Shanghai and Industrial Design

Advances in manufacturing technology and the global reach of the Internet have leveled the playing field in the product marketplace. It wasn’t long ago that time-to-market was two years, then 18 months, and then 12 months. Now, a competitor can knock off your “innovation” in six months or less. Many businesses understand that being “new” or “different” is no longer a differentiator. Countless companies are elbowing their way to the top with designs that are also “feature-rich” or “patent pending.” Innovation in product design has lost its meaning and, therefore, its value.

There is still one frontier that remains wide open: experience innovation. This is the only type of business innovation that is not imitable, nor can it be commoditized, because it is born from the specific needs and desires of your customers and is a unique expression of your company’s DNA. Yet the design of an experience is often overlooked in the rush to market.

I believe that good design is designed with the complete user experience in mind. The appearance and function of a product should indeed meet the needs and behaviour of the user within a certain context. The interaction between a product and user is influenced by the context in which the interaction will take place.
Read the whole article about meaningful experience design here

I went on a business trip in the US, California, with two colleagues from 8 to 17 April. It was my first time in the US and the first thing that impressed me, when I arrived, was the high security procedure at the airport. The other things that impressed me were the delicious steaks, burgers, donuts, friendliness of waitresses, the space (you can’t live without a car here, but in Shanghai you can) and huge houses (I visited an enormous house where you can make use of an elevator!). Ok, actually just typical American things.

Anyways, next to our business trip schedule, we visited a couple of interesting places which are:

- Google; an amazing playful office, where we had free dinner (wow, they had Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, etc..); we walked around the office and were stopped by a security and we were asked: ‘Are you Googlers?’ …. I should have replied: ‘Nope, but we are just googling around here, is that OK?’
Did you know that the Googlers may take theirs pet to the office?

- Apple at Infinite Loop (funny address heh?); we met Steve there, working for 16 years and responsible for some applications in OS X… heheh..not Jobs ofcourse, just another Steve

- Hollywood! Walk of fame!

- The Stinking Roses; a stinking restaurant, because the massive use of garlic..hmmm..yammie

- Disney Concert Hall in LA

- Sony store where I saw the newest OLED TV,the thinnest screen in the world

- And more places like: Astro Studios, Stanford University and Santa Cruz Beach
Check all the trip photos here

Check out Edushi.com and view different Chinese cities in pixel art format. View Shanghai ! It is really fine detailed. Enjoy

I’ve been honestly amazed at most designers’ lack of knowledge about rapid manufacturing techniques; especially since the technology opens up so many possibilities for the future of the design profession. I read all this stuff about “Design Thinking” and how “business needs to listen to (industrial) designers”, yet I don’t see much reason for them to take the people in the profession seriously. Most designers, frankly, aren’t very well educated in the systems and methodologies favored by corporations. Many designers barely have an understanding of the basic science and engineering that makes many of their designs possible. Yet the indignation among the design community is palpable. And for me, at least, it can reach embarrassing levels. So much so I find myself distancing myself from it.

An interesting thread by csven with a lot of discussion about rapid manufacturing techniques, mass customization, and more! Read and join the discussion here

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Member Gyoko from ProductDesignForums posted 3 interesting articles about design. Here are the intros:

The Final Frontier
The Role of the Design Research

The role of research in the creative process is to discover and guide the design implications of the real cultural phenomena. Therefore, researchers must have a sound working knowledge of the concepts and methods that make culturally motivated designs possible. Every project demands that designers determine the appropriate outcomes, project constraints and research methods. In respect to that, design researchers must demonstrate that their conclusions are logical and founded in the data created during the project itself, so the design team can create new concepts and solutions.

Read more and discuss here

The Right Choice
Design Education

It is never an easy choice when it comes to selecting the right design school or the right design program. Schools differ in their approaches to design and to design education. Most important is to understand your own interests, so when learning about each department or school, you can evaluate if it is the right choice for you. You might be faced with different choices and philosophies, and none of them might be wrong or right, but they might not be exactly what you want.

Read more and discuss here

Offer You Cannot Refuse
Design as Corporate Strategy

The Chairman of Sony Corporation, Norio Ohga once said, “At Sony, we assume all products of our competitors will have basically the same technology, price, performance and features. Design is the only thing that differentiates one product from another in the marketplace”.

Can good design create a better image for the company? Can design help people feel good about where they work? What has design got to do with the company’s environment? Usually people say: This is a good company. They make great products. Sell them everywhere in the world. Everyone is using theirs products/services. Everyone wants to work there. It is a great company to invest in.

Read more and discuss here

2 years ago Gyoko posted more interesting articles in ProductDesignForums. Check his topics in his profile after registering.

If you want to keep in shape with sketching or improve your sketching skills, then please feel free to participate in the sketch sessions that are being held here.

Current session is ‘bags’

A week ago I went to Pudong, for skyscraper sightseeing. The two main towers I was visiting are called: JinMao (420.5m) and World Financial Center (491.9m). The latter one is still under contruction and it will be finished somewhere this year according plan.

I took an elevator with a speed of 9.1 m/s to the 88th floor of the JinMao tower, which costed me 70rmb and less than a minute. The 88th floor houses the Skywalk, which is a tall indoor observation deck for watching a panorama view of Shanghai. It was a pretty amazing sight from that height. Check out some pics here.

This is the view into the lounge space, located on the 53th floor, of the Grand Hyatt hotel inside the JinMao tower:

And this is the view from the lounge space of the Grand Hyatt hotel:

The World Financial Center viewed from the 88th floor of the JinMao tower:

It was snowing quite a lot in the last few days before the Spring festival holidays in a big part of China, also in Shanghai.
Here is a mobile phone picture I made from one of my office windows:

On the 2nd of February I took the bus to Wenzhou and I had bad luck. The accu of the bus went on fire after 3 hours of traveling on the highway. Fortunately, no passengers were harmed. The most bad thing was that our bus driver was not acting responsible. He did not take good care of us during the incident. He did not report anything to us. What a shame!
Another crazy thing was, that our bus was pulled by a service truck to the closest service center on the highway, with passengers inside an angled bus (check photo with bus window)! Here are some pictures from that event:

This is a picture of a ‘Smart’ in Wenzhou:

My first time seeing a Chinese Dragon Boat:

Check out some tips and advises for creating a portfolio here. And post your portfolio images or website in this forum to get feedback. Also DesignSojourn wrote some useful portfolio tips.

Here are a few good sites where you can create your online portfolio for free:

Coroflot
Carbonmade
DesignRelated
Finalcrit