we may also harness our creative spark to redirect it to the intangible mental models, frameworks, and emotional thinking we have applied in countless prior experiences. How do we find a process that is independent of tangible aspects that are unexpectedly subject to change and based primarily on our ability to harness our curiosity and excitement for innovation? Create. Create. Create. Share. Repeat. In search of that feeling from Spanish class, I’ve virtually gathered with a collective of seven creatives to help each other jump-start our inner creativity. Within this group, we share new creative artifacts composed by us from weekly prompts to enjoy, critique, cherish, and appreciate without the weight of expectations. Finding a community of creatives that are diverse in thought can unleash new perspectives on the new normal and remove the pressure to get things right on the first try. As we navigate an alternative era, it offers the opportunity to self-reflect, collaborate, and evaluate our surroundings. What brings you joy? Why do you design? By turning to each other, we can create a group of individuals committed to dreaming without limits—colleagues searching for answers to the questions of tomorrow. Every now and then, we may take on opportunities meant to exercise our creative muscles. The excitement from invention and curiosity to explore more become the ultimate north star, a constant guide. The ideas and solutions we offer do not start with the intent to leave the room and evolve, but to feed, push, and ignite our creativity and critical thinking within it. Ultimately, together we can foster a process that welcomes an inquisitive, exploratory nature— one that celebrates every creation and removes the desire for perfection. A process that brings together elements of interactivity and joy. How do you jump-start your inner creative? —Esmerly Simé Segura, IDSA esmesise@gmail.com Esmerly Simé Segura is a curious product designer from the vibrant Dominican Republic.
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D E S I G N DNA
DESIGN 2.0 STARTS NOW
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he streets here are as deserted as any dystopian post-societal landscape conjured by even the darkest of minds. A rare and eerie New York City silence at midday is broken only by distant sirens. To walk here is to walk alone—to breathe here is to be conscious and fearful of your own breath. One out of every 38 people in the United States resides here, and yet they are hidden, banned from working and afraid of the grocery store as they watch two people a minute perish from COVID-19. Particularly absent are the children, who haven’t seen the light of day in months. The fragility of smug human cleverness has come crashing down, and down it remains. Falling behind the power curve is an aviation expression, and the curve in question is something that is much better to be ahead of than behind. Imagine standing on a ball. Shifting your weight in the wrong direction does not lead to a gradual dismount, but instead a rapid deceleration and violent crash into a murky swamp choked with sharp pines. Before COVID-19, we were all ahead of the curve, enjoying the powerful thrust of our collective engines. Now, our engines have stalled, and we all lie crumpled in a twisted, smoking pile on the ground—an oil-soaked trench of fresh earth dug so deep we can’t see over the top of it through our swollen, injured eyes. How fleeting and delicate the efforts and abilities we deemed so important, vital, and superior actually are. In my last column, I interviewed science writer Janine Benyus about how our key to survival here on Earth is to be positive contributors to the ecosystem instead of ungracious freeloaders who do nothing but eat the world. We show up at Earth’s doorstep without so much as a bottle of wine or a cookie plate—leaving a dirty pile of dishes in the sink as we slip away without a thank you, having never taken off our muddy shoes. I recently listened to a new interview with Benyus where she talks about how human activity has frayed the very fabric of life, causing natural viruses and micro-organisms to “go on the move,” because just like we have gotten too close to California mountain lions who now slink around our driveways and swimming pools, we have also infringed on natural boundaries at the microbial level, enabling them, or perhaps even forcing them, to jump species—tipping life’s scale and careening us toward the
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skin-shredding briar patches beneath the clouds we used to so confidently skim across. Why Do We Design Things? I have spent a career designing mostly consumer products. To me, this was packed with altruism. Sure, most of my project briefs had the goal of displacing the current market leader. Sure, lots of my solutions were centered on creating a new and compelling aesthetic, inspired materials usage, and bling to catch the consumer’s eye—to inspire a purchase at a glance. I would look at these projects as an opportunity to design something better, which would become the reason I would also satisfy the goals of my client: to sell more and more and more! Even on the pure aesthetic level, I packed my 3D languages with human aspiration and lightness, meeting the mind of the user with unimpeded flow—and easing the burden of life. The Burden! Did life really have all these struggles? Looking back at it through the COVID19 lens, it did and does, but maybe not when it comes to brewing coffee and making toast. In the context of the lifeand-death struggle that is COVID-19, most of the burdens we imagined in our daily lives were illusions, and providing a solution to an illusion can be vaporous in itself. Zero times zero equals zero. The illusionary burdens of life should not be confused with the real ones—and there are many. Wounded veterans struggling with poorly designed prosthetics, dirty energy polluting our environment, floating garbage patches killing ocean wildlife. The lists of design challenges that would enable us to become the change we want to see in the world are everywhere. However, many of us don’t target them, instead seeking out companies that churn and burn design as they plan for yearly product obsolescence, continuously filling their pipeline with a steady flow of updates. What we forget is that the heavy industry behind the design of a new coffee maker destined for Target is nothing short of aweinspiring, from the 2,000-pound solid steel injection molds to the 1.2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by ocean-going freighters every year, equivalent to the annual greenhouse gas emissions from over 205 million cars—armadas of cargo ships that release more toxins into the air than many small countries do.
“We live, as we dream—alone.” —Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Designers often talk about uncovering problems that no one knew existed—that were invisible until a clever solution presented itself, exposing how bad the prior state of the art actually was. We love to tout the elusive need gap and our innate ability to see it where others can’t. In times of normalcy, a more ergonomic on-switch for your blender or better tread patterns on your sneakers is viewed with high industry praise—and a justification of the madness in making 19 million of them in a single year. We are proud of our achievements as the behind-the-scenes purveyors of heightened convenience and ease, and we often fret about how we need to better evangelize the importance of the good design that abounds all around us that nobody notices or cares about. What about first going after the gaps we know exist— the ones that are not only plainly visible but gargantuan in the immense shadow they cast? On many of the top 10 lists describing the biggest problems facing the world today, overconsumption and its devastating effects on the planet are usually in the first or second slot. Designers talk a mean game about saving the world, but much of what we do is in direct conflict with reducing overconsumption. We are asked to design better things—most of the time for mass production and most of the time with the goal of generating more and more demand. Go for Door No. 1 An advertising agency’s purpose is to unabashedly create allure for the purpose of increasing sales. There is no guise of world-saving there. Much of the rhetoric found in any design firms’ sales pitch is centered on the ROI they have generated for their clients—the last great differentiator, where the rubber hits the road. We hear it everywhere, from Shark Tank to our own proposals. What are the sales? Sales are the only true metric for success! Is our conflicting embrace of sustainability born from the guilt we feel about the colossal carbon footprint of our own work? Imagine designing a product so well—creating a product that provides so much benefit to humankind right now—that every living soul, young or old must have it. Imagine designing something that does not have to boast the capture of 20% market share because it’s plainly
obvious that this new must-have solution has captured all of it. Imagine posting this solution to your Instagram and exploding the internet into a thousand tiny, splintered pieces that flutter to earth like a kaleidoscopic snowstorm. Imagine that you designed the face mask—now popularized by the threat of COVID-19’s rusted, jagged scythe—except you didn’t. It was designed in the late 1800s and hasn’t changed much since. People spend thousands of dollars on therapy, they meditate, they work insanely hard to afford a fancy egoboosting sports car and country house all in the attempt to be happier. The truth is, you don’t need to scale the mountain to find the answer to this enduring mystery. There is only one true secret to attaining real wealth and happiness: to selflessly help others. If you do it well enough, big enough, and meaningfully enough, all the riches in the world will swell around you like a tsunami, and the best part is, you will deserve it. Game shows in the 1970s created powerful analogies related to the pursuit of success and wealth, as well as our deepest desires and fears. Often, the real prize was behind Door No. 1, and to open that door required the most risk. The temptation to settle and risk less led you to what was behind Door No. 2: a year’s supply of Turtle Wax. Don’t go for the Turtle Wax! There is no better time than now for industrial designers to apply their unique skills and knowledge, and no better time for us to go after the logjam of real problems that we choose to conveniently ignore while we fill our portfolios with smart thermostats, Bluetooth speakers, and bottle openers. The real problems are everywhere, but the solutions to them are locked behind heavy-fortress Door No. 1 with its intricate scrollwork, exposed rivets, and platinum inlays. To attack these problems will require risk and effort on a whole new level, using the extra gears we all have but seldom summon. The clarity that COVID-19 has unveiled is the tremendous opportunity to make a difference. Now is our time to shine with brightness and light. If we don’t, our fate is sealed in cold, empty darkness. —Scott Henderson, IDSA scott@scotthendersoninc.com
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S T O R Y T E L L I NG
THE LOGIC OF STORY: A SEARCH FOR NARRATIVE
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umans are storytellers. We make sense of the world through the use of story. We package our seemingly nonlinear and fragmented life experiences into manageable stories that allow us to make evaluations and understand the complexity of our lives. This tendency is akin to an internal language that seems to be embedded in our biology. As with all language, there is a risk of information loss due to both its degree of accessibility and translational precision. Identifying this risk presents an opportunity for designers as essential stakeholders to better understand and meet the needs of our fellow storytellers. As the need for more effective products and services grows, a story-based design approach can offer relief by rooting design in the art and practice of storytelling. On the Beginnings of Story In the most unique of ways, story begins to exist at the first moments of cognitive ability and persists through the entire spectrum of human experience and communication. As a device it is seemingly inescapable, yet throughout the ages, humans have continually revisited its definition. The elusiveness of its comprising elements, mechanics, and fundamental intentions make the concept of storytelling precarious, albeit not impossible, to leverage. What is necessary at every step of manipulation is intentional context. A person must always make clear what story is for them and how they intend to direct its power to service a relevant need. In the context of design, I observe story through the lens in Aristotle’s Poetics: The imitation of an action; and an action implies personal agents, who necessarily possess certain distinctive qualities both of character and thought; for it is by these that we qualify actions themselves, and these—thought and character—are the two natural causes from which actions spring, and on actions again all success or failure depends. Hence, the Plot is the imitation of the action: for by plot I here mean the arrangement of the incidents. By Character I mean that in virtue of which we ascribe certain qualities to the agents. Thought is required wherever a statement is proved, or, it may be, a general truth enunciated.
