Unconventional wisdom
Red-light districts get a redesign, users create comic strips and Apple embraces open innovation (sort of)
Design against crime
Since the 17th century, locals and tourists have flocked to Amsterdam’s red-light district. But now a different type of temptation is on display in the windows of the world-famous Wallen district (above) as a fascinating new initiative is launched.
The Red Light Fashion Amsterdam project is rebranding the area as a centre for couture. Throughout 2008, 16 shop fronts formerly used by ladies of the night will become showcases for the city’s clothing designers.
The initiative is part of a crackdown on crime. Although prostitution has been legal since 2001 (and was tolerated for decades before that), money-laundering has moved into the industry.
Last year, more than 30 brothel permits were revoked and a non-profit housing agency bought a number of buildings in the area. Mariette Hoitink, of fashion agency HTNK, proposed giving former houses of ill repute new life by lending the space to designers, from high couture to street fashion.
The city has set a deadline of one year for the project to bring a new dynamic – and clientele – to the area. For the time being, brothels and boutiques will compete for tourists’ cash.
Education
For autistic children, playing and relaxing can be hard. Reactive Colours, a software project from the Cardiff School of Art and Design (CSAD), could be about to change that.
The software prompts users to respond to shapes, colours and movements on the screen after research showed that autistic children were drawn to toys such as spinning tops and kaleidoscopes. “It’s about using conventional technology in unconventional ways,” says Wendy Keay-Bright from CSAD. The aim is to make the software free for members to play on the web, and open up the source code to stimulate development.
Feedback from teachers suggests the software particularly helps children with very poor social communication skills and self-esteem to take control, develop social skills and concentrate. Most children have simply said it makes them feel good.
Trendspotting
For all its image as a maverick innovator, Apple has been cagey about letting others interface with its beautifully designed products. Though Apple worked with Nike in 2006 to produce a sensor and iPod Nano add-on that relayed information to runners, things have gone cold since.
But if Apple doesn’t provide the innovations for users, other companies will. The launch of the acclaimed miShare, a $100 ‘bridge’ that enables users to swap songs between two iPods in seconds, does something many users had hoped Apple would do. The gadget is even less popular with the music industry – which feels that file sharing is killing its business – than with Apple.
Apple’s resistance to such devices and applications is not pure intransigence.
There are real security concerns. Products like the iPhone are a software developer’s dream. But opening up the operating system could put users’ privacy at risk: contact lists could be pilfered, calls eavesdropped on and the device made vulnerable to viruses.
The user community, restricted to developing via the web, began hacking the iPhone to add their applications directly to the device. Apple’s response was to ‘brick’ (render useless) hacked iPhones via a software update, outraging innovators.
With a software development kit finally set for release, Apple may win its mavericks back. Andrew Reuter, a developer at Austin-based software company Journyx, says: ‘The kit will turn more attention to the iPhone. Third-party developers will start writing applications using it, which increases the popularity of the iPhone, which makes it a more desirable target platform, which causes more web developers to create apps that support the iPhone.’ The kit may, finally, make the iPhone the ubiquitous pocket device Apple wants it to be.
David Gentleman
Few designers can have made such an impact on British visual culture as 77-year-old David Gentleman, winner of the 2007 Prince Philip Designers Prize, organised by the Design Council. His work has featured on 100 British stamps and thousands see his murals at London’s Charing Cross tube station daily. The artist has also contributed posters to such diverse causes as the Stop the War Coalition and the National Trust, as well as illustrating hundreds of books. ‘I wanted to do stuff that would be seen,’ he tells DCM. ‘Working on my own has allowed me to do whatever I want.’
David Bott, director of innovation platforms for the UK’s Technology Strategy Board, outlines plans to stimulate creative thinking to deal with society’s most pressing issues.
Can the government use innovation to address the challenges that face society? It’s a question the new Technology Strategy Board – an executive non-departmental public body with a remit to boost UK growth and productivity – is trying to answer.
The board has already worked on two “Innovation Platforms” concerning more efficient transport systems and personal security in the internet age. It recently announced three further platforms – Low Carbon Vehicles, Assisted Living and Low Impact Buildings – which will each address a specific challenge for society.
Low Carbon Vehicles, which involves the Department for Transport, is tackling the carbon efficiency of individual modes of transport. Assisted Living, in partnership with the Department of Health, looks at ways to provide care for the increasing number of elderly and chronically ill people in society, without dramatically increasing the number of hospitals and carers required.
The Low Impact Buildings platform, working with the Departments of Communities and Local Government and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, is examining how to ensure buildings consume fewer resources and emit less carbon dioxide during their lifetimes.
In each of these areas, continuing with current practices would make meeting the needs of society and the environment tremendously difficult without an enormous increase in resources. By addressing these challenges now, and harnessing the innovative capabilities of UK companies, the board hopes to give home-grown business a strong advantage internationally, as other countries confront the same problems and look to import solutions.
Although the mainspring of the work is technological, each challenge has a human dimension in the implementation of the technological solutions. This is where design has a vital role to play, as solutions must deliver the necessary functionality in a manner that makes them attractive to the user. Products or solutions must also be designed for energy-efficient production, material sustainability and for re-use or recycling.
For more information on the work of the Technology Strategy Board, visit www.innovateuk.org
Finance
Since Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank, won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, the concept of microcredit has been touted as the salve for the world’s financial and social ills. Microcredit involves small loans being made to poor, hitherto ‘unbankable’ people, usually women, who will use the money to start small businesses and achieve self-sufficiency. This lending strategy has been criticised – microfinanciers, because they take on more risk, often charge higher interest – but it is one of several new approaches to lending that are cumulatively redesigning the banking system.
Yunus launched Grameen Bank in 1976 in Bangladesh but his approach is now spreading to Europe. In 2006, Paris think-tank Eurofi estimated that the European microcredit market was growing by 67% a year and comprised more than 11m people.
Microcredit services require a new attitude to borrowers and a new style of lender. Such web-based lenders as Kiva.org and MicroPlace.com (where individuals extend investment loans via the site) were backed by the European Commission, which plans to support their activities with £11.3m of funding. The European Commission believes demand for microcredit could soon reach £4.6bn.
In the US, peer-to-peer (ie person to person) lending is expected to grow 800% by 2010, as the credit crunch hits, unsecured loans become more difficult to find and the public’s faith in the banking system is tested.
Research
How do the world’s biggest companies manage design? Is it possible to instill commercial nous in scientific researchers? And how do companies turn design to their competitive advantage?
Eleven of the world’s most prestigious companies took part in an in-depth Design Council study to answer these – and other – questions. The findings offer genuine insight into the way design is used in these firms. Here are some of the secrets from a selection of the companies involved:
- Strong leadership. At BSkyB, brand values are managed in-house and, crucially, the product design manager, Ed Snodgrass, maintains a direct link with CEO James Murdoch.
- Using design to shape the brand. Starbucks’ designers and external consultants work from “the same creative palette”. New concepts must pass a five-criteria compatibility ‘filter’.
- User insight. Once driven by technological developments, Microsoft has switched focus to creating products that respond to its users’ needs.
- Designers talk business. Xerox involves designers from early in the process, right through to launch – developing their business acumen.
- Cross-functional working. Designers at Yahoo! are encouraged to think beyond their own discipline.
- Shrewd use of external expertise. BT uses outside designers to translate internal R&D work into new products.
The other companies taking part were LEGO, Virgin Atlantic, Whirlpool, Sony and Alessi.
Find out more at www.designcouncil.org.uk/elevenlessons
Article first published in Design Council Magazine, Issue 4, Summer 2008