There’s an excellent essay written by Peter Lawrence over on Fast Company called “Why Design?” (Link). Here’s one part I liked:

One way to think of a designer is as somebody who has learned to speak a language that everyone understands but that the designer has been trained to speak. This modeling language is essential to an effective innovation process precisely because it gives everyone, from every discipline, a common ground and keeps them on the same page. With even a crude model sitting on the table, there are no words to misinterpret. Prototypes are a very important part of the discovery and development process, providing a tool to explore and expand an idea.

This makes a nice companion piece to some other written things about which I posted yesterday (reLink). With enough of this material, I’ll never have to explain what I do ever again; I’ll just give them some links to read.

Found an interesting article over on C|NET concerning a company with which I’m familiar, and whose employees I know through my time in Second Life. The piece, “‘Second Life’ dreams of Electric Sheep” (Link) is – you guessed it – mostly about the Electric Sheep Company. I’d explain what they do, but the article does a good job of that. So for those interested in virtual world and real world commerce, it’s well worth the read. Here’s one exerpt:

“For me, the most interesting thing was that…much of our interactions (with Electric Sheep) took place in ‘Second Life,’ avatar to avatar,” said Johnson. “The social aspects of ‘Second Life’ were a very interesting part of the project for me because a lot of this took place in that world, even though it was a real-world contract between two companies.”

I expect we’ll be hearing more and more about companies doing business inside virtual worlds. This is just the tip of an iceberg that includes stuff like UGS’s PLM software (about which I recently wrote – reLink).

It seems to me that more and more architecture is looking like product design. I found the above image over on Archinect’s image gallery (labeled “orthopedics lab” under “Unbuilt Work” – Link). I have no clue if either a professional or studying architect designed it since it’s uncredited. Makes no difference. The fact that I’m not surprised that it looks like a massive product is enough. File this under “occupational convergence”.

If you’re interested, there are a couple of interior shots as well.

{Image source: Archinect}

There’s an interesting thread (Link) over on the Core77 forum discussing Chinese factories and labor. Some of the people discussing the issue have recent experience and an inside view of the situation (the thread starter is a Westerner recently hired to work in China). From his initial post:

Living in Hong Kong I have seen the reports about labor rates going up in this area and that there is actually a worker shortage which is further driving up labor prices. I remember in the 90’s labor did not even show up on the bill of materials because it was so small. Now it is showing up and quickly making cheap products more expensive. Continue reading →

I came across an article in Metropolis not long ago that I wanted to point out. Bruce Sterling pens “California Dreaming” (Link; alternate Link), a piece mostly discussing his experience being among design students at Art Center. I like it because when I tell people that studying design was tougher than studying aerospace, I can point to it for backup. From the article:

Before joining Art Center I had no idea how normal people got transformed into designers. I imagined that as a teacher I might be grading their exams, running boot-camp drills, hell weeks, pop quizzes–but no, at Art Center the way is the rigor of practice. Demo or die. Practice is the crucial difference between people who can talk (like myself) and people who can design (like my best students).
Continue reading →