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The model defined by Aristotle is simultaneously impressive and incomplete for my intentions within the realm of design as it doesn’t clearly validate the reasons for what Aristotle calls, “truth enunciated,” which I understand to be the product of the elements of story (character, thought) and mechanics (plot). More directly, the link between the truth enunciated and a character’s thought is not clear enough for design. By definition, the link between thought and truth is rational but loses footing when it needs to support human behavior in its irrational form. It is incomplete with regard to the elements of story (character, thought). Aristotle’s idea is in search of narrative. A less sophisticated model of ambiguous origin, yet more complete in the context of design, is story as defined by its comprising elements: Something or someone to care about Something to want Something to dread Something to suffer Something to learn Meaning and Communication through Story The intention needed for story to make itself useful to design lies in providing something to learn. I call that a narrative. Furthermore, narrative is seemingly the point of a story, a concept that manifests as a device that humans can objectively use, and also the point of design. It is the intention. There is general agreement that story and narrative jointly exist as expressions of plot, as a rhythm, and extend Aristotle’s idea. However, there is disagreement on the universal understanding of how and why. What introduces precarity into the milieu is the insistent yearning for narrative, which accompanies story’s ever presence and seems to be rooted in human biology. As experts of story debate, so too do the neuroscientists. The supporting claims of Michael Gazzaniga and Roger Sperry, made while at Caltech, render a biological scenario of the brain’s reflexive function to seemingly use story within split-brain patients during the latter half of the 20th century. Their research provided evidence that after the brain computes an event, the illusory “we” (that is, the mind) becomes aware of it. The brain, particularly the left hemisphere, is built to interpret data the brain has already
processed. Yes, there is a special device in the left brain, which is called the interpreter, that carries out one final activity upon completion of zillions of automatic brain processes. The interpreter, the last device in the information chain in our brain, reconstructs the brain events in the rhythm of plot as a device that produces the thing we are meant to learn. The mind is continually in search of narrative. And apparently, the interpreter within the left hemisphere of all human brains is identifying characters, organizing events, and establishing relationships between it all in an effort to yield understanding or something to learn. The psychosocial expression of this intention is where design comes into focus and provides a fecundity to the landscape of products and services as one begins to ponder why after knowing how. According to communication theorist Walter Fisher, the often-overlooked extension to the theory that Aristotle outlined comes from a simple idea that requires reconciliation for its paradoxical existence. Humans are storytellers and therefore irrational. Each of us behaves as a character within the context of a story for the sake of establishing, for ourselves, structures of reason, values, and actions. To be plain, we all move through life understanding our experiences from the viewpoint of a story in self-made contexts that we then swap with others in an endless marketplace of story exchange as the basis for communication. Even in accepting such a notion, it does not bring with it a lack of intention in human behavioral pursuits. Quite the opposite. According to Fisher, who I believe is very much onto something substantial with regard to the context of design, humans by our very nature find meaning for all things based on how they fit into a story, which will be the ultimate format for their evaluation. More specifically, the story must not only be produced but must be measured before it can be accepted by the self or another in the grand marketplace of communication. Fisher outlines a detailed methodology for how humans evaluate every story we come into contact with. Essentially we take in the story for the purpose of extracting the narrative and decide to keep or disavow what is presented for learning considering the merit of “good reasons,” which vary in form among situations, genres, and media of communication. The yield of that process is ultimately attenuated by narrative probability, which is the ability for a narrative to extend value to the subject and
ring true. At a glance, these seemingly disparate ideas of process and probability don’t cohere effortlessly. But a deeper consideration produces an elegant symmetry, particularly within design. The sophisticated mechanism by which humans make sense of their experiences has the necessary elements of plot and narrative and requires an analysis of the narrative for reasons that are personal and contextual. And all of this is happening a rate beyond conscious thinking. For the purposes of design, the power of story allows us as designers to find ways to communicate value for every stakeholder we consider in the creation of a new value. Our human inclination to story opens new possibilities for how we can approach the crafting of story as a means of aligning with stakeholder storytelling that is continuous and complements our directive as designers. The use of story thereby not only becomes logical to deploy but also suggests that design would only benefit by rigorously deconstructing the inherent logic of the stakeholders (patients, clinicians, etc.) impacted in our work. That is to say, the goal of designers is to create new value that begins within the stories we all tell ourselves and share with others to make sense of our world. Without deconstructing the logic that is ever-present in every story, designers limit the pursuit of understanding actual experience in exchange for one that is perceived. By getting as close as we can to any user’s truth, we amplify all aspects of the value we create. The pursuit of truth revealed from a more complete understanding of a user’s actual experience is how design and designers can make the world a better place, one story at a time. —Byron Wilson b@emptyset.design Byron Wilson is a principal designer with education and training in medical science, industrial design, and education. He works with large healthcare organizations and R&D labs.
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Disgust
Using story in search of a narrative when patients have minor acute illness. PROBLEM: A large-scale healthcare provider wanted to redesign the experience of seeing a doctor when dealing with a minor illness. The goal was to understand precisely why patients come to the clinic instead of delivering selfcare and how to empower them to feel as comfortable and confident delivering their own care as they do visiting the doctor until they regain full health. APPROACH: A novel story-based tool was designed for our patient interviews to elicit experiences using self-reported story as a reliable and constant point of comparison between patients and the cohorts in the study. We incorporated emotional reporting along with story arc (plot) to understand the narratives of the patients. Three distinct patient narratives emerged to reveal a clear target for redesigning the experience to solve the problem. Knowing the narrative, and the precise plot around the experience, allowed the creative path to solving the problem to be see in plain sight and allowed for more strategic considerations in the long- and midterm for the healthcare provider.
Joy
Anger
Complex
Sadness
Trust
Fear
Surprise
Fig. 1 Emotion as descriptors Robert Plutchik’s table of emotional elements experienced by all humans used as descriptors for events in the patient stories.
Middle
End
Reported Emotions Reported Emotions
Beginning
Anticipation
Fig. 2 Emotional distribution across the Story Arc (Plot) Mapping the reported emotions associated with all the events of a cohort of patients in the reported story of their experience in the beginning, middle and end. This graph represents the total number (180) of emotional descriptions of events in patient stories.
Beginning
Middle
End
Story of Experience (Cohort 1)
Maximum Patient Distress
5
Narrative 1
Average
4 Narrative 3
1
Narrative 2
2
3 6
Fig. 3 Three Narratives emerge A typical plot structure with five event types (2 - initial incident, 3 - problem development, 4 - transition/crisis, 5 - climax, 6 - resolution) over a normalized period of time to reveal three distinct narratives around patient behavior with distinct narrative probabilities based on emotions as behavioral triggers to be addressed with design.
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VIRTU AL C H APTER EVEN TS
A LESSON IN COLLABORATION
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n-person events are at the core of a successful IDSA chapter. After all, chapters are communities. So when the world gets flipped on its head and social distancing makes in-person gatherings out of the question, the pressure’s on to design a solution for this abrupt constraint. That’s exactly what IDSA’s Atlanta and Austin chapters did. As shelter-in-place began to define the new normal, Veronica Orecchia, IDSA, and Josh Madwed, IDSA, of IDSA Atlanta and Kyle Ellison, IDSA, Geraint Krumpe, IDSA, and Christy Sepulveda, IDSA, of IDSA Austin took to Slack to talk about COVID-19 and its impact on workplace culture. What started as sharing virtual design tools turned into a full-blown partnership between our two chapters. Even though we had never collaborated before, we hopped on a Zoom call to strategize about creating an event that could engage both audiences. With the sudden relocation of the workplace to designers’ homes, we wanted to provide helpful tips to ease the transition. We took an IDSA Atlanta tradition, 5-in5—five experts are each given five minutes to present on a subject—virtual. We centered the topic around working from home and gathered five speakers—Chris Livaudais, IDSA, Mark Rane, Rocco Calandruccio, Spencer Nugent, and Ellison—from across the country who before the pandemic had mastered working from home and asked them to share their methods and advice. Finding a convenient time that caters to a nationwide audience made things a bit tricky. If we wanted our event to be accessible to both coasts and in-between, we had to consider that when one city is ending their workday another might be getting ready for bed. With the fast pace of the 5-in-5 style, we realized we could start at 5 p.m. Pacific time and end before 9 p.m. Eastern time. We knew that our uncertainties about audience participation, mingling, and technical issues could not be addressed until the event was live. Luckily, with the bandwidth of two teams, we could prepare for anything. However, before we could kick things off, we were Zoom-bombed! We immediately learned the importance of password-
protected events and quickly shifted gears to get back on track. During the event, we saw our expert hosts tailoring their presentations by converting their virtual backgrounds into PowerPoint slides. This in combination with a feed of live audience questions in the chat window provided an insightful platform for our audience to communicate and learn remotely. As we continue to plan virtual events for our communities, we’ve become aware of the social differences between online and in-person gatherings. We know from our experience that in-person events attract people who want to hear from a particular speaker, learn about a specific topic, and/or network professionally while mingling over drinks. Virtual audiences, on the other hand, are likely looking for topic-focused events to educate themselves and prepare for what’s to come. By leveraging the network of our combined teams, we are able to reach speakers with a wider range of expertise unencumbered by geography, allowing us to provide diverse content accessible to all IDSA members instead of the local few. The future remains uncertain. However, we’ve seen how adaptable our teams and communities are. Though we once believed in-person events were the hallmark of chapters, we now know that community-focused events don’t have to come in one shape or size but instead from what they can do to serve the whole. —Kyle Ellison, IDSA, and Veronica Orecchia, IDSA kyle@trailsidecreative.com; veronicaco.design@gmail.com Kyle Ellison is founder of Trailside Creative, a design studio in Austin that focuses on designing products that help people live active, healthy lifestyles. Veronica Orecchia is a design strategist in Atlanta. She has a bachelor’s degree in industrial design with a minor in philosophy from Virginia Tech.
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INTERNATIONAL DESIGN CONFERENCE internationaldesignconference.com 18
IDSA.ORG
24HR LIVE STREAM
VIRTUAL EVENT September 17-18, 2020 INNOVATION SUMMER 2020
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IDC 2020
IDC GOES VIRTUAL
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hen IDSA retooled the International Design Conference in 2018, we specifically set out to create something that was distinct from anything we’d done before. Our events in New Orleans (2018) and Chicago (2019) delivered on that goal and raised the bar for what to expect from IDSA in years to come. The reimagined IDC has become the perfect opportunity to bring together our global community of designers and top creative minds each year for a few days of in-person connection, inspiration, and knowledge exchange. Fast forward to 2020 and BOOM! With the pandemic and worldwide lockdown, no one is going to physical conferences any time soon. It’s safe to say that the complex set of circumstances we find ourselves in today is dramatically different than what we were planning for at the beginning of the year. IDSA at its core has always been about one-onone in-person connections. This was a major part of our comprehensive Community + Content = Value strategic plan—a strategy positioned to amplify physical interactions over digital and virtual ones. COVID-19 clearly exposed a weakness in this plan. If our value is only about in-person gatherings, what value do we bring if no one can physically meet? In the short term, virtual is a must. Programming has to continue. We can’t do nothing. But we all know that virtual experiences cannot 100% replicate in-person ones, especially the networking and social interaction that have been a hallmark of IDSA events for decades. Even with all the money and technology, a virtual event just won’t be the same. But we believe it can still offer great value. In March 2020, IDSA’s Board of Directors was evaluating options for the future of our 2020 programming. At that time, IDC was months away and the decision was made to hold the course in the hope that our world would heal in time for us to come together in September as planned. By May, alternate plans for IDC were already in the works, and in June, the Board pivoted the Seattle event to a completely virtual one.
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What have we come up with? We hope you will be as intrigued as we are! IDC 2020 will be a 24-hour livestream starting at 12 p.m. ET on Thursday, September 17 and ending at 12 p.m. ET on Friday, September 18. This continuous 24-hour span will include six keynote presentations and 18 mainstage presentations, in addition to dozens of breakout sessions, workshops, panel discussions, and side-bar social interactions, all happening in a carefully choreographed progression. IDSA’s Education Symposium will also be mixed in, and dedicated emcees will lead the audience each step of the way. Pre-conference events on September 14–16 will feature virtual studio tours, the IDSA membership meeting, presentation of the IDSA Awards, and the IDEA Ceremony. This unique format separates us from other events and allows us to address a truly global audience. It doesn’t try to replicate an in-person format in a digital environment, but rather leverages the best of what a virtual experience can provide. It doesn’t compete with what the in-person IDC is or represents and, therefore, doesn’t undermine its value. Instead, it establishes a new content format for IDSA and IDC that could possibly live on in other ways in the years to come. We are incredibly excited for what this new format will allow in terms of unique participant interaction and global connection. It is an experiment for sure. Who best to conduct this test than a merry group of designers who, by nature, are bent on breaking down tradition and charting new pathways for the human experience? In 2021, we hope to resume most, if not all, our in-person events. This will only be done once we can ensure that the health and safety of our community can be protected. But we won’t be simply returning to the way we’ve done things in the past. In fact, our intention is to take our learnings from this year of virtual events and infuse the best of the virtual into our physical events. This new hybrid structure will enhance what both formats can provide and create an entirely new attendee experience in return.
