10:54 AM Thursday July 29, 2010
by Warren Berger

What can people in business learn from studying the ways successful designers solve problems and innovate? On the most basic level, they can learn to question, care, connect, and commit — four of the most important things successful designers do to achieve significant breakthroughs.

Having studied more than a hundred top designers in various fields over the past couple of years (while doing research for a book), I found that there were a few shared behaviors that seemed to be almost second nature to many designers. And these ingrained habits were intrinsically linked to the designer’s ability to bring original ideas into the world as successful innovations. All of which suggests that they merit a closer look.

Question. If you spend any time around designers, you quickly discover this about them: They ask, and raise, a lot of questions. Often this is the starting point in the design process, and it can have a profound influence on everything that follows. Many of the designers I studied, from Bruce Mau to Richard Saul Wurman to Paula Scher, talked about the importance of asking “stupid questions”–the ones that challenge the existing realities and assumptions in a given industry or sector. The persistent tendency of designers to do this is captured in the joke designers tell about themselves. How many designers does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: Does it have to be a light bulb?

In a business setting, asking basic “why” questions can make the questioner seem naïve while putting others on the defensive (as in, “What do you mean ‘Why are we doing it this way?’ We’ve been doing it this way for 22 years!”). But by encouraging people to step back and reconsider old problems or entrenched practices, the designer can begin to re-frame the challenge at hand — which can then steer thinking in new directions. For business in today’s volatile marketplace, the ability to question and rethink basic fundamentals — What business are we really in? What do today’s consumers actually need or expect from us? — has never been more important.

Care. It’s easy for companies to say they care about customer needs. But to really empathize, you have to be willing to do what many of the best designers do: step out of the corporate bubble and actually immerse yourself in the daily lives of people you’re trying to serve. What impressed me about design researchers such as Jane Fulton Suri of IDEO was the dedication to really observing and paying close attention to people — because this is usually the best way to ferret out their deep, unarticulated needs. Focus groups and questionnaires don’t cut it; designers know that you must care enough to actually be present in people’s lives.

Connect. Designers, I discovered, have a knack for synthesizing–for taking existing elements or ideas and mashing them together in fresh new ways. This can be a valuable shortcut to innovation because it means you don’t necessarily have to invent from scratch. By coming up with “smart recombinations” (to use a term coined by the designer John Thackara), Apple has produced some of its most successful hybrid products; and Nike smartly combining a running shoe with an iPod to produce its groundbreaking Nike Plus line (which enables users to program their runs). It isn’t easy to come up with these great combos. Designers know that you must “think laterally” — searching far and wide for ideas and influences — and must also be willing to try connecting ideas that might not seem to go together. This is a way of thinking that can also be embraced by non-designers.

Commit. It’s one thing to dream up original ideas. But designers quickly take those ideas beyond the realm of imagination by giving form to them. Whether it’s a napkin sketch, a prototype carved from foam rubber, or a digital mock-up, the quick-and-rough models that designers constantly create are a critical component of innovation — because when you give form to an idea, you begin to make it real.

But it’s also true that when you commit to an idea early — putting it out into the world while it’s still young and imperfect — you increase the possibility of short-term failure. Designers tend to be much more comfortable with this risk than most of us. They know that innovation often involves an iterative process with setbacks along the way — and those small failures are actually useful because they show the designer what works and what needs fixing. The designer’s ability to “fail forward” is a particularly valuable quality in times of dynamic change. Today, many companies find themselves operating in a test-and-learn business environment that requires rapid prototyping. Which is just one more reason to pay attention to the people who’ve been conducting their work this way all along.

This post is originally from the Harvard Business Review and can be found here.

This is one of the best TV ads we have seen in a long time.

Here is a video about its creators and how it was made. Enjoy. Look at me. Look at him.

This has to be one of the most tedious, well planned and interesting videos we’ve seen in a long time. Kudos.

Here is the story of the build and the shoot.

This link was posted by our friend Jim Hord. It is a beautiful take on New York City and made us really miss the energy, the life and the inspiration of one of the greatest cities in the world. Watch and enjoy. Go full-screen for the best experience.

The Sandpit from Sam O'Hare on Vimeo.

This is one of the most touching, honest and real stories we have seen in a long time.

Last Minutes with ODEN from phos pictures on Vimeo.

We don’t share this only for entertainment value. There is a lesson here for marketers as well.

In this age of financial challenge and competition for consumers, marketers and companies alike MUST be honest, strait-forward and REAL with customers. They won’t settle for anything else.

It’s not about being perfect.
It’s not about being slick.
It’s not about being all things to all people.

This is not to say that we can’t continue to come up with smart and conceptual ways to communicate with customers. We just all need to make sure that we’re doing it in a truthful, honest and supportable way.

