Food for thought

My approach to design

This short presentation tells the story of my approach to design.
I truly believe in the value of untangeling the fuzzy-front end. Through this process you can envision what the product could and should be. It leads to a better understanding of the product that you are about to design and the people you are designing it for.

Keywords: approach, design, thinking

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Specialist role at MMID

Interview with Lotte for MMID newsletter

MMID is an organisation that is built around specialists. This means that we recruit various specialists and that we train our current team members to become even more specialised within their own field of work. Caroline Noordijk is a very good example. As a Look & Feel Designer she is responsible for the design of the products we develop and her focus is on the relationship between the brand, the people and the product. Caroline also conducts research on trends within the design area and she concentrates on the use of colour, material and finish. Besides her job as a designer she adds value to MMID as a brand identity specialist.

Brand Identity Specialist
After studying at the Art Academy in the Netherlands, Caroline finished a master at the Royal College of Art in London. She then started focusing on product development, but as she says herself; "I'm not an engineer. I do speak the language but I concentrate on the full picture". During her work she discovered that in many cases of product development there is a serious lack of context. She feels that questions such as: Why does the customer want to develop this product? Are those the right reasons? How does the customer want to be recognised? How do we get the product to be consistent with the rest of their products? What does the customer have to keep in mind in the future? don't get asked often enough.

Contextual
In the current product development process the two phases ‘concept' and ‘detail' are separate. According to Caroline a third phase can be added, in which all aspects that are important during the concept phase are described. She calls this phase contextual. The three elements ‘brand', ‘people' and ‘product' can be seen as an ecosystem, in which they all influence each other. To be able to define these elements, Caroline made a list of several significant words that contribute to defining the identity of the client. Based on this, she developed in cooperation with the other members of the design team, several tools that allow this identity to be visualised.

The Brand Identity Specialist in the future
Caroline feels right at home within her specialism. She appreciates the abstract aspect of the consultancy activities of her new function, but she also doesn't want to give up being a designer. The combination is what makes the job so interesting and challenging. The reactions of colleagues and clients to Caroline's specialism have been very positive so far. Clients can even choose how far they want to take this service, depending on their budget. Caroline and her specialisation have really emphasised the unique role that MMID plays in the field of product development.

 

You can find the original interview and more information on the MMID website www.MMID.nl

 

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Population growth explained with IKEA boxes

Gapminder for a fact-based world view

Hans Rosling is one of the most entertaining data loving figure I have coome across so far.
His non profit organisation Gapminder aims to replace devastating myths with a fact-based world view.
They make data easy to understand and are dedicated to innovate and spread new methods to make global development understandable, free of charge, without advertising.

The video above is one of the many video that can be found on their website: http://www.gapminder.org/

"Explaining population growth requires simplification, but not oversimplification.
In this TED video, Hans Rosling explains why ending poverty - over the coming decades - is crucial to stop population growth. Only by raising the living standards of the poorest, in an environmentally-friendly way, will population growth stop at 9 billion people in 2050."

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Service Design vs. User Experience

Same or Different?

A nice talk by Oliver King, Co-founder and Director of Engine, on the 'differences' between Service Design and User Experience.
About being impartial and having no prefernces to any disciplines. About design ecosystems and having a no implementation agenda... and much more.

Only downside of this movie is the somewhat crappy audio ;]

Keywords: design, sevice

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More food for thought

Two new books to fuel my knowledge have just arrived through the mail.

DesignThinking has been on my to-read-list for quite a while now. The book probably has overlap with some books that fill my bookshelves, but I expect it to be of added value nontheless. It is written by Thomas Lockwood, president of Design Managemnet Institute (DMI), and it discusses how design, as a process and as an output, has greater opportunity to add value to the bottom line than any other business function and that design processes, principles, and solutions can be used to solve any problem.
Of course I am not going to argue with that! I hope the book goes beyond the obvious case studies...

