Noisy Decent Graphics

Good Design

Picture from UPPERCASE found via Russell's FFFFound! Usual stuff applies.

Is this the definitive description of good design?

Discuss.

I’m a designer. Use me better.

Big talk today. I'm speaking at Campaign's Applied Green Conference thing with Michael, Russell, John and loads of other grown up, important people.

I thought you might like it if I posted my talk here. For the first time ever I've followed Jon Steel's advice and written my talk down, in long hand. One of the benefits of this is that I can post the whole shooting match, here, for you wonderful people.

So I'm doing that in a timed post that goes live round about the same time I'm supposed to be speaking. It's like a simultaneous streaming blogcast.

So here you are; what do you think?

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Hello. My name is (etc, etc, I'll skip that bit here. You lot know who I am.)

Today I’m going to lay out a case for how I think designers, and the design industry, can help with the challenges facing us. I’d love to know what you think about these ideas.

But before we do all that, let’s start with some fun.

Let’s be honest, all this Green / Sustainability stuff can get a bit heavy, can’t it?

I don’t know about you, but whenever I hear someone say Sustainability, it reminds me of Phil Collins. You know, sus sus sustainability, like sus sus sussudio. So in the spirit of that Gorilla ad I wanted to play you this little film I made especially for today.

If you're reading this via rss, see the video here on YouTube.

Seriously, we hear a lot of talk about sustainability in the design industry. Sometimes it even says “sustainability” in client briefs.

According to the Design Council, 95% of design consultancies have less than 5 staff and a turnover of less than £250k a year. So the problem is that when you mention sustainability to 95% of designers they’re not thinking about saving the planet, they’re thinking about next years Annual Report & Accounts.

And that’s part of the problem.

I’m a designer, I run a design company and I accept pounds. We all do.

As an industry we’ve learnt that more stuff equals more pounds. And pounds are good for our sustainability. That’s a pretty simple business model.

If a client asks us to design two postcards; we think, a lot of the time subconsciously, if I can get them to do three postcards that will be great, four will be even better. Because more stuff equals more pounds.

If a client asks us to design a brochure; we say silly things like, “Wouldn’t it be a great idea to send them a letter with the brochure. Yeah, and let’s send them a postcard before we send them the brochure so they know the brochure is coming. And if we send them a postcard before we send them the brochure we really ought to send them a postcard after we send them the brochure.” Much nodding of heads.

I once sat in a meeting where someone said, “I always say, if you’ve got a full colour RPC you should have a full colour envelope”. Yes, they said, “I always say.”

OK, so by default as an industry we produce more stuff because that’s gets us paid more. We all get that, right?

But as an industry we don’t just do that, we also do this:

and this

in case you didn’t spot it

that’s freshly prepared crispy potato slices.

Yes, freshly prepared.

That’s pretty ridiculous, isn’t it?

It’s easy to stand up here and slag off unnecessary packaging, but it’s not just packaging designers who are at fault. Designers, by default, just produce lots of stuff.

Here’s our letterhead.

(I'll skip through these pictures to save pixels...)

Nice isn’t it? Nice big arrow. Bit of Helvetica. You know. That’s the one we use for short messages. This is the one we use for longer letters. Oh and there’s this one as well. We use that, er, when we’re bored of the orange one. And there’s this one too. We use this one for invoices.

So here they are all together. Hands up - I designed these. But it’s ridiculous isn’t it? How can we justify 4 different letterheads? You can’t.

And it’s not just packaging and it’s not just self indulgent self promotional stuff.

It’s classics like this.

Is there really a need for this nowadays?

I know there’s more than a designer involved here, marketing managers and brand managers and account managers can all take their share of the blame; but seriously, as designers we could have stopped this. Really, someone should have stood up and said, “Excuse me, but isn’t that a little unnecessary?”

So, the climate change elephant in the industry is, designers, it’s our fault.