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I D C 2 0 20 E MCE E
THE FALSE TALE OF EFFICIENCY
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esign is coming back to its roots. Back to nature. Back to simplicity. We know this because society is doing the same. I am doing the same. My life’s work is focused on designing brands. To put it bluntly, I create meaning around businesses that don’t necessarily need to exist. It sounds strange, but I absolutely love it. I’ve always been ambitious and active and led a full schedule. This past year was no different. I designed over 26 brands in under 12 months (which I don’t recommend if you value your sanity). I rebranded and launched Love Wellness in Time Square, collaborated with MNML Design Studio on a seven-brand portfolio for Cresco cannabis, led the design for three Y Combinator businesses, and created house of fashion brands backed by major West Coast celebrities. It exhausts me now just writing this. However, after surviving cancer, I never wanted to waste a day or feel unproductive. For so long, my goal was to make every moment as efficient as possible. My self-worth was directly tied to my productivity. And this trend was universal! Just look at product design for the last half-century: Humanity strived for efficiency so we could make more time. If I’ve learned anything during my time in quarantine, it’s that being efficient doesn’t make life better. What happens when a new product saves us time? We have more time to fill with something else. Now I’m stuck at home with all the time in the world, and what I truly need is not something to make my life more efficient. What I need is something to make my time more fulfilling. What we need to realize is that efficiency is actually creating more complexity in our lives. And from my personal experience, efficiency does not always create better experiences! Self-checkout isn’t more enjoyable, AI-run
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customer service platforms can be annoyingly unpredictable, and keyless entry replaced the doorman who used to pay me a compliment and tip me off on neighborhood gossip. Anytime we replace people, we are replacing opportunities for human connection. These simple interactions spark ideas, change outlooks, and bring unpredictability to everyday monotony. Credo quia absurdum—“I believe it because it’s absurd”—is a paradoxical expression from the third-century writer Tertullian. More than ever I find this quote relevant, especially when applied to design. Absurd products have been notoriously successful throughout history (see the Squatty Potty). But what makes an absurd idea remarkable comes down to two main things: simplicity and alchemy. For example, if Sony would have made the first portable music player also a recording device, which it was capable of doing at the time, it would have been difficult for people to understand its main purpose: to listen to music. By
Above and left: The visual identity for the Love Wellness brand, designed by Lobster Phone, conveys fun and friendliness while educating customers about the benefits of the products.
simplifying the functionality of the product and giving it an evocative name, the Sony Walkman became synonymous with portable music. As a creative, I’ve found that the more absurd an idea, the more excited I am to work on it. For example, imagine getting the RFP for one of the following brands: appearancealtering software (Photoshop), sticky plastic that stops you bleeding (Band-Aid), digital currency exchange (PayPal), tight male swimwear (Speedo). These absurd ideas didn’t necessarily arrive with a clear function, name, or identity; the symbiosis of product and brand bring these ideas to life. Without a strong product (form/features) and clear branding (name/identity), these ideas may have never grown up, succeeded, and turned into the icons we talk about today. For my entire career, I’ve been faced with clients asking for more. More features, more channels, more iterations, more complexity. But now, as a human being stuck at home with finite room for material possessions, I realize just how important each and every object in my life is. What I value are products and brands that, as Marie Kondo prompts (and has likely trademarked by now), “spark joy.” This is the future of the design industry. We need to let go of the question, How can we make people’s lives easier? and instead ask, How can we make people’s lives happier? With all this time at home, and our collective sanities on the edge, I am honestly excited to see how designers answer this question and what absurd ideas this pandemic will birth. The journey of design is not so dissimilar from the journey of life. We are born with endless potential. But for years all of our “stakeholders” try to form us into the best, most efficient, and productive person we can be. We go to (the job) market and shine with all of our features and brilliant
complexities. And then, at some point, we get a little lost. By making every thing and every person so damn efficient, we’ve overlooked the process that affords us discovery of self. We realize that all the features don’t actually define us. And if we are lucky, we are given the opportunity to shed the things that don’t work for us and come back to our true nature. The things that make us happy. The absurd. The simple. If you had asked me who I was six months ago, I might have told you I am a designer and the owner of the global branding studio Lobster Phone. I might have listed my achievements: the brands I’ve designed, the studios I’ve worked for. Yes, all of that is part of who I am. But it’s not me. I am … absurd! I am high energy and full of life. I am a music lover, a traveler, a romantic, a creative. My work doesn’t define me. I define my work. Designers, right now is a rare opportunity for us all. We each have a unique gift, something we can bring into this world that no one else can. And that is you. As an industry, let’s rediscover who we really are and what kind of world we want to live in. Then let’s make it happen. It’s that simple. —Kristine Arth kristine@lobsterphone.com
Kristine Arth is the founder and principal designer behind Lobster Phone. She is known for building brands that carefully balance timelessness with distinct visual expression.
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I D C 2 0 20 E MCE E
YOU + YOUR WORK
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ophomore year of college I found myself standing in front of class presenting my concept for a sponsored project. We were designing pedometers for a local company. After I presented my flashy, wellexecuted emotive sketches, my professor, Bryan Howell, said, “You can’t fool me with a good sketch.” I’m not sure if he could tell how upset I was. The anger and frustration at his critique sat with me for a long, long time, and although I was able to eventually shake it and complete the project, I do regret my reaction. It has taken me a long time to understand the wisdom in these words (alternately attributed to Warren Buffet and many others), “You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you. True power is sitting back and observing things with magic. True power is restraint. If words control you that means everyone else can control you. Breathe and allow things to pass.” When designing and working in any professional environment, it’s important to maintain a healthy relationship between you and your work. In my career, I have mentored young designers as well as had incredible mentors along the way, and as such, I’ve made three observations about healthy and unhealthy ways of relating to your work. You and Your Work Are Not the Same As a young designer or student, at times there is little separation between you and your work. After pulling an all-nighter and pouring yourself into a project, it can feel personal when you receive feedback. Looking back, I can see where my frustration with my professor’s feedback came from. I was so proud of my work that I became myopic to his feedback, which was meant to ensure there was substance to what I was presenting.
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When there is little distinction between you and your work, you tend to be less open and have a heightened sensitivity to critique. In other words, your work is your identity in embryo.
WORK
YOU
As a younger designer, I tended to pour myself into every project hoping to find validation from others. Working at Astro Studios right out of college, I found myself swimming in the deep end of design and had to double-time to keep up. I remember pulling long hours and grinding on projects to then have my ideas rejected or overlooked. Rather than be upset, however, I worked even harder. Eventually I found success and respect from my peers for the hustle. A lack of experience can lead to a dependency on shallower forms of validation, such as feedback on social media, to prop up your design sense of self. With so much positivity coming from likes, any perceived invalidation can be extremely disorienting. I was there, but after several experiences, I grew up and realized a better way: To truly make the best of these moments, you must lean into the critique and ask, What can I learn? I recently was reminded
of this by a friend on LinkedIn who mentioned the moment I won him over. I had posted a design sketch online that wasn’t my best work, and he offered some critique. I decided to take it head-on and redo it. He certainly appreciated my willingness to listen, learn, and make revisions. In a professional setting, I’ve seen how this lack of maturity with regard to your work can come and go. Even as an experienced designer, sometimes your emotional attachment and investment in an idea can lead to problems. You have to be willing to let go. I worked with a younger designer once who, while extremely talented and passionate, would often blow up at the slightest wind of criticism. It took considerable coaching and feedback over time by peers and collaborators to help this designer improve their soft skills. However, the damage was already done; the designer had a reputation for being sensitive. This reputation affected their ability to influence the outcome of projects in the future. But Be Wary of Being Too Detached At times in my career I have found myself in a funk— unhealthily detached from the work. When this happens, it’s easy to slip into a mindset of “it doesn’t matter” in which you show less concern for the details, experience, and elements that make a design great.
YOU
WORK
On one occasion while working for a company, I was assigned to work on a product that needed a small revision and to transition to a different manufacturing supplier. At first I was excited at the possibility of making improvements to the product and even assumed that the visual and interactive design might be different. However, the company decided that despite the supplier change no visible elements were to be modified. My enthusiasm quickly faded, and I slipped into feeling as though my work and contributions didn’t matter. Ultimately, I left the company before the launch of the product, but I do wonder how much better the outcome would have been had I remained more engaged and mindful of consumer needs. What if I had fought a bit more for changes that research had shown would be meaningful to the consumer? As designers, if we allow ourselves to slip into a detached mindset, the consumer may suffer and the business may miss opportunities for change and growth through design.
Be Engaged with a Healthy Separation A much healthier approach is to create some separation between you and your work while still being engaged. It’s a careful and tenuous balance. One of my associates, Peter On, an award-winning designer with many years of experience beyond mine, taught me this idea. In order to do this, you have to be willing to let go, be open, and take feedback head-on.
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WORK
This is not only healthier personally but actually benefits and creates generous space for customer needs. I have worked in both corporate and consulting settings, and I can definitively say, as many of you likely know, that as designers we can’t do it alone. It takes teams of people moving together to launch a successful product. The projects and deliverables we work on as designers should not be about us but rather about the consumer. When we create healthy separation between our work and ourselves, the success of the product takes priority. That success depends on us letting go of the right things and fighting for the right things as well. Those fights should always be rooted in deep empathy for those who will eventually use the products we design and make. In addition to creating room for our consumers’ needs, we also should be mindful of and make space for the viability of said products for the business. Again, a highly personal and unhealthy attachment to our work tends to lead to myopia and missed marks. Whether you’re a young designer or a seasoned creative leader, when creating products, it’s important to be self-aware and maintain a healthy relationship with your work, your consumers, and your business’s needs. Balancing your emotional attachment to your work with the functional needs of the business and your target consumers’ needs creates space for a better outcome. When your work is challenged, ask yourself, What are they trying to say? and What can I learn from this? Stay open to feedback and change, champion consumer needs, and be mindful of the needs of the business—and you will create the best products for your consumers. —Spencer Nugent spencer@sketch-a-day.com Spencer Nugent is the founder of Sketch-A-Day.com through which he provides free, high-quality design sketching tutorials and on-site sketch workshops.
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IDC 2020
SCHEDULE AT-A-GLANCE IDC 2020 - PRE-CONFERENCE FREE AND OPEN TO EVERYONE!
MONDAY & TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY
Virtual Global Studio Tours Get a behind-the-scenes tour of studios and corporate innovation hubs from around the world.
IDSA Membership Meeting & 2019 Year in Review Our annual membership update to provide you with the latest information on the current status and future outlook of the organization.
SEPTEMBER 14-15
Special Pre-Conference Events We’re planning a range of content to be shared across multiple platforms to get you excited and energized for the main event!
SEPTEMBER 16
IDSA Awards Recognizing the very best of our community! IDEA 2020 Ceremony Celebrating excellence in design across products, services, experiences and more.