Tell your story.
Tell it with truth and honest representation of your product/service.
Treat your customers as part of your family.
Respect the strength of reason.
Respect the power of emotion.

Some years ago I was a creative director for the international agency known as ATTIK in their New York studio. For years and years I’d yearned for total creative freedom that so many young creatives dream of. To me, this was creative Nirvana.

Many of you are familiar with the Noise series of books published by ATTIK and I had been a fan for a long time. These are books filled with design experiments and explorations with absolute creative freedom. This led to some really interesting and stunningly beautiful works that inspired people like me.

Things that you look at and (if you’ve been in the business of advertising for a while) think “That’s great, but you’ll never get a client to buy something like that”. But that is one of the things that made ATTIK so amazing.

The two founders Simon Needham and James Sommerville founded ATTIK in James’ grandmother’s attic with passion and a dream. (Read the story here.) They took their youth and passion for great work and focused everything they had on feeding the fire within. To date, they have created amazing work for clients like Scion, AOL, Adidas, SONY, and so many others, at a level that most “experienced” advertising people would never believe could be commercially viable. Now, ATTIK is part of Dentsu, one the largest global players out there.

NOTE: If you ever have the chance to work with ATTIK, do it. You won’t be disappointed.

Was this Simon and James’ goal from the get go? That I cannot honestly answer, but I would guess not. So why was ATTIK able to succeed where so may others have not?

Innocence? Why not.

Luck? Maybe.

Passion? Definitely.

Unwavering dedication to an idea? Damn straight.

No one can define what exactly is going to make a successful company or effort. It just has too many varying elements. But more oft than not, the companies that I see succeed, and companies that inspire me, share these same attributes.

1. A willingness to explore, push boundaries and have fun
2. No acceptance of “failure”, only learnings toward future progress
3. An unwavering passion and belief in who you are and what you do (not ego driven!)
4. The ability to get out of your own way and let your zeal lead you to people who share the same ideals and values
5. An openness to always learning new things and new ways
6. The absolute rule of never settling for “good enough”

To return to the beginning of the story, when I was at ATTIK we would get hundreds of portfolios from young creative hopefuls every week. So much great design talent out there, but so few with vision beyond the trends of the day.

One of the portfolios that came across my desk was from Ji Lee. There was something unique and different about his work and his perspective. I had the opportunity to meet him. He was an unassuming young man with vision and passion for creative thought. As much as I wanted to work with him at the time, we were unable to make him a permanent part of the ATTIK NY team. I have never forgotten his work, his passion or his ideals.

Today I came across a video of a lecture he’d given discussing the power of personal projects and how that translates to your professional vision. He hasn’t only lectured on it. He lives it. One of the really interesting things I remember from his portfolio was the Bubble Project that he talks about in the video below.

Ji Lee was born in Seoul, Korea, and raised in São Paulo, Brazil, he studied design at Parsons School of Design. In the past, Lee has worked as the branding director at Droga5 and art director at Saatchi & Saatchi. He currently works as the Creative Director at Google Creative Lab in New York and teaches design at School of Visual Arts. Success indeed.

So my point is this. Don’t let what might NOT happen, what may NOT be “feasible”, what hasn’t been done, or what everybody else does, stop you from thinking, from dreaming or from following that little voice inside that drives you.

Two great thoughts before I leave you with the video. There’s a sign in my office sent from one of our clients (Thanks Leslie!) that says

“Live What You Love”.

And another thought that I ran across today that said

“Redefine what is possible”.

So there are no guarantees of anything here. Just a viewpoint and fire that I continue to feed. That I have to feed. There are a lot of you out there. Don’t let the fire ever go away.

This post was written by Tim Scott, founder and creative director of THEM!. Find out more about THEM! at www.THEMdidit.com or call 541 306 6723 for more information.

There has been much debate on the future of “print”. As technology progresses and information is made available quicker and quicker, print will indeed have to change or die. But also, we need to look at how we define “print”.

To us, print can be defined as any presentation of words or content that the user can take the time to personally engage with. So, therefore, print can be almost anywhere. It’s how it’s executed and presented that make the difference as to whether it will be successful in communicating a message. Or being compelling enough that people will take the time to read, or experience it’s content. Much like any endeavor, it’s the consumer experience that make a difference.

There is some amazing technology being developed that will indeed change how we view, and interact with, print. The goal is still the same, to create a user experience that is both rewarding and fulfilling for the consumer and financially feasible for the producer. Magazine and newspaper publishers have been dealing with this for years. Hell, anyone who produces any type of content that they want consumers to notice have been dealing with this for years. The methods of delivery are changing and we’d better be ready to change with it.

The goals are still the same.