I honestly think we have to admit that before we can move on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, as I already mentioned there are loads of other people involved, but whose fault is it that a swede comes wrapped in cellophane? That potatoes come, freshly prepared, in a great big fucking plastic box?

It’s the designers fault.

And if you won’t agree that it’s the designers fault at the very least you’ve got to admit that the designer has done nothing to stop it – which in my view makes it the designers fault.

Now, I don’t want to stand up here and say all designers are bad and we should just get everyone to make less stuff. That’s lovely and everything, but it’s very unrealistic and it’s not gonna help with this bit.

If more stuff equals more pounds, than less stuff equals less pounds, right?

OK. Here’s an interactive bit. Hands up if you’ve read Jon Steel’s book, Perfect Pitch?

Hands up if you drive a Porsche?

The car assholes drive, I think that’s how Jon Steel put it.

Anyway. If you ask Porsche about their sustainability policy they will proudly tell you that  60% of all Porsches ever made are still on the road today.

Think about that for a bit.

Now you might think that a gas guzzling 4.8 litre car can never be environmentally friendly, but just think about that stat for a bit. What they’re saying is that 60% of the stuff we’ve made is so desirable, so well put together, so well designed, that people are still using them.

Imagine if 60% of other stuff was still in use. I don’t know about you, but I’d be happy if 60% of the iPods I’d owned were still working.

Imagine if 60% of carrier bags were still being used. Imagine if 60% of computers were still in use today. 60% of food packaging was still in use.

Lewis Mumford, the historian said “Why should we so gratuitously assume, as we constantly do, that the mere existence of a mechanism for manifolding or of mass production carries with it an obligation to use it to the fullest capacity?”

Or why do constantly we make as much stuff as we can, rather than as much stuff as we need?

Now. Take a look at this:

This is a video simulation of all planes flying across America in 24 hours.

I got that brilliant video from here, but I had to upload it to youTube so I could embed it here. If you're reading this via rss, see the video here on YouTube.

Messy, isn’t it?

These are the flight paths from a Heathrow take off.

The designer in me says wouldn’t it be nicer if some of those lines were, y’know, a little bit straighter. I could drop those flight paths into Freehand, mess about with the Bezier curves and straighten that mess out in no time at all.

A report in June in that well known design journal The Economist found that “if air traffic control systems were reorganized” a fuel efficiency gain of 12% could be made. Fuel efficiency gain of 12%.

What do they mean by reorganized? A continuous gentle descent into the airport (as opposed to a stepped descend, hold, descend again approach) could save around $100k per year, per aircraft. British Airways have 235 planes so that’s a saving of $23.5M every year just by redesigning the flight paths. 23 million dollars just with a bit of Freehand work!

And obviously, not only are we saving money, we’re saving fuel.

Ok, I’m aware that all sounds a bit naive.

So I spoke to some air traffic controllers. They said that whilst that would work, you can’t just go around redesigning flight paths. There are all sort of restrictions. For example you can’t fly over Buckingham Palace.

But listen to their other ideas for making flight paths shorter, this is the exact words,

“Better airport signage = better retrieval of baggage = better turn around time for aircraft loading and unloading = more gates available through operating hours = more aircraft can be landed in a given time period = less aircraft time in the air waiting to land = less fuel wastage from circling aircraft.”

“Even better carry on luggage storage may mean less time loading/unloading = more gates available for a new plane to land at = less time in the air waiting to land. Maybe it's not better storage but better carry on luggage.”

“Maybe it's better exits in an aircraft - could the side of the aircraft just roll up?”

“Maybe the aircraft could be a "canister" carrier, unload the canister, pickup a new one and away you go.”

Let’s look at what they said there: Better airport signage. Better luggage storage. Better carry on luggage. Better exits. Just better aircraft. Aren’t these all design problems? Are you starting to see what I mean?

That other esteemed design publication, BBC News online, reported in February that Belkin, the people that make USB sticks etc, reviewed the packaging on one of its network card products.

“The alternative design signified a 50% reduction in box volume, which will boost transport efficiency and cut material costs.