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IDC 2020 - 24 HOUR LIVE STREAM! IDC TICKET HOLDERS
What you can expect from IDC We’ve put together an eclectic mixture of content with the goal of providing inspiration, challenging assumptions, and advancing the conversation about what design can contribute to the world’s future. Without leaving the comfort of your home, learn from design leaders who will present their work, passions, and authentic stories with hundreds of designers from around the globe. Each track listed below will include ‘main stage’ presentations followed by a series of breakout sessions, a presentation by our 2020 Student Merit Award winners, and a keynote presentation. Our emcees will lead the audience each step of the way.
THURSDAY
FRIDAY
IDC 2020 Begins! 12pm EDT (US) / 5pm BST (UK)
Track 4 12am EDT - 4am EDT Emcee - Kristine Arth
SEPTEMBER 17
Track 1 12pm EDT - 4pm EDT Emcee - Kristine Arth Track 2 - Education Symposium 4pm EDT - 8pm EDT Emcee - Verena Paepcke-Hjeltness, IDSA Track 3 8pm EDT - 12am EDT Emcee - Spencer Nugent
SEPTEMBER 18
Track 5 4am EDT - 8am EDT Emcee - Announcing Soon! Track 6 8am EDT - 12pm EDT Emcee - Spencer Nugent IDC 2020 Ends! 12pm EDT (US) / 5pm BST (UK)
Visit internationaldesignconference.com for the most up-to-date event information, schedule, presenter line-up, breakout sessions, workshops, and more!
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E V E NT R E CAP
THE VIRTUAL DEBUT OF THE SUSTAINABILITY DEEP DIVE
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he Industrial Designers Society of America welcomed nearly 600 attendees worldwide to its inaugural Sustainability Deep Dive, which was conducted entirely online over the course of three days. This virtual professional development event, held June 3–5, 2020, attracted design practitioners, students, and educators from more than 25 countries to learn about the latest sustainable design trends, tools, and methodologies.
events and programming across all industries for the sake of public health. Therefore, the Sustainability Deep Dive originally planned for Denver, CO, in June was swiftly transitioned to a three-day Zoom conference with a significantly reduced choose-your-rate pricing structure. Fortunately, telecommuting from home was not only a viable and safe choice for all participants but also the most sustainable option.
A Different Kind of Deep Dive IDSA’s Deep Dive events, formerly called Niche Conferences, began as in-person gatherings, taking place over one to two days and in a different city each time. Deep Dives are intended for design practitioners to share industrial designrelevant content around a specific subject matter or an IDSA Special Section, such as Women in Design (held in San Francisco, CA, in May 2019) or Medical Design (held in Boston, MA, in October 2019). These events are built to include a mixture of expert speaker presentations, interactive and skill-building workshops, networking activities, and immersive off-site experiences. The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a shift to virtual
“First, Do No Harm” The co-emcees of the Sustainability Deep Dive were Debera Johnson, IDSA, the founder of Pratt Institute’s Center for Sustainable Design and a professor of industrial design at Pratt, and Stephan Clambaneva, IDSA, the Sections Director on IDSA’s Board of Directors. Jason Belaire, IDSA, the Chair Elect on IDSA’s Board, was a lead organizer on the content planning team, working closely with IDSA staff, the emcees, and partners to transition the event into a virtual format. “I knew the importance of this topic and that industrial designers are continually wanting to learn more and to apply strategy, process, and the product experience around
IDSA.ORG
A behind-the-scenes look at our command center as orchestrated by IDSA’s senior director of operations, Jerry Layne
sustainable and circular design principles,” Belaire says. “I owed it to the design community to ensure that we built a movement that would be long-lasting and cause true disruption within our everyday practices.” In Clambaneva’s introduction to the event’s kickoff on Wednesday, June 3, he spoke to how this time of global tragedy, social distancing, and attendant introspection will likely reshape the conversation around what designers should be doing for sustainability and climate change. “The pandemic is hitting us all hard and it is showing us how fragile our current way of life is,” Clambaneva acknowledged. “This situation also has me thinking of all the inspiration garnered from the recent 50th anniversary of Earth Day and the impact that all of humanity staying home for two months has had on planet Earth.” This crisis can be turned into an opportunity for industrial designers to make real change happen, he said. “We can’t afford to take one step forward and 20 steps back, like we did after 9/11 and the Great Recession in 2007–2009. We owe it to ourselves not to waste another chance.” He suggested that all designers adopt a version of the Hippocratic Oath taken by medical professionals, which can
be summed up in the phrase, “First, do no harm.” Johnson added, “Sustainability, technology, and system-based thinking are the key drivers connecting design to business in the 21st century. It’s time to decentralize user-centered design and include the environment and human rights as priorities.” Sustainable Strategies, Processes, and Product Experiences The Sustainability Deep Dive focused on a different theme each day. The first day centered on sustainable strategies, showing attendees how to uncover the top-down considerations needed to define a companywide sustainable circular design and zero-waste initiatives. The day began with speakers Anna Queralt-Fuentes (Ellen MacArthur Foundation) on designing for the circular economy, Dr. Leyla Acaroglu (Unschools.co) on design systems change, and Seth GaleWyrick (Biomimicry 3.8) on biomimetic and circular product design. The second day turned to examples of sustainable processes as participants learned to investigate materiality, environmentally conscious manufacturing processes,
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The speakers roundtable on day 3 gave the speakers the chance to reflect on the themes and topics of the day’s presentations.
ecodesign toolkits, guides, and technology that they could apply in their companies for sustainability, circular design, and zero waste. The day included several in-depth presentations ranging from “The ‘Sustainable Materials’ Fallacy” with Dr. Andrew Dent (Material ConneXion) to “The Enlightened Industrial Designer” with Hlynur V. Atlason (ATLASON). The third and final day, which dove into the sustainable product experience, explored, among other topics, the future of sustainable packaging with Jasmin Druffner (Loop) and the low CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) Space Hippie shoes with Noah Murphy-Reinhertz (Nike). The event culminated with a panel on sustainable transportation design, led by filmmaker Gary Hustwit and featuring industrial designers Raja Schaar, IDSA (Drexel University), Kevin Bethune (dreams • design + life), Michael Hillman (Lime), and Chuck Pelly, FIDSA.
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Breakouts and the Perks of Going Virtual The Deep Dive included breakout sessions with speakers from Autodesk, IDEO, iFixit, Matrix 4, and more and a preconference session with Kiki Redhead from SherwinWilliams’ Industrial Coatings. Melis Aydogan from Ruya Coffee hosted a coffee break, and mixologist Matt Dutton led the virtual happy hours, teaching attendees how to make their own sustainability-themed cocktails. Participants also enjoyed watching live sketchnotes of each presentation by designer and illustrator Craighton Berman with a Zoom viewing option to watch the presentations and sketches unfolding side by side. One of the benefits of a virtual event is being able to quickly make available recordings of each session. You can easily catch up on a session you might have missed or relive the entire experience. All video recordings, sketchnotes, and a virtual swag bag from the event’s sponsors are available to download at IDSA.org/SDD2020.
D ESIGN C OM PETITION
BOAST YOUR TOAST: ECODESIGN CHALLENGE
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s part of the Sustainability Deep Dive, IDSA partnered with Sustainable Minds and GrabCad to host an ecodesign competition that invited participants to reimagine the toaster with environmental performance as a key component. Of the 52 entrants, three prize winners were chosen and announced live during the Deep Dive on June 4 by Sustainable Minds CEO Terry Swack and lead juror Shruti Parikh, IDSA. As the first-place winner, Friedl received a Prusa i3 MK3S 3D Printer, provided by Autodesk; one free registration to IDSA’s International Design Conference 2020; a one-year membership to Material ConneXion; and one-year subscriptions to Sustainable Minds’ Eco-concept and Life Cycle Assessment software. Friedl’s glass toaster won top honors for its energyefficient toasting solution, which achieved a 44% environmental improvement over the challenge’s reference toaster; its modern aesthetic; and the sturdy nontoxic materials.
Second place: Jeswin P. George, Warmth
First place: Mary Friedl, Contemporary Glass Toaster
Third place: Shane Chen and Shih-Hsuan Huang, Ding
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DESIGN TO ADVANCE HUMAN PROGRESS
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here is nothing like a crisis to fast forward us into the future. In the blink of an eye, the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted us from normal life to what many of us are experiencing as an impossible world in which work, education, entertainment, and shopping have become completely digital. At the same time, though, we perceive— perhaps like never before—just how connected our world really is and how connected we are to one another. Despite our physical confinement, and in reaction to being in a sort of lockdown, we have discovered ourselves to be more attentive and supportive of each other—in other words, more human. We are more aware than ever that we are what the French philosopher Edgar Morin calls “the community of destiny of all humanity.” Value-Driven Design For designers, COVID-19 is not only challenging the ways we work but, most importantly, what we actually design. At a moment when we depend on each other more than ever to be kept safe, healthy, and—frankly—alive, and when the true meaning of the word “essential” is being thrust in front of us each and every day, Morin’s “community of destiny” becomes about reinforcing our sense of connection, which we know but perhaps don’t always feel. It seems to me his notion provides a sense of direction for the future. As a designer, this experience is reinforcing my commitment to value-driven design as fundamental in our work. Design with human values and behavior at its center is truly how designers contribute to human progress. That
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stands in opposition to technology-driven development. Yes, technology provides us with formidable resources, but technology is not an end in itself. The pandemic is confirming that technology’s purpose is as a tool that can profoundly help and advance human progress. What does this mean for designers in the short term? Of course, many designers have stepped up to help with the pandemic in all sorts of creative ways, from creating affordable ventilators and making masks to figuring out ways to maintain safe social distancing and supporting those in need. These efforts are helping to save lives. The larger firms within which many of us work are chipping in too. Samsung has provided donations to governments and communities that have been most affected by COVID-19 to help with their relief efforts, including the purchase of medical supplies and hygiene kits, such as face masks. Among the widespread donations of devices, Samsung is providing smartphones to patients in quarantine so they can keep in touch with their loved ones and tablets to schools so kids can continue to learn outside the classroom—among other things. All that is what a good corporate citizen should be expected to do in an emergency. Other companies, driven by similarly high purposes, are making dramatic shifts at breakneck speed, such as the many companies that quickly shifted their factories from manufacturing core products to making ventilators or masks. But what about the longer-term implications for the work of designers?
One thing that has become obvious is that a pandemic crisis has the potential to super-charge innovation. Numerous countries, for instance, undertook digital transformation at lightning speed, shifting their school systems to online education in a week. Telemedicine, long touted as an innovation with great potential for social benefits, has become widely diffused and accepted, and as healthcare providers and patients use it every day, they’re exploring new and better ways to do it. The same goes for telework, online shopping, digital entertainment, well-being, and so on. This kind of rapid change puts designers at the center as we move into the future. We have an opportunity to establish value-driven design as innovation’s central element. At the Samsung Design Innovation Center in San Francisco these are the two underlying drivers of all the work we do. We let human values and behaviors drive what we think and what we should do—and nothing says what we should do better than “essential.” Lest you think that’s abstract, let me remind you of why designers in particular are so well suited to this sort of thinking. It’s not because we are uniquely capable of understanding human values and behavior, but because we also design and make stuff. That forces us to concretize what may seem like lofty notions. Designing based on what we should do liberates us from something to which far too many designers—and the companies that employ them—are wedded: thinking about technology first. All too often, the possibilities technology offers become the drivers, and human values and behavior are knocked down from the position they should hold at the
top of our thinking about design. When we do that, we are not serving the interest of genuinely human connections. A Human-Values Future We don’t know how long this period will last and what will be the next normal. But our design community should not let this opportunity pass to shift gears, reorient how we think, capture the positive aspects of human connections, and bring all that into amazing designs laden with human values. Whether we like it or not, the future will be different from what has long been predicted. For that reason, we must have the courage to not settle for just restarting things and instead to opt for refounding our future with human values at the very core. Designers have a big role to play. We must be bold and go beyond simply providing good products. Our designs must promote the best human experiences. As technology continues to grow at exponential rate, we can do that only by designing with authenticity to resonate with societies, cultures, and human values. As we say at Samsung, “Be Bold. Resonate with Soul.” —Federico Casalegno, PhD, IDSA Federico Casalegno is the head of the Samsung Design Innovation Center (SDIC) in San Francisco, CA, and the head of Experience Planning in Seoul.