1. Take content, information or some type of message and make it compelling enough that people want to interact with it, or “consume” it if you will.
2. Provide such a unique message or experience that when they “consume” it that it provides a value to them to the extent that they are willing to either take some type of action based on this message, or be willing to pay some amount to be able to continue to have that experience.
3. Be able to “own” this particular space, content or experience for the furtherance of your “brand”.

If these goals sound like the goals of almost any good communications or advertising plan, you are correct. It will be the way that we use these new tools that will make or break the success of these efforts.

The next two often overlooked parts of this equation are design and interface. You may have all the right elements and content, but if they are not presented in the right way to create the best user or consumer experience, there’s a good chance that it may fail.

This is not to say that that things need to be “hyper-designy” or overly pretty. A great example of this concept is the SONY Walkman and Apple’s iPod. The iPod was able to take over the world because it made all of its bells, whistles and music available to the average consumer in a seemingly simple way. It wasn’t over designed with graphics or features, nor was it lacking. The SONY Walkman is actually a brilliant piece of technology. It was designed to do all of the things that the iPod was plus even more things that consumers said they “wanted”. So why is the Walkman not even really mentioned in the music device “wars” anymore?

The Walkman was designed by brilliant engineers and functions as a brilliant engineer thinks and interacts. Your average consumer is not a brilliant engineer (myself included) and just wants to simply access our music, or other digital files or games and be able to use them in a very simple way. iPod was able to create a delivery of a product(s) in a very simple, approachable way. Its design is beautiful in it’s simplicity and the user experience and interface is beautifully simple.

In essence, a lot of what people now use their iPods and iPhones (and any other “smart” device) to access can, by the definition above, be defined as “print”. Read it again and see if you agree. Don’t try to define it in literal, tangible terms, but what it’s trying to accomplish.

So let’s re-examine “print”, how we use it, and how it becomes a valuable asset in the future. We still need great writers, designers, photographers, illustrators and content. Now, with the technology we have coming available we will be able to even further tailor the user experience with the interface design and creating a unique experience with our content. It can be beautiful, inspiring, relevant and valuable just as people in yesteryears defined “traditional print”.

This is a great example of how the “print” experience is evolving and some of the opportunities and possibilities that will be emerging any day now, and it’s beautiful.

Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

Mag+ (video prototype footage only) from Bonnier on Vimeo.

This post was written by Tim Scott, founder and creative director of THEM!. THEM! is a creative company founded to find new ways to help companies create marketing efforts that get results and create opportunities, through any technology or media possible. Contact THEM! at www.THEMdidit.com or call 541 306 6723 for more information.

It’s really easy to make our jobs in advertising just another job.

The routine goes on day-in and day-out. Briefs, ROI, turn-key, blah, blah, blah.

Take a second today and try to remember why it is you got into this business to begin with. Mine began at Miami Ad School. Late nights working on a concept, forgetting to eat or drink for hours while you were so engrossed in creating something you believed in with all of your heart. The hours spent tweaking type even thought there was no thought of billings or time sheets. The passion that you talked about an idea with and the fire that burned inside you to create greatness. This is the determination that we need to find again to make our work great.

“Don’t mistake a message for communication.”

Our agency mission is this:

THEM! We exist to create, to experiment, to generate thought, to move people, to push buttons, stimulate conversation, to change minds and to provoke action.

Focus on the idea, the concept, the message, the communication, and not just all of the cool bells and whistles you can do to make it “cool”. Have a great concept before you even begin to think about the execution and let THAT dictate the communication.

Follow that with every bit as much creativity and thought as your concept as you plan your execution phase. Amazing design, perfect media execution and placement, and a thorough and complete understanding of who you are trying to reach will all add up to a successful effort. And let’s face it. We’re all in the sales business.

We don’t have to sell our creative souls to be successful.

Look at how many of the campaigns and efforts that have inspired us to get into this business to begin with have been successful sales efforts for their clients. Doyle Dane Bernbach and the amazing work for Volkswagon. Chiat Day and the iPod campaign. And too many more to list.

“Don’t just start a business. Start a revolution”

Please, let us as an industry get back to our youth. The days of great ideas at all cost. The days of creating movements and not accepting mediocrity. Let’s add some fuel to the fire of our industry and make it respectable again in boardrooms around the world. We do truly have the power to change the world. We just have to believe in ourselves like young students again.

This post was inspired after watching this interview with John Hagerty of BBH. Watch, learn and fuel the fire.

What is your inspiration? What campaigns moved you? Please add your comments below.

A short while back, some friends of our were asking us about what motivates us to be “creative”. Our answer, INSPIRATION. Inspire us and the wheels start turning, the juices start flowing and the thoughts begin to tumble in our heads like snow in a blizzard. This is one of the things that has inspired us lately…

WOOD from mc bess on Vimeo.