The new design saved more than 18,000 kilograms of paper and 2,400 kilograms of plastics each year and reduce packaging-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 104 tonnes annually - with clear financial and environmental benefits.”

18,000 kilograms of paper. 2,400 kilograms of plastic. 104 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

   

Clear financial and environmental benefits. Ahh ha, we’re back to pounds again. Good.

You see - I want designers and the design industry to move towards a business model where design is a way of thinking rather than a way of creating more billable units.

Someone with a designer’s brain can spot these problems and can go about solving them.

Someone with a designer’s brain can be invaluable in the fight against climate change.

I keep having this thought that the best design minds in history would see Climate Change as amazing opportunity. Don’t you get the feeling Da Vinci could have knocked up an alternative fuel in his spare time? Don’t you think that Raymond Loewy would have found an efficient way to package some of Tesco’s Finest Swede before his elevenses?

I want this speech to be a rallying call to the design industry. We ought to say to companies don’t use us to implement your shit ideas, use us at a much higher level.

Now, I don’t just mean chuck loads of designers into every boardroom in the country, that wouldn’t work. I mean that people who think like designers think, can see these solutions more easily than others.

In the FTSE 100 38% of CEO’s have an accounting background, 23% sales 18% general management (whatever that means) 0% have design backgrounds.

I want people with design backgrounds to be CEO’s and CFO’s and CMO’s and town planners and air traffic controllers and European Commissioners.

European Commissioners?

You’ll probably have noticed recently that Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, LG, and Nokia have all agreed to standardize their mobile phone chargers. Everyone can agree that’s a brilliant idea. And I’m sure some designer at Nokia or Motorola had the idea ages ago, but why have they only done this now?

Because the EU's WEEE directive makes manufacturers responsible for some of the costs associated with recycling their equipment, and a broadly applied standard removes the need for a new charger to be distributed with every phone.

This is cheaper (ahhh pounds again) for the manufacturer, and also results in a smaller, less heavy box, which reduces on shipping costs, storage costs, warehouse costs and so on.

So regulation forced them to do it. Wouldn’t it have been nice if it was the other way round? Wouldn’t it have been nice if the CEO of Samsung had a design brain and stuck his neck out and they’d done this off their own back?

I want design to be a management tool. I want designers to get paid (more) for brilliant thinking.

“Reuse, reduce, use less, make smaller, make clever, we're running out of resources can you still do something clever?”

Well to me, that’s a design brief.

All these climate change issues look like design problems to me.

Maybe we won’t be able to get people to change their behaviour so we’ll have to work around that.

My brother lives in America and so I got over there quite a lot. Am I going to stop flying out to see him? Well, yeah, I might but my Mum and Dad won’t.  And they’re not gonna miss the opportunity to fly out and see their grand children. So may we have to redesign the planes so that they use 50% less fuel. Maybe boats were the answer? We just need to design them so they’re a little bit faster…

Maybe we need to design a communications system that means they can get the sensation of holding that grandchild from their lounge. I don’t know the answers, but I know that the problems are design problems.

You think I’m mad? Remember when people used to think you needed the tactile feeling of an LP to sell music?

I guess I’m saying to you – I’m a designer. Use me better.

You can also read Michael Johnson's talk here and Russell Davies' talk here.

Which is X and which is Y?

Is this the X button or the Y button?

A brilliant, useful and very true post from History of the Button.

Say enough, more. Or how to design the perfect shave.

A while ago I read an interesting article about wet shaving. I was particularly struck by this bit,

"A dull disposable razor dragged across a layer of foam or gel on your cheeks is a step backward from the past, not an improvement."

Isn't that sad? Seriously.

I say sad because think of the hundred's of millions of pounds worth of R&D technology invested into shaving by huge global corporations. Think of all those MBA's and all those sharp brains. Think of all those meeting rooms and flip charts and PowerPoints. All that - and we're going backwards.

Isn't that sad?

The article goes on to say that all you need for a good shave is water, a blade and some cream. That's right, just one blade. Not five.