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ORIGAMI TO THE RESCUE
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he Aplat Culinary Design Collection is a zero-waste design and manufacturing company that creates simple, functional organic cotton products for sharing food and wine. All our goods are sustainably manufactured in San Francisco. When the COVID-19 crisis and order to shelter-in-place began, Aplat’s usual business and sales came to a halt. On March 17, 2020, all nonessential businesses and schools closed in San Francisco, including local factories and suppliers. Aplat’s studio too. In a state of disbelief and panic, as many of us felt, I strategized about reducing expenses. I had to let go of overhead staff and furlough contract partners. Only a team of three remained: the digital director, the client communications manager, and me. Among the three of us, I was the only one left in the studio, where I frantically submitted loan applications for over 10 different government relief funds and grants, for which I am still waiting for approval. A New Purpose Although I was concerned about the survival of Aplat’s business, the greater urgency was to stop the spread of the coronavirus. The severe shortage of medical masks for healthcare workers was a problem I knew I could help to solve quickly. The call to action was loud and clear: make and donate as many masks as possible. I joined rising organizations like Mask For Heroes, Mask4Medicine, and RAW Artists communities to take action. To design a better mask meant one that could comfortably fit all the faces in my family, from a large French nose to a flat Korean nose as well as a teen and a tween. It took seven days to design the Aplat mask, from research and prototype to final design. I researched many masks in the market, those made from cloth and N95 designs. I rapidly prototyped over 50 different masks, making refinements and testing them on my family to ensure it would fit a wide range of face shapes and sizes. The final Aplat mask design follows Aplat’s circular design practice with a guiding principle of origami folds,
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simple pure square geometry without radii or curves. This enabled a zero-waste pattern for production with perfect control over the yield. Similar to our Aplat dish covers, each mask production cut yields a new product: Aplat party garland. Like the culinary totes for food and wine, the masks are 100% organic cotton, washable, reusable, and biodegradable at end of their life. On March 27, we launched the Aplat mask online in nine color options, along with a free downloadable pattern for people to sew at home for personal use. The mask pattern design went viral overnight along with a massive community of mask makers sewing with us around the world. The direct messages we received were overwhelming, heartfelt, and inspiring. Things happened rather quickly after that. We were featured in the media, including as one of USA Today’s top picks for masks produced in America. Forbes even featured the mask in an article about designers who have stepped up to answer the challenge of the need for masks. Thanks to social media, we were able to support our buy one, donate one mask campaign to fund a portion of our masks. Designers and colleagues supported us on GoFundMe. In just four weeks, we surpassed our goal of providing over 15,000 masks to healthcare and essential workers, donating to hospitals, public services, hospitality, food service, grocery stores, and at-risk individuals. Although we are a team of three women, as the founder and designer (plus a mom with kids in the background on Google Classroom and Zoom), it fell to me to oversee design and manufacturing in three factories, quality checking products, and packing and shipping over 1,000 masks a day. I’ve become an expert on designing on the fly; creating product descriptions postcards, packing slips, and graphic inserts; taking photography for the Web and social media; talking to trademark and patent attorneys (for the mask), and authorizing licensing agreements for the masks. My children helped label packages too. Each night around 8 p.m., my husband and I would drive our car full of priority mail orders
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to a 24-hour USPS shipping yard in San Francisco where only semitrucks were driving in. Thankfully, I had Min and Tina working remotely, virtually managing the website and updating content daily, monitoring sales and inventory, answering customer questions and concerns, and tracking online orders and inventory. It Takes a Family The shift Aplat made from culinary products to masks was possible because we were able to use the same material, supplies, and resources we had on hand. To manufacture the Aplat mask, I turned to the same factories and suppliers who’ve been making our culinary and wine collection. This year Aplat celebrated its fifth birthday on April 22, 2020 (Earth Day); my vision for starting a zero-waste design and manufacturing company was possible because of the factory partnerships I’ve fostered over the years. These factories are all women-owned businesses right here in San Francisco, who’ve been the heart of the industry here for over 40 years. They are like family to me, and the close partnership and the trust we’ve built has allowed us to produce masks with incredible craftsmanship, hard work, quality, and speed. As I write this, they continue to sew, with a goal of producing 35,000 masks by mid-summer. This has been a ridiculous amount of work, but we are ready to support the ongoing need for personal protective equipment along with attending to our regular culinary and
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wine tote customers. We continue to supply donated masks to healthcare-related clinics and essential workers. Our next big production campaign will be in partnership with South American cut-and-sew factories that are still in lockdown with COVID-19 numbers rising. Our goal is to get them food, water, and masks. And as businesses are beginning to reopen, we are now supplying local wineries, restaurants, museums, and design retail stores nationwide with masks for their staff. Once I started producing medical masks for hospitals back in March, I became an essential worker and never really experienced shelter-in-place. Instead I and those who helped make Aplat masks have worked harder than ever. It felt like I was launching a start-up without much thought but great demand. I continue to figure things out as I go, listening to and learning from customer and redesigning how we do business online and how we support our partners as we discover the new norms of social awareness and distance. —Shujan Bertrand, IDSA shujan@aplat.com; IG: @aplatsf Industrial designer and mom-entrepreneur, Shujan Bertrand is the founder of Aplat Inc., a culinary design collection that celebrates the moment of sharing food, wine, and flowers for an everyday zerowaste lifestyle.
Virtual Event
DIVE
DEEP
WOMEN REGISTER I NT O D AY D E S I G N October 6 - 7, 2020 A gathering built to recognize the unique talents, initiatives and challenges of women in the industrial design industry. Join us (virtually of course) for two days of dialogue and fellowship with some of the leading female and female-identified designers who are making an impact. Hear from designers who represent all stages of a career and who work across a broad spectrum of practice areas including industrial design, UX, service design, and more. idsa.org/WID2020
Proudly supported by
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QUARANTINED ’N CHILLIN’
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t a companywide town hall on March 13, 2020, Ford leadership announced that Ford Motor Company would be working from home until further notice. The first thing that popped into my head was, I’m going to miss the little moments interacting with all the incredible people at Ford (a company I just moved across the country for). The moments of filling my coffee cup while saying good morning to others who work on different projects, walking past other collaboration spaces to get inspired, and eating lunch in a common area. I asked myself, Now that we are all living in isolation, what is the best way I can create casual breaks for my community to enjoy? Can I bring many diverse voices together and help those that might be stressed or anxious during this time? I immediately went into ideation mode and started thinking through what this experience would look like, how I could create moments for my community to say hi or to break out of their design mindset. I found that using Instagram Live would allow me to host casual conversations, and there is no limit to who can join if and when they want. I contacted my friend Helen Haggerty to create an illustration that I could add to the graphics and started posting about it on Instagram, asking if anyone wanted to chat live. I called it Quarantined ’N Chillin’, a series of casual 60-minute conversations with students, VPs, directors, leads, designers, and professors over Instagram Live every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Over 10
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weeks, I held 20 conversations with a variety of friends in the design community. We dove into such diverse topics as technology, design education, passions, design research, influencers, and community. Not only did I receive great feedback from my community about the inspiration they got from listening in, but I also learned so much about the world through others’ eyes. Two main insights have stuck with me and inspired me even after the project ended. The New Casual Networking One of my greatest takeaways from doing these live chats was the realization that people feel alone and are missing deeper relationships. This is particularly true for those who are just building their network. Young designers and students are missing opportunities to traditionally network at IDSA meetups, conferences, and SHiFT Design Camp and with professionals visiting their schools. They now have to find the courage to message someone on LinkedIn or send emails randomly. It’s not easy to message a VP of Microsoft, hold a conversation with a new connection, or ask for advice from a seasoned professional, for myself included. When I attended SHiFT, I learned that if I consistently put someone on a pedestal because of their title or the company they work for, I will prevent myself from building deeper connections. During this pandemic, Quarantined ’N Chillin’ illustrated that people are people no matter their title or company. We are kids, we are parents, we all struggle with Wi-Fi,
and we are stressed in this time of COVID-19. We are all human. And because this project was able to illustrate that, connections were made. Young and experienced professionals alike discovered topics they had in common and gained the confidence to reach out over Instagram to start a relationship and build their network casually. The Breaks in Music In my final week, I spoke with Aaron Aalto, founder and designer at Beautiful Constraints. We talked about the power of silence in music, the breaks that make the tones and pitches more powerful and heard. This concept of a break in music instantly brought me back to the purpose of this project. Quarantined ’N Chillin’ created breaks in people’s everyday work life, and it allowed me to create breaks in the fast-paced and sometimes chaotic music of my life in design. My second takeaway was how important these breaks are to our creativity. The moments we stop to fill up a coffee cup or help someone set up for a workshop are the interludes most of us need to break us out of the deep thoughts we, as designers, can easily get wrapped up in. How many of us have spent hours looking at a wall of Post-it notes or sketches or a CAD model in Solidworks and been interrupted by someone’s random question—only to then realize that it was high time to step back and take a break. Quarantined ’N Chillin’ was not only that break for me but also for many of the people
who tuned in. We as creatives, no matter if we are in a studio or at home by ourselves or with family and friends, need these serendipitous moments to make us more creative. While some of my team members were building and manufacturing masks, I used the resources I had available to make the deepest impact I could. I want to thank everyone who joined me for conversations and everyone who encouraged me and sent me messages afterward. I encourage anyone reading this to give yourself a break from your thoughts and what you’re doing and reach out to a friend or family member, or someone you met at a conference, and ask them how they are doing. Let these unplanned, casual interludes infuse your creativity. The most powerful thing about design is the community. Take advantage of it. —Meghan Preiss meghanpreiss@gmail.com; www.meghanpreiss.com
Meghan Preiss is a design researcher and strategist at D-Ford, a strategic design and qualitative research lab within Ford Motor Company. She believes that design is lost without a community surrounding it.