This is Service Design Thinking
Service design a fairly new territory among the many design fields. It has sparked my interest from the start, but it also (up till now) did not make a clean descripton of it actual does. Hopefully this book helps me to get a better understanding of what service design could do for businesses and society.

from amazon:
This is Service Design Thinking outlines a contemporary approach for service innovation. Service design and design thinking are lately evolving into buzz words for management and business consulting. This is Service Design Thinking strives to unveil the practical meaning behind these terms in everyday use. The book introduces this new way of thinking to beginners but also serves as a reference for professionals.


Only thing I need to do now is find the time to actually read these books!



Special thanks to Fontanel for 'borrowing' the image above


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Ed Boyden: A light switch for neurons

Controlling the brain with light

This TED talk by Ed Boyden really amazed and shocked me at the same time.
The idea of controlling the brain with light in a very precise and controlled way sounds like science fiction, but it seems to be way more real than I expected.

"Ed Boyden shows how, by inserting genes for light-sensitive proteins into brain cells, he can selectively activate or de-activate specific neurons with fiber-optic implants. With this unprecedented level of control, he's managed to cure mice of analogs of PTSD and certain forms of blindness. On the horizon: neural prosthetics."

Amazing stuff that could lead to curing braindisorders. But also disturbing, becuase who will control these direct mind controls?
Could do with a back-up of my own brain though =]



Keywords: science, ted

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hockey.nl best Sport App 2011

Winner category sportnews

A lot of thing happened after Roeland Weve (developer) and I launched the hockey iPhone app over a year ago. After a guerilla-style start, we launched the app without official back-up, we soon caught the attention of enthousiastic fieldhockey players with iPhones (and iPods) and the official Dutch hockey federation (KNHB). In cooperation with the KNHB and hockey.nl (the official Dutch fieldhockeymagazine) the iPhone app became the first and only official Dutch fieldhockey app. In the following months the application got even bigger with the implementation of the additional news, video, referee-kit, livescore, indoorcomeptition and businesscompetition sections. To support the non-iPhone-users we were asked to also design and develop a mobile website.

All this has led to a widely used and appreciated mobile application service!

Sport28.nl initiated the first Dutch Sport App Awards and asked their visitors to nominate there favourite apps.
hockey.nl got nominated in the category 'sportnews' together with NUsport (general sportnews, supported by NU.nl, one of the biggest newssites of the Netherlands) and VI (aimed at the national soccerleague and news, and also know for the national tv-show).
Finally a jury of iPhone experts and athletes voted for hockey.nl! The added value of being able to easily track your competition and team at any time gave the edge over the other two nominees.

We are ofcourse exteemly happy and see this awards as a great compliment for all the hard work and fun we had during the development and making of this app!


for more information click here (in Dutch)

Keywords: hockey.nl, iphone, roeland, weve

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Brand Driven Innovation

Erik RoscamAbbing

Unfortunately I wasn't able to make it to his bookpresentation a couple of months ago.
But now I finally got round ordering Erik's book Brand Driven Innovation and I can't wait to read it!

So what is the book about? Here the AVA Academia (publisher) description:
"Brand-driven Innovation examines the connections between branding, design and innovation. It argues that branding is not merely a branch of advertising, but a tool for sustainable growth in organizations.

Branding can inspire innovation in products and services, creating value for organisations and consumers alike. This in turn can lead to a durable relationship between brands and customers.

The book explores branding theory and its relation to innovation, in order to provide students with a solid foundation of knowledge. It also contains a practical, four-step method that will help readers apply brand-driven innovation in their own academic or business context."

Want to know more? visit the Brand Driven Innovation website or order the book through AVA Books


Keywords: ava, books, roscamabbing, zilverinnovation

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Your Fears Erased Here

Burning Man

It might be a bit dated since it was part of Burning Man Festival '09 (I think) but it is still worth posting...
Just because it is such a nice concept =]

The chalkboard wall was part of the Burning Man Festival. You could write down all your worries and sorrows and at the end of the day they erase everything. Bye bye sorrows!

Keywords: burning, concept, man

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Where good ideas come from

TED talk by Steven Johnson

Keywords: ideas, ted, workmethods

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