"Millions of men have been shocked to discover that the “old fashioned” method of shaving they thought went out with the Hula Hoop is actually the best quality shave you can get."

You see, according to the article, a "cheap shaving gel" that "smells just like your deodorant" actually dries the skin. And all those fancy blades don't work because they're designed for "the knucklehead who thinks the harder he rakes the razor across his cheeks the closer his shave will be" when actually the less blades and the lighter the touch, the better the shave.

Isn't it sad that we've actually designed a considerably worse experience than we started with hundreds of years ago?

Lastly, the article says,

"somewhere along the line, when shaving became more about cheap, disposable razors than a nice, precision-made metal tool in your hand, it became a brainless routine to rush through in the morning without even thinking about it".

How does this relate to design?

I think this example is a metaphor for how marketing departments and brands and designers have managed to make stuff worse using design. And not just worse, but we've actually come full circle and designed a solution that's the complete opposite of the answer. You can see a lot of that in modern design. You see it in websites, in products, in basic information, in wrapping swedes in polythene.

In The Hidden Persuaders there's a great story about a guy who was asked to double shampoo sales. He came back and said that they should add the words "repeat if necessary" to the text on the back of the bottle. Sales doubled almost immediately. OK, I'm paraphrasing that, but you all know the story and you get my point.

Yet again we've taken something that was perfectly good at its job and we've added another layer that actually makes the experience worse not better. Not only that we've made it "cheap" and "disposable", the complete opposite of valued.

If we are to take the environment and Reduce, Reuse, Recycle seriously then we've got to stop adding layers of badly designed, badly thought ought extra stuff into everything. We've got to make the best use of the materials available to us. We've got to really think about what we're designing and not just keeping adding blades.

We've got to say enough, more. One blade is enough. One rinse with the shampoo is enough. Nature's natural packaging is enough.

This is why good designers should be CEO's and Head's of R&D departments and FD's and why Design Is A New Management Trend.

Design does not mean veneer

"In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design."

Steve Jobs.

"We will put flies in the urinals - yes"

This is the urinal at Schipol Airport, Amsterdam.

Nice isn't it? See that little black thing, middle left? It's a fly.

Not a real fly, a painted fly. The fly was painted onto all the urinals in Schipol Airport because, according to Mr Aad Kieboom, an economist, giving men something to aim at reduces spillage by 80%.

Clever, eh?

This is one of those things that someone tells you is true, you want to be true and the internet tells you is true; but you're still not 100% sure is true. Perhaps someone can tell me, is this true?

1 million people x $600, I just did the math

"One million people have asked us to call when [the iPhone] is available"

AT&T (Cingular) CEO Randall Stephenson, 27th March 2007

Absolutely fantastic usability

As much as I love the Tube map, and as much as I'd hold it up as a good example of design, I often worry about how easy it is for tourists to use. That's the kind of thing I worry about.

I saw this on the Metro in Barcelona.

It's brilliant, isn't it? You know exactly where you are and exactly where you're going, no matter what language you speak. Nice and simple, nice and easy.

That's great usability.

Why The Guardian didn't go tabloid

yIt's a well known fact that I don't like the Guardian redesign.

I still don't like it and in fact I like it less and less. There aren't enough columns and David Hillman doesn't like it either.

Still, as people keep pointing out to me, it won a D&AD Black Pencil - so what do I know?

Last year I met someone who used to work at The Guardian and this post the other day reminded me of a little tale.

One of the things that annoys me most about The Guardian is the size. It's neither tabloid like The Independent or The Times or a full broadsheet like The Telegraph. Apparently when they were working on the redesign, the editor used to have a presentation where he explained why they didn't go tabloid.

He took the front page of the tabloid Indy and the tabloid Daily Mail and swapped them around. Then he asked people which one was which.

So, let's play a little game.

Question A: Is this an Independent front page or a Daily Mail front page?

You see, he's got a point hasn't he?