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AND THEN WE ALL TAUGHT ONLINE…
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he last time I was aware that I was living through a historic moment was when the Berlin Wall came down and we were all dancing on top of it next to the Brandenburg Gate in November 1989. This time there is no celebrating. In March 2020, one academic institution after another made the call to move all teaching online. At first there were just loose inquiries from the administration, such as, Could you envision teaching some or all of your classes online for a few days or weeks? Then all of a sudden, for many of us overnight, the decision was made to go 100% virtual. At the University of Texas at Austin, we had a whopping two weeks to learn new platforms, tools, apps, and programs to reenvision and reframe our curriculum. We had to figure out how to deliver very hands-on studio courses that at their core are about working through problem-solving by making and testing. Other institutions weren’t so lucky; they had only one weekend. Few of us realized at the time that this situation might stick around for a while. At this point we don’t even know for how long. However, as designers we see opportunities where others might only see problems by asking, How might we learn from living in this pandemic during this unprecedent moment in recent history? Specifically for industrial design education the question is, What can we learn from this situation that might inform how we teach in the future whether online or in person? The following are some of my takeaways from these past six weeks of teaching in the virtual space. Takeaway #1: Create a sense of community and trust by sharing honest moments. Building trust is one of the most important aspects in the ID classroom. Providing a safe space to share work and give and receive feedback is crucial for a productive and positive learning environment. During this current situation, many of us had the advantage of having started the term in the physical classroom, but others met their classes for the first time in the virtual space. Re-creating the serendipitous synergies that happen in the classroom are one of the hardest aspects of teaching
online. For example, how might we re-create the beginning of class when everybody gets in, chats, and shares what they did over the weekend? How might we build trust when in-person interactions are limited to a screen? In our ID class we created a routine we called the “weekly check-in.” We started the week by spending 20-30 minutes sharing what happened in the past week that we loved, that inspired or surprised us, that didn’t go so well, and other random news. Everybody voted on what they wanted to talk about. The topics with the most votes were discussed. Every week I asked my students if they still wanted to do this activity, and every week they were game. We enjoyed this so much that we have already talked about how we might replicate what we did in the virtual space once we are (hopefully) back in the classroom. Takeaway #2: Create a natural flow of communication and provide meaningful feedback. Being in the virtual space is awkward. Most sensory inputs are removed, and we are constricted to staring at a screen with tiny rectangles, sometimes seeing actual people and sometimes only seeing a name or a picture. In my ID class we had the benefit of everybody being able to turn their camera on, which made a huge difference. We had to learn how to keep a conversation going and how to present and provide meaningful feedback. In the classroom, everyone writes their feedback on sticky notes using the framework “I love, I wish, what if?” and then shares it with the class. We tried using this framework in the virtual space with a virtual interactive diagram I set up, but it was hard to write notes on the diagram while listening to the presentation. One of the systems that worked the best for us was having a process for determining who would perform each role and activity. We started with one volunteer presenter and two volunteers giving feedback. After the presentation and the feedback were given, the volunteers decided who would present next and who would provide feedback, thus avoiding the awkward silence of “Who is going next?” In addition, the two providing feedback knew they had to focus during the presentation in order to be able to provide
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meaningful and productive critique. Which they did! During my years of teaching, I can say that this group provided each other with some of the most meaningful and insightful feedback I have witnessed. Staying focused in the virtual space for an extended time is hard. With this process we were able to be productive and learn from and pay attention to each other. In this instance, the virtual space made it actually easier to stay focused as compared to being in a large classroom. Takeaway #3: Create creative virtual spaces that alleviate the challenges of working online. Industrial design education builds heavily on interactivity and feedback loops. Unlike traditional lecture-based programs, we work in class through hands-on exercises, often in teams where we pin up work, provide immediate feedback, and go to the shop to build quick mock-ups to test the ideas. One of my students, Austin McGinnis, shared with me his insights about how this translates to the virtual space: Online learning can work, but it’s best suited to certain classroom styles. Generally, the more impersonal the classroom, the more adaptable it is to an online format. Large lecture classes work great. In fact, I see almost no reason to ever return to in-person 150-student lectures. My online psychology professors have nearly perfected the online large lecture format. Classes consist of chat rooms to discuss topics with other students and there’s a live messaging feature that allows one to ask the professors questions. One drawback is the lack of peer interaction outside of class, but introducing an online discussion forum where students could meet each other and perhaps exchange contact information might fill in that gap. … For smaller, more interactive classes, the online format doesn’t seem to work as well. I think our ID class would agree that we all preferred working together in person. We could easily bounce ideas off of each other, show each other sketches and collaboratively build prototypes. In response, our ID class met together virtually during each studio day. We were lucky that everybody had decent internet access and that we managed to meet even when we were in very different time zones. However, not everybody had a quiet work environment or even a desk.
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Staying focused was not easy for everyone equally, but then is it always easy to stay focused when in the classroom? Having the right work environment is crucial whether meeting virtually or in person. Isabella Russo, another student in my class, shared the following takeaway: “There is no conventional way to work online; everyone has their own way to be more efficient at work. What is really important is to try things out until something works for you.” How did we address the challenges of interactivity and visual ways of working through the process? We met using Zoom and worked together in Mural.co, a visual platform that allows for preplanning on my end and interactivity during class on the students’ side. In some instances, the virtual platform worked, much to my surprise, a lot better than some of the previous in-classroom activities. The virtual activities were more focused, and the visual templates I specifically developed for each session with detailed process steps seemed to have made it clearer for some students what to do. The activities would have been the same in the classroom, but the additional written instructions were beneficial for working through the process. In addition, we can go back and look at the work. My Biggest Takeaway This pandemic is scary and we don’t even know if and when we will be able to look back and say, “We made it through!” What we do know is that designers are resilient, notorious problem-solvers. We are equipped with a plethora of extremely useful skills; we see the light where others see the dark. Now more than ever industrial design education is important because we are educating the next generation of problem finders and solvers who will be even better equipped to deal with uncertainty than any of us ever were. Isabella said it best in one of her biggest takeaways: “How important it is to use creative problem-solving skills in every aspect of your life.” —Verena Paepcke-Hjeltness, IDSA verena@iastate.edu Verena Paepcke-Hjeltness has been an ID faculty member for more than 15 years with professional ID experience in Germany and the U.S. Her research is focused on changing how people see and solve problems through design thinking methodologies.
IDEA 2020
Winners Ceremony Virtual Event September 16th
idsa.org/IDEA INNOVATION SUMMER 2020
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ALL IN THE FAMILY
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his spring has proven to be the ultimate challenge for Enlisted Design. But along the way, it also proved to be the ultimate opportunity to exercise our craft as designers and grow closer as a work family. It has forced us to put our design process to the test by exploring, ideating, testing, learning, and, ultimately, adapting to a new normal with shelter-in-place and remote working. The process worked, as it always does, giving us new ways of communicating, new tools for collaboration, and new abilities to fully function as a remote design team. The Same But Different Due to COVID-19, Enlisted began transitioning to remote working in early March, then completely remote on March 13. For a design studio with 35 employees across two studios (Oakland, CA, and Salt Lake City, UT), it was no small task to set up shop in so many locations. Because our design work spans the physical as well as the digital worlds, each designer had to set up their own home studios, quickly taking the tools they needed: laptops, desktops, render towers, monitors, Pantone chips, material samples, 3D printers, headphones, task chairs, markers, and calipers. At first the transition to remote working seemed impossible: slow internet speeds, noisy roommates, crying babies, and homeschooled teens were hurdles we had to overcome, like pieces of a puzzle that all needed to find their place. The first week was particularly challenging. The
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second week was better, and the third week we began hitting our stride. Seeing all our designers not just adapt but begin to thrive was inspiring. And experiencing their bedrooms, kitchens, living rooms, backyards, and even closets metamorphize into studios (and sometimes escapes from a three-year-old child) began to bring us closer together as a collective family. Our amazing ops team kicked into overdrive, sending surprises in the mail to each employee every week: puzzles, cards, Amazon gift cards, toilet paper, and coloring books. And instead of merely including the regular swag items and gift cards in the welcome kits we sent our three new COVID19 hires, we added toilet paper, masks, and hand sanitizer. Fortunately, with clients spanning the globe, we were already well versed in remote work tools. Slack, Zoom, WeChat, and Mural have been part of our toolkit for a number of years, but now they were absolute essentials. Our biggest challenge wasn’t learning new tools; it was using them to deliver the uniquely collaborative “Enlisted experience.” Our goal with every client interaction is simple: it should be the best part of their day. Our personalities, expertise, optimism, and creativity need to come through each video call, just the way they would if we were in the same room. Right now, this means showing up to every meeting dressed like we would be if we were in the studio. It means that we’re on time to each call with our video on so we can see
Above: Enlisted hosted a birthday party for staff on Zoom (photo: Beau Oyler). Left: The home office of senior industrial designer Luis Velazquez (photo: Luis Velazquez).
and hear each other. This shows our clients that we’re fully engaged in the conversation and that we’re passionate about the work we’re doing. These small practices have allowed us to digitally offer a highly collaborative experience. Is it the same as being in the room together with hundreds of sketches on the walls and sticky notes, ad markers, and half sheets spread all over the table? No. And no matter how accustomed we become to this new normal, I long for analogue workshops, sketching on the whiteboard with our clients, and having drinks together to celebrate the winning concept. The transition has been a success—not because of our ability to adapt to remote working but because we’ve been able to translate our uniquely collaborative experience in a completely new way. Co-Siblings The truth is that we started this transition long before COVID-19. Since 2008, Enlisted has strived to create a family culture in our studios. Designers treat each other more like siblings than co-workers. Helping and uplifting each other has become the expectation. Along the way, I’ve overheard team members referring to us as the “Enlisted Fam.” It’s a mentality that’s allowed us to create an all-inthis-together culture that, in turn, has helped us become more unified through the challenging times. As our team has grown, we’ve learned that drama tears us apart, while trauma brings us together. Sometimes that trauma can be
an unreasonable deadline or ever-shifting client deliverables. But we find that when the Fam is knit together, we’re capable of accomplishing the impossible. If I were already in the future looking back at this time, I would guess that our biggest success wasn’t that our businesses survived the pandemic or that we figured out how to effectively work remotely. Our biggest success will be that being forced to be apart has enabled us to grow closer together as an Enlisted Fam. I hope this experience isn’t unique to Enlisted. Instead, I hope the entire design community is experiencing the same thing. With all the sadness, stress, economic turmoil, and sickness that COVID-19 has thrust upon our world, we as designers, thinkers, creators, and makers have an essential role in creating a new future with new processes that allow us to design more meaningful products and brands that improve lives. —Beau Oyler beau@enlisteddesign.com As CEO of Enlisted Design, Beau Oyler leads his team in creating next-level product experiences for the world’s most sought-after brands.
