Today’s essential creative tool isn’t a pencil or laptop… it’s the Post-it note. Innovative design relies on teamwork, not technology, and the guts to risk failure. Here are ten teams that prove the point. Article by Vici MacDonald.
Which of these three images most accurately defines design: a) a pen and sketch pad; b) a computer and mouse; or c) a wall plastered with Post-it® notes? Non-designers usually waver between pad and computer (depending on their opinion of hand-crafting versus technology). But for anyone involved in design, the most accurate visual metaphor is the wall full of Post-it® notes. The non-designers’ choice is understandable. It portrays design as a solo activity, a slick piece of graphics or a sexily sleek gadget. This stereotype of creatives as maverick lone wolves, brilliant but highly-strung egotists, is ingrained in our culture: from Leonardo da Vinci and his visionary but unworkable sketches to those IKEA ads featuring a beret-clad designer incensed that IKEA is making good design available to the masses.
There’s one small problem with this stereotype. It’s rubbish. The cliché suggests a selfish process, in which the designer’s taste is foisted on the client, and reduces design’s role to prettifying. In truth, the most innovative designs are the fruit of inspired, objective teamwork, with well-researched solutions founded on a solid understanding of the end-user – leaving little scope for hissy fits from IKEA-style drama queens.
But what about that undisputed lone genius Leonardo? Renaissance princes didn’t, alas, assemble multidisciplinary R&D departments, so he struggled on with his myriad ideas alone. Many of his inventions would take an experienced team years to develop, even today – so it’s no wonder most never left his sketchpad. If he’d collaborated with a talented, dedicated team of specialists, how much more might he have achieved?
Like most designers, Leonardo was a problem-solver. Imaginative problem-solvers can analyse their underlying assumptions, structures and processes and rethink, from first principles, what’s needed to make them function better. Form follows function. This principle – which applies to everything from teapots to transport systems – adds far more value than mere styling.
So, just what do the Post-it® notes stand for? On a practical level, they’re reminders of the ideas and responsibilities a designer must bear in mind. Creatively, they’re brainstorming tools. Metaphorically, they represent the concept of teamwork. Turn the page for ten case studies that show the power of imaginative collaboration, teamwork and process-driven thinking.
Redefining design
Framestore CFC
Design: In-house
If the company’s name isn't familiar, its mind-blowing digital illusions will be. Europe’s biggest visual effects and animation studio has won nearly 100 awards – including 13 Emmys and two Oscars – for work such as the BBC’s Walking With Dinosaurs series, the Harry Potter films and Troy. The team is as diverse as its work: backgrounds range from fine art to computer science. Framestore revels in developing software tools which become industry standards. And most of it happens in a Soho HQ resembling a colourful café.
Cycloc
Design: Andrew Lang
Fed up with bikes in his hall, industrial designer Andrew Lang set about improving on the unsightly two-hook storage. Realising a bike could support its own weight from a single point, he invented the award-laden Cycloc – surely the coolest way of hanging a bike from a wall. This D&AD-award-winning design holds all frame angles.
Lang teamed up with Inspired Recycling – part of the government’s London Remade initiative – which assisted with everything from tooling to promotion and introduced Lang to recycling experts. The 100% recycled plastic black model is very popular. The Cycloc is a minimalistic triumph of form, function and social awareness.
Grand Theft Auto
Design: Rockstar North / Rockstar Games
Britain had a head start in computer games, thanks to Sir Clive Sinclair’s affordable design classic, the Spectrum. Grand Theft Auto – the world’s biggest-selling game series – was the brainchild of Edinburgh team Rockstar North, whose parent company Rockstar Games is an affiliation of development studios in Europe and the USA. While controversial for its sex and violence, this technically and visually brilliant saga of dangerous driving and petty larceny is incredibly addictive thanks to beautiful cityscapes, wry scripts voiced by Hollywood actors and its immense freedom of choice for players.
Alessi
Design: Carlo Alessi among many others
Famed for its funky, design-led stainless steel homeware, Alessi was founded by meticulous metal worker Giovanni Alessi in 1921. His son Carlo, an industrial designer, pioneered its concern with aesthetics. Carlo’s son Alberto, the current MD, likens the firm to “an industrial research lab in the applied arts field”. Philippe Starck, Jasper Morrison and Zaha Hadid have all designed “little masterpieces” for the company.
High-profile but unsuccessful collaborations include Philippe Starck’s Hot Bertaa kettle.The minimalist kettle needed an instruction manual to use. But for Alberto, failure is integral to innovation. The firm expects at least one “major fiasco” a year. Without them, he says, Alessi would lose its design leadership.