Question B: Which one of these is a Daily Mail front page?

Question C: Which one is the real Independent front page?

Makes you think doesn't it? There you go - why The Guardian didn't go tabloid.

Apologies if you live outside of the UK and that post doesn't make any sense.

"First we design the buildings, then the buildings design us."

Is this sustainable design? Discuss.

"All structural elements, switchgear and trim are made from fully recyclable materials. Better still, it is highly unlikely that your car will ever need recycling at all. After all, more than 60% of all Porsche vehicles ever produced are still on the road today. This exceptional longevity is fundamental to the Porsche philosophy and, in particular, our approach to the environment."

More here.

"We need to support it. We need to buy it. We need to tell the companies that we appreciate it."

Interesting post about how "good design is spreading" from Danny at Beyond Madison Avenue.

The best organisation of the information to aid the communication

This post and this post from Russell have made me think of another reason why the iPhone is so brilliant.

(Picture from the Darth Strategist, with thanks, usual stuff counts)

Yawn, yawn, another Mac fan saying how brilliant the iPhone is. Yes - but listen to these comments from one of those posts about the design of remote controls.

"you realise that remotes would be much better if they could evolve to highlight the buttons you regularly use"

"they should do a "big button" version so that grandparents who can't see so well and have arthritic fingers can use it. That goes for mobile phones too"

"Maybe they should supply his and hers remote controls"

"Why oh why are there no user intuitive remote controls?"

This is exactly what the iPhone will be able to do. The folksonomy of button design, if you like. It could learn which features you use most and only display those buttons.

(Picture taken from Apple, obviously. Usual stuff applies but I'm sure they won't mind. Especially as I'm about to give them $600.)

The best design organises information in the most useful way, but makes that organisation look seemless and elegant. Think Underground map. Not cartographically correct, but the best organisation of the information to aid the communication. That's what the iPhone should be able to do. That's great usability.

I once bought my Mum a calculator from the Early Learning Centre. Why? She kept complaining the screen and the buttons were too small on her calculator.

With an iPhone you could tell it you were 90 and struggling with the buttons and then you could download a bigger set of buttons through iTunes. How simple is that?

Etcetera.

And that is revolutionary. Now you might be thinking, 'yeah yeah, it's not that clever, anyone could have done it'.  Anyone hasn't got the iTunes infrastructure that Apple has. Anyone hasn't got the consumer confidence. And anyone hasn't done it. And as we keep saying it's all in the doing. Which is why everyone has phones designed like this.

(Picture of Steve Jobs talking about 'not so smart phones' at the iPhone launch, from Engadget, thanks chaps usual stuff applies)

I wonder if Matt has anything to add?

(My Mum isn't 90 by the way.)

At last, a decent phone design

So that was it. Pretty amazing wasn't it? I don't know about you, but I love it.

(Picture taken from Apple, obviously. Usual stuff applies but I'm sure they won't mind. Especially as I'm about to give them $600.)

There will obviously be a million posts about the iPhone and some of them may be better than this one. But I was thinking about something on the train home and I wanted to write about it whilst it was still fresh. So we are.

We've all got mobile phones. We've had them for years. The iPhone is a trillion times better these phones. But when I started thinking about it I realised that there has never really been a good phone.

Yes, there have been nice looking phones. There have been phones that do OK stuff, I'm sure you remember your first camera phone. But there has never, ever been a phone that makes you go wow. Try explaining why your phone is good to your Dad. Try explaining why it's better than his phone.

Difficult isn't it? Better camera. Err... it stores more text messages. Errr... it has better ringtones. Err....

Now try explaining why you're so excited about the iPhone.

Easy, isn't it?

That is good design my friends.

So why hasn't there been a good phone before? Why can't the design brilliance of companies like Nokia and Sony come up with something even half as good? Why have we had to wait this long for great phone. Design is the new management consultancy? Maybe Jonathan Ive is the new management consultancy. Jammy bastard.