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THE VIRTUAL WATERCOOLER: MOVING COLLABORATION ONLINE
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he watercooler is a classic symbol of modern corporate office life. In an otherwise hostile sea of efficiency, it’s a place where we can experience spontaneous interactions with the people around us. This notion of chance encounters has become a maxim for those trying to build collaborative environments. In Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, he remarks that Jobs’ fanatical planning of the Pixar building “promoted encounters and unplanned collaborations.” In adapting to this crisis as a designer on an in-house design team for a large technology company, I have found that these watercooler moments are more important than ever. Now that the physical has become virtual, we must find new ways to collaborate and spontaneously interact. Before our entire design team had to leave the office and move online, one of our favorite spots for spontaneous interaction, our “watercooler,” was the large prototyping table at the end of our open-office neighborhood. A big part of our design culture was grabbing other designers, having quick conversations, and getting the feedback we needed. Whether we just built a model and needed someone to interact with it or we wanted to run a study on a new proof of concept, the prototyping table was the place where we all gathered and drove our design process along. When our office closed, our team was forced to figure out how
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to bring our watercooler with us. Learning how to facilitate collaboration and spontaneous interactions online has not been easy. Moving an entire design process exclusively online, especially one that relies heavily on in-person dialogue and activity, is a shock to any design team’s system. How do you get feedback on your design work? How can you build prototypes? Will you be able to build consensus when you are all remote? While adjusting to this crisis is hard, especially for designers who thrive on collaboration, it is important to be patient and use this time to listen to yourself and your teammates and be honest about what is and is not working. Here are some of the ways my team has adapted our design process: Create more spontaneous interaction: It’s difficult to foster an online social culture that doesn’t feel like more work. We have found two things to be helpful. The first is scheduling shorter, more frequent meetings with our immediate project teams. One of my project teams meets three times per week starting with a 15-minute call every Monday in which we quickly go over what we need to get done that week. I have found that this frequency allows us to keep on track, work out issues we might have, and keep us feeling like we’re part of a team. We also have a social hour every Friday morning where
the team gathers and has more informal conversations, sharing news about our lives (and updates on our basil gardens). At first, the team didn’t make these a priority, and most people skipped them, but we quickly realized how important this social interaction is. They replace our walks to the cafeteria, our premeeting chatter, and our after-work hangouts. They allow us to connect with the people who only two months ago we spent a large part of our waking hours with. Gather feedback from team members: Since the move to remote work, we have conducted three internal surveys about a wide range of topics, including our general mood, if we feel we have clear direction and support, and if we have all of the equipment we need to effectively work from home. A lot of information communicated in an office space, much of it nonverbal, we cannot get online. Seeing who is working on what, who is talking with who, and people’s demeanor and nonverbal cues has been essential. Having the ability for the team to give and get feedback creates solidarity and a place to be heard. Build time into the day for skill building and personal development: It is easy, especially for designers, to get caught up in the day-to-day activities of work, but it is more important than ever to take a break and reflect on some of your long-term goals. For me, I have scheduled
two learning hours per week where I stop my work, turn off my email, put away my phone, and learn something new. The activities range pretty widely, but I always try to learn a new skill that I can use to improve my design process. For example, last month I spent two weeks doing tutorials on the new Adobe Fresco app for iPads. Yesterday, I spent my hour on my elevator pitch, learning how to tell someone in 60 seconds or less who I am and what I do. As a designer, it is critical to keep learning and be intentional about making time for yourself and your goals. As we all adjust to this new normal, it is important to find ways to encourage spontaneous interaction and collaboration—both within our teams and within ourselves. And don’t forget that we’re all in this together. If there’s anything designers know how to do, it’s making order out of chaos. How can you collaborate in new ways to make order out of this new chaos we’re all facing? —Alden Rose, IDSA aldendrose@gmail.com Alden Rose is a connector of ideas and a creator of things. She is currently a hardware user experience designer at Lenovo, working in an innovation lab generating new concepts for the core business.
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DESIGNING WITH SPEED FOR A CRITICAL NEED
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hances are that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is not high on your inspiration list when starting a design project. However, maybe it’s time to give Maslow a little more thought. As designers, we often get caught up in the details of form, finish, function, interaction and striving for a delightful user experience. But when it comes to crisis situations, all these become luxuries. Looking at Maslow’s pyramid, safety makes up a big chunk of the foundation. It’s stacked just above the basic physiological needs like food, water, and air. In a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, nothing matters more than keeping people safe. Speed matters too. There is no time to waste when you’re helping people stay safe. To move quickly in a time of crisis, you need a tightknit team to focus on achieving a common goal. The conditions of the pandemic, while dire, created the perfect breeding ground for rapid iteration, innovation, and bringing people together—even as they had to stay apart. Designers and engineers from all industries heeded the call and rose to the challenge of keeping healthcare workers safe. Thanks to this community of amazing thinkers, makers, and suppliers willing to pitch in, we now have more variations of shields, masks, and ventilators. Many of these, as of this writing, are headed to the hospitals that desperately need them. An Urgent Call for Help In March as the rate of infection grew in the United States, it became apparent that the lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers was about to put a lot of lives at risk. Lennon Rodgers, director of the Grainger Engineering Design Innovation Lab at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW), upon an urgent request from UW Hospital, had already begun prototyping face shields made from parts found at Home Depot and local craft stores. Rodgers needed help improving the design to scale up and
meet the hospital’s request for 1,000 units. He turned to Jesse Darley, Delve’s director of mechanical engineering, who connected with Brian Ellison, Midwest Prototyping’s business development manager, to improve on Rodgers’ design. Their goal was to make it simpler, easy to produce in large quantities, lighter, and more comfortable for users. There wasn’t time to dither over the finer details. This was all about making a product that would meet the critical needs of the users. As such, it was paramount that the Badger Shield, as it’s now known, meet the hospital’s requirements. Rodgers’ wife, a UW Hospital anesthesiologist, advised the team. It also had to be constructed of materials readily available in large quantities. While the team continued to iterate, the threat of COVID-19 grew: Wisconsin went from two diagnosed patients on March 9, 2020, to over 800 by March 27. UW Hospital approved the shield on March 19 for infection control. Rodgers posted Darley’s drawings for the Badger Shield design online for anyone to use. Within days, the team cranked out over 1,000 face shields for UW Hospital staff. With the design now open source, it didn’t take long for word to travel. Local equipment manufacturers, suppliers, and even Ford jumped in to help. The automotive company began making over 100,000 face shields per week. That’s a huge leap for a project started just a couple weeks before. The story reached news outlets, inspiring others to take on the PPE shortage. After receiving their first shipment of face shields from Midwest Prototyping, UW Hospital sent Rodgers a list of their most critical needs. Near the top were fabric hoods that could work with their powered air purifying respirators (PAPR). These hoods provide a bubble of filtered air around the wearer’s head, keeping them protected from airborne contaminants.
Right: Nurses and doctors from UW Health helped test the face shield.
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Once again, the Badger Shield team worked fast. They recognized that most of the face shield could be used for the PAPR hood, but needed a cut-and-sew design to bring it together. Darley tapped Corin Frost, Delve’s director of visual communications and master seamstress, who jumped at the chance to help. While she was designing the first pattern based on a current PAPR hood, the team was designing a universal valve so that different blower systems could connect to it. Karl Williamson at the UW Makerspace assisted with laser cutting Frost’s pattern out of Tyvek, which appeared to be an ideal material: light, breathable, and abundant. But it proved difficult to sew around the face shield lens, and the team knew a multipiece pattern would be inefficient. Frost’s goal was to make a one-piece hood, so she used muslin to prototype a new pattern. She experimented with medical-grade materials that were available at the Delve office from previous projects, made a list of critical features, and determined what could be simplified. Darley signed himself up to be the hood-fit model. He tried on the hood standing on Frost’s front porch as they talked through the storm door, working out necessary changes. After a thorough cleaning, Darley shared the prototypes with UW Hospital staff at the loading dock while using his phone to video the testing session. Using FaceTime that evening, the team discussed the alterations needed based on staff feedback. Frost adjusted the pattern and printed an update for cutting and sewing the next prototype. After construction of each prototype, Darley picked it up and arranged for another round of testing at the hospital. It took only four days to reach version seven, when they nailed it. It was ready to be vetted by a pattern engineer and production designers. Ellison had connected the team with Clothiers Design Source, a soft-goods manufacturer in Minnesota that was producing face masks. Frost emailed the digital pattern and instructions, packaged the latest prototype, and overnighted it to the manufacturer. They kicked off the production evaluation and sourcing effort the next day via Zoom, explaining the prototyping process, the learnings, and the design criteria. With the download complete, the production designers streamlined the pattern, and construction for production started. Material sourcing was the next hurdle. The team called contacts who might be able to help, from a medical textile company to outdoor clothing companies to production managers in New York fashion houses. All of this happened in a little more than a week. At the time of writing, the details for the PAPR hood production are being worked out. It’s important to acknowledge that the donation of time and goods only gets you so far. To encourage companies big and small to retool and switch their lines to production of PPEs, there needs to be a sustainable and realistic fee structure. This
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allows manufacturers to pay their employees and supply the huge numbers of shields and hoods needed to protect the frontline workers putting their lives at risk to help us. The urgency of these efforts cannot be understated, and this group of makers and doers took others’ needs to heart. But there is something else, something more than speed. It’s really trust that is the critical element in fulfilling the need for safety, and it’s what made both projects a success. Not only is it imperative that healthcare workers trust the product to protect them; the team designing and manufacturing it needs to trust each other to get it done right. While it’s good to get a lot of ideas out there, it takes a tightknit community who are connected and know where to look for the right kind of help, not unlike the group that formed the Badger Shield team. Designing for the New Normal As designers, we have a special skill set that can offer a great deal more than simply making something. We’re trained to find the right problem to solve first, rather than creating a solution and looking for a need. We’re used to dealing with ambiguity and making progress without having all the answers. It’s important that we find ways to contribute in a meaningful way. Yes, we need to address the dire needs we’re facing in this crisis, but we must also play a part in how the world changes in its aftermath. We’re working on the basic level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs now, but industrial designers will play a big part in determining how we adapt to the new normal. We can use this pandemic as a catalyst for meaningful and important change. It’s hard to predict where we’re going and how long it’s going to take to get back to any semblance of normal. No doubt, there will be plenty of challenges to solve in a post-COVID world. Our desire to pull together as a design community to solve problems should never fade. Stay connected in your community. There are so many places and people in the world that need our help. Jump in and make a difference.
—Michael Hammond, IDSA, and Corin Frost mh@thinkforwarddesign.com; corin.frost@delve.com
Michael Hammond has designed product experiences for nearly two decades. Formerly Delve’s ID director, he’s on sabbatical studying the bridges between digital and physical design. With a master’s in industrial design from Auburn, Corin Frost is both the director of visual communications and a soft goods product designer for Delve.
U RGEN T DESIG N
FOR PEOPLE, NOT PROFIT
Among the many lessons resulting from the pandemic, the greatest of these reminded me why I became a designer and the importance of helping those most in need. In March 2020, Stellar Design joined a global team of designers, engineers, scientists, clinicians, and manufacturers to design, produce, and distribute the Pneumask, a full-face PPE made from a modified snorkel mask to protect frontline healthcare workers from the virus. This project upended all convention. To respond effectively and collectively to such urgent real-world need, many pre-COVID-19 barriers dissolved nearly instantly, allowing us to work virtually with a global team and a global reach, design unencumbered by sharing intellectual property, invite true collaboration by making our solution open source, and, most importantly, work toward a common goal for our fellow humans.
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Above: A clinician in Utah testing an iteration of the Pneumask. Right: The author rode 25 miles on a bike trainer to push the limits of sweat, heat, condensation, and CO2 buildup on the the Pneumask.
And Thus It Began It was a chilly winter Friday in early January when I hopped on our weekly call with my operations manager in Wuhan, China, to review all the projects and checkpoints. Things felt very much by the book ... until the very end. Our operations manager mentioned that there had been a flu-like outbreak in Wuhan and local authorities were preparing to take measures to contain it. Nonetheless, the news didn’t raise any alarm bells. Next week’s call was sobering. The city had imposed a lockdown, families were told to stay in place, and all businesses were preparing to come to a grinding halt. This overlapped the traditional vacation period that every company in China celebrates at this time of year, Chinese New Year. During this time, many people travel far and wide back to their home cities and villages to reconnect with family and relatives who they may have not seen since the last New Year. Here is where our COVID-19 story began. We stayed in constant contact with our groups in Wuhan, Donghuan, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong, doing our best to understand and sympathize with all our friends in need. They mentioned that it was becoming increasingly hard to get their hands on N95 masks, not only for themselves but also their families. We gathered as many masks as we could find in the Bay Area and online and shipped them to those who needed them the most. At that moment, it occurred to me that if this virus spreads, we would be needing them (lots of them) here in the U.S. too.