Decathlon Quechua 2-Second Tent
Design: In-house
This multi-award-winning tent is self-erecting: toss it in the air and two seconds later it’s open on the ground, ready to peg down. It’s big enough for two, yet swiftly folds up into a neat carry-sack. Its simplicity and modest price have opened camping up to all, creating new markets and triggering huge sales. Novel ideas abound, from the fibreglass ‘spring hoops’ that make it work to its hip mySpace web page. It’s just one of many innovations from Decathlon, a French sporting goods company whose design team has grown from ten to around 100 in the last decade. The multidisciplinary crew develops all products in-house via the highly collaborative ‘Imaginew’ brainstorming programme which consults a multitude of clients and employees to come up with a blizzard of radical concepts with built-in wow factor.
Aston Martin
Design: In-house
Aston Martin may be 93 years old but the marque remains futuristic enough for James Bond and trendy enough to feature in a Pussycat Dolls song. Underpinning this success is the company’s proprietary VH (vertical/horizontal) architecture, a strong, light aluminium and carbon fibre platform that allows design flexibility and rapid development.
The engineering and design teams work closely together, allying leading-edge technology with traditional hand-assembly to create sinuous lines that would be simply impossible with mass production. Body shapes are honed in a wind tunnel before being viewed under varying lighting conditions. Practicality is valued as much as beauty; the famous ‘swan wing’ doors allow better kerb access, while the trademark grille has been resculpted to improve stability.
Anglepoise task lamps
Design / redesign: George Carwardine / Kenneth Grange
The name may now be generic for articulated lamps but there’s only one true Anglepoise, still made in Hampshire by the family firm that invented it in 1933. Its pivoting arm, based on the ‘constant tension’ principle, gives it flexibility with stability. In 2001, as modern versions languished in budget office catalogues, the company asked industrial design legend Kenneth Grange to step in.
Grange revised two iconic models, repositioning the lamps as practical classics. Anglepoise’s fortunes swiftly improved. The range has been imaginatively expanded and you can now buy eco-friendly kits to rewire the original 70-year-old lamps.
Motorola RAZR V3
Design: In-house engineering and design teams
Motorola’s supermodel-slim RAZR (pronounced ‘Razor’) mobile phone turned the American company around. It was intended as expensive, low-volume window-dressing until the adventurous development team set about secretly inventing the world’s thinnest mobile. A new executive recognised the model’s brilliance, resulting in sales nearly matching Apple’s ubiquitous iPod.
Virgin Atlantic Upper Class Suite
Design: In-house design team / Pearson Lloyd / Softroom / Design Q / DHA
Virgin’s D&AD-award-winning Upper Class Suite features a free bar, spa and revolutionary armchairs that become jumbo-sized beds at a touch. Cubicles are arranged in a sociable herringbone configuration – likened to a poolside lounge – and have moveable partitions. Virgin Atlantic, one of the few airlines with an in-house design team, collaborated with external teams on this bold £70m project. Following Virgin’s brief of ‘natural glamour’, futuristically-inclined architects Softroom developed the overall design. The leather seats were developed with transport experts Design Q. The Suite has boosted passenger numbers and the high-end expertise will enhance future economy travel.
Poland
Branding: Saffron
If anyone can rebrand an entire country, it’s Wally Olins CBE. Famed for his work at corporate ID giants Wolff Olins, in 2001 he set up the much smaller Saffron. Around 20 in-house specialists consult with experts such as psychologists, economists and even theatre performers. Clients include social agencies, think tanks and Poland. According to Olins: “Poland was seen as poor, grey and inhabited by peasants.” To change this perception, Olins’s strategy calls for inspiring architecture, a revival of the Polish film industry and for the country to become famed for exporting products, not people.
Boots to phones
How does a company best known 40 years ago for its Wellington boots become a world leader in mobile phones? Easy, says Mark Mason, Nokia’s head of design culture: by innovating.
Nokia have driven innovation in the mobile phone industry. In 1992 we were the first company to bring the GSM portable telephone to market – now it is the world’s most popular standard for mobile phones. We created changeable covers, spawning the accessory covers industry, and introduced SMS messaging, which is now in every competitor’s product. In 2001 we put cameras in phones, and Nokia became the largest manufacturer of digital cameras.
Innovation is extremely important. That’s why our design teams are multidisciplinary, drawing on people from industrial design, graphic design, colours and materials and experts from the fashion and car industries. Some focus on user experience, others dig deeply into trends. This keeps innovation focused.
To stay innovative, you must take risks. Nokia has always done that, most recently with our Nseries next-generation multimedia devices. Packing so much into product could be seen as a risk but because we research with people, the risk is calculated. We use study groups and look at behaviour patterns around devices. We recognise that capturing photos and videos is fun and has a social aspect of sharing with friends.
Innovation is a buzz word and innovation consultants are springing up everywhere, but you can’t become an innovative company overnight. Companies should identify which groups can contribute towards innovation. At Nokia the design group is valued in the corporate structure, working with brand, retail and R&D. Company culture ensures teams talk the same language. Nokia doesn’t try to create an ivory tower or an advance think tank with innovative concepts. It’s a collaborative approach within the business.
Article first published in Design Council Magazine, Issue 1, Winter 2006