(Little caveat. I haven't used an iPhone yet. It might be crap. Apple might mess the shipping up. It may break after a week. Maybe. I doubt it. But...)

"Doors with ambiguous hinges and handles that necessitate "push" or "pull" instructions."

Brilliant post (via Design Observer) about the worst designed everyday objects. Including:

1. "I always wondered why umbrellas have sharp metal points right at eye-level."

2. "The standard headphones that come with IPods."

3. "Pretty much everything ever marketed as storage for spices."

4. "The design of URLs, a pet peeve of mine. Almost all of them contain redundancies or dependencies that cause them to be way too long, or likely to become broken within a matter of months."

5. "I think many would say that the rulers of the US right now are poorly designed." (Do they mean Rulers or rulers?)

Fantastic stuff.
 

 

Design // is // might be // isn't // The New Management Consultancy

1. A World Without Design
As part of the London Design Festival, The Partners hosted a panel discussion on the theme of a world without design. This is the transcript.

2. Bad Design Is A Health Risk

"inappropriately designed hospitals, medical devices and healthcare systems can directly contribute to the accidental harm of patients, harm that may affect as many as 10% of all acute admissions."

"there is no doubt that confusing and poorly conceived medication packaging contributes to pharmacy selection errors and problems with patient compliance; that unnecessarily complicated medical devices contribute to user error"

Who said that? Colum Menzies Lowe, head of design and human factors at the NHS National Patient Safety Agency

3. Is Design The New Management Consultancy? Not Exactly.
"When I hear a designer say, 'We were doing the same kind of work McKinsey would do' I think 'You really have no fucking idea what McKinsey does.' "

4. A Whole Bunch Of Useful Articles from the Industrial Designers Society of America.

5. 5 Keys to Promoting Thoughtful Design Leadership in Education from the nice people at Core 77.

7 things you could learn from a designer otherwise known as 5 1/2 things you could learn from a designer.

Someone from somewhere (I'm not saying who yet because I haven't asked them if I could post this and I think that's a little bit rude) has asked me to come in and talk to their company about graphic design. When I sat down to write them an email I found myself writing like I blog. I kept wanting to put links and pictures in, so in the spirit of 'this collaboration thing' I thought I'd post my stuff so far up here.

I'm trying to write '7 things you could learn from a designer' but I've only got 5 1/2 so far. Can anyone think of another 2?

1. How to make your presentations instantly look better.
Why people usually over complicate stuff just because Microsoft have given them the tools to do this. Just because you can make 3D type in PowerPoint doesn't mean that you have to. Good design should let the content be the 'hero' not your wizardry with PowerPoint transitions.

How to make your presentations better in one stroke? Select all, click the text formating palette and choose one font. There, that's better isn't it?

2. Why you should never, ever, ever use Comic Sans.
Ok, let me say this again. Comic Sans is designed to look like the typography found in old comics. So unless you work for DC Comics, please, please, please don't use Comic Sans. It doesn't look friendly, it doesn't look fun, it's doesn't look funky, it looks shit.

3. What usability means and why it's becoming more important.
Great usability is the ultimate in good design. This is so obvious, but we're only just starting to talk about it. There are so many examples around us everyday, the Underground map, the BBC News website, almost all Apple products. As David Ogilvy said, "You can't save souls in an empty church".

As communication gets so more complicated usability is becoming so much more important in getting through to people. Make it easy for people to get to your stuff.

4. How design is the new management consultancy.
How companies are starting to turn to designers to solve complex business problems, or at least provide a different perspective. Because true design thinking means that design is a verb and not a noun. It's a better way of thinking and not a production process that's applied at the end of a project.

"Design is habitually brought in too late, used simply to paint and decorate products for which the major decisions have already been made. Thus we have products that are easy to build, designed by technically minded people, but that are not desirable or usable."
Clive Grinyer (director of Orange's Design & Usability Innovation team

And other examples...

5. Some names for your contacts book and an exhibition you must go and see this month.
Who Alan Fletcher was and when his exhibition is on at the Design Museum.