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Emergency Design Everything began to change when on an early morning in mid-March I saw a story on my LinkedIn feed about a design group in Italy that was creating a PPE solution for frontline workers by modifying an off-the-shelf scuba mask. Its elegance and simplicity resonated with me. Reading about the Italian healthcare system being overrun with patients and procedures and the shortage of PPE pulled at my heartstrings. Being of Italian descent, I felt a deep pain and reached out to as many people as I could in the country offering to help in any way possible. As I waited for their response, I began to look for a way to help locally. In a matter of hours, I discovered the Billings Group in Montana who was in their initial days of developing a 3D printable reusable face mask for frontline medical workers that was slated for testing and FDA submission. It was time to lean in! I quickly pivoted the Stellar team to help by modeling, building, and testing parts through 3D printing. Throughout this process, we shared our design developments on platforms like LinkedIn, GrabCad, and Facebook. In a matter of days, we were able to get parts to the Billings team to work toward FDA approval. We were off and running. Through more LinkedIn serendipity, I connected with the Prakash Lab at Stanford, which was just spooling up a scuba PPE solution similar to the one I had seen in Italy, a solution that would eventually become the Pneumask. We connected with the Lab and in a matter of hours were added
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to their Slack, Google Docs, and Google Drive to share documentation and templates and to use as a brainstorming platform. We quickly got up to speed and began to help. Our team at Stellar built a couple early 3D CAD files and put them on the 3D printer to actualize some design and engineering ideas. As our ideas started coming off the printer, we considered how to approach the geometry and production of the core part, a scuba mask to 22-millimeter ISO adapter. This adapter would allow a set of viral medical filters currently used in hospitals to attach to the snorkel mask, creating a full-face PPE solution. We wondered, How could we create this part to be easily and quickly injection molded? Who could be a partner in this production build? How could we quickly scale this to meet a large impending need? Being able to focus on the industry standard ISO adapter, which most every medical filter uses, helped to narrow the scope but escalated the need to focus engineering details and design for manufacturing and tooling. As we bench tested many solutions, we were refining the design and starting to get more eyes on the project. Knocking Down Barriers Part of the original directive from the Prakash Lab was to eliminate financial barriers to enable any party, large or small, to contribute to developing a solution. As awareness of the project spread, an influx of people who wanted to contribute, from a local 3D printer to large corporate entities, both domestic and international, stepped up to contribute, companies like Boston Scientific, Autodesk, Formlabs, and PrintPrezz. Besides working with Boston Scientific engineers to develop an adapter solution that worked with the 22-millimeter filter design, we created fittings for the widely accepted ¼-turn elastomeric filters from 3M and Honeywell and additional universal connection solutions that would expand the use cases and applicable filtration solutions. The next step was to quickly test, validate, and refine the mask. Along with the Prakash Lab and the other team members, we pursued clinical validation by running tests for qualitative and quantitative fit, CO2 buildup, pressure drop, filtration efficiency, and decontamination protocols and refined the long-term use and ergonomics. Stellar designed and rapid prototyped parts for fixtures and jigs that the Lab team used in testing. This is the collective moment when the Pneumask was born. As we locked in on a design solution, we kicked it into high gear, getting ready for not only production but also FDA approval. We ran through many geometry solutions and printed and tested them to see how it all performed. In parallel, the Prakash Lab worked tirelessly to take ideas
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into lab-tested solutions, all while recording and tracking the progress. With the hard work of the local, international, and expert groups, such as the Boston Scientific team and Rajan Patel from iO Life Science, we were able to get an FDA revision 1 document submitted for review within five days— an unprecedented timeline—and we received the green light to distribute the product while full approval is pending. The next few days were amazing! More organizations arrived to help, companies like Medtronics, Walmart, GM, Waymo, Helena, Mitre, and Pall. We hopped on Zoom calls with each group to understand how they could help bring this design solution to fruition. Having an open-source project made it so easy to share our design, options, and opportunities, breaking down the typical corporate barriers. This was another indicator that we are living and working in different times. In pre-COVID 19 days, sharing files, design, IP, and production solutions (DFM, tooling CAD, material testing) would not normally occur between corporations unless they had a monetary attachment. With the part and tool designs complete, Boston Scientific ran the first production of parts, did testing and validation, and helped create the first wave parts that paired with the masks. The Pneumask was ready to go to work. Clinicians around the globe, some who had been part of the project team and others who were just in need, began to receive their Pneumasks and put them to use. Dr. Cristian Muniz Herrera from Chile, who played a big role in the development of the Pneumask, said, “As a clinical anesthesiologist who also works in intensive care, aerosols are an everyday hazard. For us, PPE is critical, and there is not enough for everyone. In this crisis, Pneumask can be a real game changer for all of us.” While production was ramping up, plans for wider deployment also began to take shape. With help of Helena and Mitre, we identified areas around the globe that were in short supply of full-face PPE and developed a plan for rolling out Pneumasks to those who were most in need. In the next phase of development, we transitioned to an international production partner with BIC (yes, the pen company). Boston Scientific sent the original tool to BIC to start running parts. With this longer-term rollout plan, things like choosing a filter, donning and doffing procedures, the decontamination protocol, configurations, fit, and voice amplification were all refined to address the urgent and realworld need. In particular, the filter selection guide became more important as we were now tapping into international healthcare systems, which have different configurations. Around this time Pall, a large filter corporation, stepped in to not only help with supply but co-develop a low-cost easy-to-distribute filter that fits Pneumask and any other 22-millimeter adapter. This project is currently still being
developed and has some very promising designs that will have a long-term impact. As we continue to analyze the project, new and ever-challenging scenarios continue to arise. Today, we are developing ideas that build on the initial Pneumask solution and learn from the clinicians on the frontline using it each and every day. The Long Tail Looking back on the project, I can’t help but think about all the people I was so fortunate to work with, including the amazing team at Prakash Lab. The benefits of removing all barriers in order to work toward a common goal was evident as we collaborated each day. The chemistry between our teams spread to every individual, company, and group who was a part of the effort. Everyone contributing their skills, know-how, and instincts to create action and build on each other’s work was amazing to be a part of. Without that, I’m not sure we could have created a solution for so many healthcare workers in such short order. The urgency of the situation allowed us to focus on the true goal. We responded to the emergency with design, engineering, testing, and good old-fashioned hard work. I’m really proud of what we were able to accomplish. It was a breath of fresh air to
know that the underlying motive was a solution for people, not profit. In times like these, our actions define us. The impact of this emergency design response and using our design skills to help those in need will forever be imprinted on how I work as a designer. It is our duty as a design community to understand and put into action how our thinking and skills can serve in situations like the one COVID-19 has presented to the world. This view may not be new to some, but I think most of us will forever look back on this time as a pivotal moment that defined industrial design. The design thinking process and skill set we are each armed with have prepared us to play an integral role in solving the urgent problems our world faces. COVID-19 just helped remind us that first and foremost we need to design for people, society, and our planet. Let’s not forget this time. —Dominic Peralta, IDSA dominic@stellar.design Dominic Peralta is the founder of Stellar Design LLC, a San Francisco Bay Area industrial design studio that strives to create lasting and meaningful work.
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A F I NAL T HO UG HT
OPPORTUNITY FOR CHANGE
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esigners graduating today are wholly unprepared for entering the workforce. That may seem like a bold claim; however, there is an abundance of anecdotal evidence in its favor. Recently, a designer straight out of school (who wishes to remain anonymous) was let go from their first job as a designer. The reason? Their skills were deemed insufficient to keep up with the rapid pace and demands of the industry. The company spent hours educating and coaching the designer, but in design, if you can’t hit the ground running, you become dead weight. This scenario is becoming far too common. Some companies have elected to not hire entry-level designers in favor of those who have at least a few years of experience—the skill set of the latter being more in-line with someone at the entry level. There is a gulf between design academia and the design profession, and it keeps widening. Renowned design researcher Don Norman has made it clear that the current design education system is failing us. In an interview in the MIT Technology Review titled “The Problem with Design Education,” he says that the designers of tomorrow need to be generalists, that is, have a foundation in multiple disciplines and be able to wear different hats as the job necessitates. Design education needs to expand beyond the traditional definition of design and embrace fields such as the sciences, engineering, and psychology. The reality is, according to Norman, “designers have almost no formal training in these topics.” A designer with even a rudimentary computer science background in 2007 would have been prepared for the sudden integration of physical and digital experiences in the age of the iPhone. The design industry is rapidly changing course. For example, hardware designers now need competency in UI/UX design as the two fields become more integrated, new materials and processes demand an understanding of chemistry, and user research has moved beyond a survey of generic personas toward a full-fledged profession in its own right. While these changes in industry reshape the definition of what it means to be an industrial designer, design education insists on maintaining the same trajectory without deviation. Unless this course is altered, our students will continue to be unprepared for what the industry of the future will demand of them. The four-year higher education model simply doesn’t work for design. Students need to be exposed to real-world
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design experiences such as internships and collaborative or sponsored projects in schools in order to understand and design within the real-world parameters in which designers work. If they remain inside the padded environment of academia, they are at a disadvantage when searching for a job in our extremely competitive field. Schools that integrate internships directly into their program, such as the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP) at the University of Cincinnati, graduate students with one to two years of work experience, experience that can’t be matched by one to two years of school alone. DAAP enjoys such a high job-placement rate because employers have trust in its graduates, who have honed their skills in the real world, rather than through simulated class projects. The recent global disruption in education has further exposed the flaws in the way design is taught. The silver lining is that we can utilize this moment to reflect and transition into a new phase of design education. Online courses do not have to be a detriment to education, but can open the door to new experiences. We can bridge the gap between academia and industry by leveraging the online design community and connecting students to realworld professionals. Educators can bring active designers into their virtual classrooms, and student work can reach wider audiences than a traditional gallery setting can. We need educators who can foresee trends and be willing to quickly adapt to the changes that come with integrating new technology. We don’t have to abandon traditional design values and processes, but we can’t rely on the past to drive future success. Design isn’t a standard career in which you can be successful by having sat in a classroom for four years and learned one particular skill set. We need an education model that is more closely integrated with industry, where students gain experience through real-world practice. We need educators who can leverage industry professionals and connect students to a diversity of content. We need multidisciplinary students competent in skills and disciplines outside of just design so they can adapt to challenges that may not have even existed during the course of their education. —Hector Silva and Dominic Montante hello@advdes.org; dom@montante.design
virtual event series IDSA presents Design Voices: a monthly recurring series of short form virtual design events that bring together top design leaders to present, discuss, and debate current trends and/or specific practice areas. Starting in May 2020, Design Voices will take place on the last Tuesday of the month. Each hour-long webinar offers an in-depth discussion and presentations from industry experts, followed by a moderated Q&A where attendees can post questions and interact with the presenters. Topics will be pulled from a variety of sources including IDSA’s Special Interest Sections, in-the-moment design trends, and subjects requested by our community. The goal is to create a regular forum for discourse that provides a rich well-spring of ideas and inspiration for participants. Design Voices are FREE for all current IDSA members and $10 / event for non-members. Advance registration for each event is required.
www.idsa.org/design-voices
The Design Foundation The Design Foundation was founded in 2001 by the Industrial Designers Society of America to produce charitable and educational programming for the advancement of the industrial design profession. Facilitating opportunities that expand the composition of designers in the profession, increasing access to industrial design programming, and offering more learning opportunities in schools and through local community outreach are integral values upon which the Design Foundation is built. Through its focus on education as the starting point for a successful career in industrial design, the Design Foundation also positions IDSA, as a professional membership organization, to be responsive to the present and better prepared for the future. Learn more at idsa.org/designfoundation