And other names...

6. I want to write something about the designers process, but I'm not sure what yet. It'll probably be something about how you store up loads and loads of stimulus in your visual brain and then you release that stimulus when the brief requires it. In other words you're Never Not Working.

Long Overdue Post on Computational Creativity

Last Thursday I was speaking at Imperial College's Tanaka Business School.

We were debating this, "Computers have become indispensable tools to designers of all kinds and have transformed the practice of design. With advances in computing power and artificial intelligence theory, we can begin to envisage computers taking on some of the creative act of design. What potential advantages or drawbacks would this have for designers? Should we fear that creative software is a threat to the design craft or industry?"

The lecture room (is that what they're called?) was fantastic. Tanaka is brand new and designed by Foster (click on project and then Imperial College to see more pics).

(Picture taken from Foster & Partners with huge thanks, usual stuff applies.)

From the reception it looks like a huge slinky or a baked bean tin with the label taken off. This houses a lecture room for each floor. Inside it's all cool blacks and greys. What really impressed me is that the lecture room had WiFi. And each chair has a broadband point and a power point. At the front there was a PC all hooked up and ready to go with the sound all wired up to the speaker system. In short everything a speaker could want.

There were three speakers before me, Geraint who's Professor of Computational Creativity at Goldsmiths, Simon who's written his PhD about this stuff and an architect whose name I can't remember (which is bad, sorry about that). They were all pro computational creativity, I was the anti view. I won't go through their presentations mainly because I'll forget something and secondly because I won't do them justice.

Simon and Geraint both had examples of where computers had been creative. Geraint had some music that had been generated by computer, Simon showed us work from this exhibition and showed some phrases a computer had generated too.

So far so good.

The architect showed model (after model, after model) of structures the computer had helped construct. Or something, I didn't really get his presentation to be honest.

And then it was me.

I had 10 minutes and I had to say why I thought computers couldn't be creative.

I started the same way Russell started his presentation here. The same black slide, the same music (it's OK, I asked him first).

I started like that for two reasons. Firstly, because it's a bloody good way to start a presentation and secondly because I believe a computer couldn't generate a piece of music that could generate the feeling of expectation, of excitement that that piece of music gives. That was my statement of intent, if you like. The audience seemed to like it.

Then I moved on to some fairly obvious stuff, Michaelangelo, Shakespeare etc

and then this:

(Heads nodding in the audience) you can guess what people are thinking, "but that's a computer generated film".

Yes, a computer can help, but that's all it can do. It can't actually create. The computer is not Walt Disney.

It couldn't come up with a story like this.

 

Why? I think the main reason is that creativity isn't linear. As Michael points out here, creativity does not happen like this:

Computers do think in a linear fashion (we can argue what linear means another time) and therefore they can only produce versions of things. You'll never get that spark of genius.

And talking of geniuses. These people are all considered creative geniuses.

Round pegs in square holes. What concerns me is that if we tell a computer to think like Einstein we'll get this:

 

Which isn't creative at all. What was creative will now be the norm and something new will have to emerge. With computers we would never have gotten from Glenn Miller to The Beatles. If you see what I mean.

In the week Alan Fletcher passed away it seemed appropriate to hold this up as a great example of creativity.

Then I showed this

and asked who could see the arrow. Most of them couldn't. When I pointed it out, someone actually gasped (I was pleased with that). You see, whilst we could probably get to the stage where a computer could produce a logo, there is no way it could create the added value you get when you see that arrow.

And I finished with this.

Next up there was a panel session and a lot of the questions were for me. We kind of agreed that a computer may be able to produce something that we could apply the word creative to, it's just that it wouldn't be very good. It's a question of scale.

Considering I had two days to put that presentation together I was quite happy with it. I wasn't as familiar with the slides as I would have liked, but I think I did OK. The Chair called my argument 'powerful' so it can't have been that bad.

Afterwards I bumped into Nico, who is very interested in the Design is the New Management Consultancy stuff. So we had a good chat about that.

So, what do you think of computational creativity? Did what I said make sense?

Was anyone in the audience?

"Design represents a powerful alternative to the dominant management approaches of the last few decades and is an important perspective for leadership to embrace."

Another interesting tale over on Bruce's blog.

"Many firms that have experienced dramatic gains in shareholder value over the last few years (e.g., Google, Apple, Motorola) register innovation as a central driver of their progress. One can argue that innovation, and a culture that inspires and supports innovation, is the only sustainable competitive advantage. A frequent manifestation of recent innovation has been breakthrough design. Design represents a powerful alternative to the dominant management approaches of the last few decades and is an important perspective for leadership to embrace."

Rainy Reading

Some good things to read on a rainy Saturday morning.

1. An interview with David Hillman in the Press Gazette

David Hillman designed The Guardian before the recent redesign and art directed the original Nova magazine. He has some great opinions about modern news design.

About The Times redesign, "a total and utter fucking disaster" about the Observer "It looks like the fucking Beano with pictures. Now it's just colour and design and type 15 feet high for no apparent reason." And my personal favourite, "at WHSmith's now, it's just a haze of tit and bum and bright colours". How very true.

2. An article in Fast Company about the awkward romance between business and design.

"Design, in short, is becoming an ever more important engine of corporate profit: It's no longer enough simply to outperform the competition; to thrive in a world of ceaseless and rapid change, business people have to outimagine the competition as well. They must begin to think (to become) more like designers."

Why isn't there a British Fast Company?

3. A special report in Business Week on Design Schools.

This ticks lots of boxes. Design is the New Management Consultancy and China, being two of them.

"Desperate to innovate, companies are turning to design schools for nimble, creative thinkers."

4. Graham's brilliant post

Last but by no means least, having said there are not enough women in director/equity roles I recommend you read Graham's brilliant post about & Daughter companies.

Or you could Switch Off Your Internet And Go Out And Do Something Less Boring Instead.

"design can be a valid business model"

"1,273% rise in Apple shares over the past 10 years"

Great article in IN about design, Apple and Jonathan Ive.

Me, Claire, Bruce, Michael and some Bostonians

My stuff about Design Being The New Management Consultancy has been picked up by Business Week, the Boston Globe and Design Observer. Not bad for a Monday.

So that makes it Me, Claire, Bruce, Michael and some Bostonians. Kind of. Anyone else care to join us?

Bruce Nussbaum thinks Design is the New Management Consultancy

"Companies are moving design upstream--using design to shape the corporate strategic vision and brand vision. Many CEOs are demanding that design have a straight connection to their office."

Read the full article here.

And you thought it was just me and Claire Beale didn't you?

"design agencies often have the ear of the client CEO"

I was given a free Independent this morning and I was delighted to see this when i opened it.

Claire is not referring to my post but commenting on the BBH/Sony thing. I don't really have any strong feeling on that, so we'll skip neatly over it.

Let's have a look at some of the things Claire says in her article.

"the management consultant is rapidly being replaced by the design consultant as the industry bête noire." I'm not 100% sure on this, but I do think design consultancies are gaining more respect and kudos. Especially the good ones. Obviously. In fact it's probably because there are so many bad ones that the good ones are starting to rise up.

"There are plenty of good design agencies that inevitably have a view on how a brand could communicate with its customers." Yes. But there are probably plenty of market research agencies, printers and photographers who have a view too.

"there are plenty of examples of design agencies all but writing the advertising scripts themselves." Really? Like who?

"The fact that design agencies often have the ear of the client CEO while ad agencies have generally been frustrated in their attempts to get into the boardroom" OK now I'm getting interested. I would probably think the opposite, but now that she mentions it, I bet the CEO's at companies like Nokia, Phillips, Sony (haha) and Apple listen to designers more than they listen to ad agencies. Interesting.

So, nothing major going on here, but perhaps another step towards world wide acceptance of my Design is the New Management Consultancy theory.