On Wednesday 25 June I followed my colleague Alex onto the New Product Development course organized by Furniture Works at London Metropolitan University. Alex had already briefed me on the format and content of the course so far - I’m the one who spends most time working with design consultants and we agreed I can use the training on that topic most.

NPD Day 3

Jodie Eastwood of Metropolitan Works spoke about how furniture developers and manufacturers can work more productively with designers by breaking down the different issues and expectations into manageable ideas.

We started by differentiating between conceptual design, commercial design and technical design (e.g. conceptual like the Campana Brothers, commercial like Simon Pengelly and technical like the anonymous designer who makes injection-moulded dustbins). What kind of product are you planning — therefore who do you want to brief for the design?

Then we moved on to the design project structure. This was very useful advice — the sort of training you think you already know, but it underlines how easy it is to stray from these intelligent project structures and allow things to get ad-hoc. The whole course group spent a while discussing the balance between creative freedom and hitting the brief on target. How much leeway should a designer get, and how much restraint should the client require? It’s a fuzzy issue and it’s great to discuss it with people who really understand both sides of the dilemna. We also discussed what motivates designers and how to bring out the best in them by learning how to be a ‘good’ client.

Finally, before the morning session finished, we focused on brief writing and we looked at the specific pieces of information a designer should need, in order to fulfil it and come back with usable concept drawings on schedule. We talked about production costs and margins and went down an interesting sidetrack to debate the merits of loss-leaders in the product range.

We broke for lunch. Then this happened…

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It was exactly a week ago today that I was trying to make a point at London Remade’s Green and Thrifty seminar, about a political-economic pendulum swinging back and forth between two polar opposites: “A no-holds-barred free market; and total state intervention”.

Trying to derive a lesson from the Utility Scheme, one of my main arguements was that no matter how benign the intentions of an authoritarian action are, history shows us that the public never fully abides by what has been put forward as mandatory. It is very interesting to see that this argument can in fact strike a chord in today’s current affairs.

A recent piece of news talks about a decision by the German civic authorities to make solar panels mandatory in the town of Marburg. This legislation sets a rule for “every new house or those whose roofs or heating systems are being renovated to install solar panels”.

Looks like killing two birds with one stone: Battling climate change and surviving at a time when energy prices are soaring. Nothing wrong up to this point? Don’t be so quick to judge.

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Over the last two days I attended the first two parts of a pilot programme on New Product Development at the London Metropolitan University. It is a module style course that helps start-ups, furniture designer/makers, and manufacturers pin points weaknesses and develop strengths in their product development. Pli being a company that focuses on effective product development both Christopher and I jumped at the chance to attend the free pilot of this programme.

Day One: Product strategy

We started with an introduction, then quickly moved on to the first module focusing on product strategy. Delivered by Matthew Lewis, from Furniture Works, we went through different elements of product strategy including, market placement and adding value to products. Some of these elements I knew well while others were gems of knowledge that cleared up various confusions I had been “living with” up until now.
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Giraffe Innovation ran a workshop in central London on Tuesday 17 June 08 aimed at helping businesses to understand and improve the carbon footprint of their packaging. Giraffe is one of the organisations behind the WEEE Man and therefore an inspiration for the Reee Chair which Pli has developed with Sprout Design and others. Click the image for more information on this event…

Two of us attended the workshop and we learned a lot about business attitudes to packaging. We have been trying to develop packaging designs that are courier-proof, easily recycled and made from sustainable materials. The information we gained from Giraffe has sent us back to the drawing board in a couple of places but generally speaking it has bolstered our confidence to continue on the route we have chosen.
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On Wednesday this week, our colleague Eray Cayli presented his research into Utility Furniture at the Green and Trifty seminar organised by London Remade. If you’re a product designer, a design student or simply somebody with an interest in sustainable design, you’re sure to find his insights persuasive and inspiring.

Eray’s central point — as I understand it — is that the Utility Furniture scheme applied austerity measures not only to material supply and manufacturing processes, but also to the creative freedom and experimental curiosity of designers in that period (1942 - 1952). Imagine being constrained for 10 years of your working life by design committees staffed by bureauctratic appointees.

Are we risking our liberty to explore and develop new designs, materials and processes as British designers of the 1930s had done, unwittingly? If design professionals won’t moderate their own environmental impact, who will do it for them? Would it be possible for restraints to be applied centrally by governments or trade authorities to limit our work for the benefit of a low-carbon economy in the future?

Importantly, Eray has also spotted opportunities that arose from the Utility scheme, particularly for small local manufacturers who benefitted from a shortened supply and distribution network. They picked up the business that was previously aggregated by the big producers in High Wycombe and London’s East End. Will we increasingly make a virtue of local supply and short journeys?

You can download Eray’s presentation directly here. We’ll be podcasting the audio and slides in the next few days, once Eray has settled back in Istanbul.

If you want to follow up on the research into Utility Furniture and its application to new resource-efficient manufacturing business models, contact Pli or comment here and we’ll pick up the conversation with you.

Here at Pli we love lightweight designs so when I found BMW’s GINA Light Visionary Model, fabric skinned, concept car on Core77 last week I just sat there in awe. I have always admired BMW’s design department for coming up with innovative and challenging concepts, but also the way BMW aren’t afraid to translate them into production. Unlike GM for example, who bring out some great concepts but are still chucking 1970’s mechanics into their current offerings. Anyway I digress, the reason I posted the GINA concept is its the way it uses the lightweight fabrics flexible properties and an articulated space-frame to give the car life-like expression that could not be achieved out of convention metal or even plastic skins panels. The video below shows the concepts various party pieces in action, my favorite is the headlamps (2:20). Hopefully it won’t be to long before we something similar on the road.

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The ubiquitous Treehugger has invited Jerry Stifelman to write more on green marketing and how we are certainly not going to save the world one cliché at a time. His suggestions are wise and succinct, boiling down more or less to ‘it’s the product, stupid’. If ‘green’ messages are going to work in mainstream markets they must finally advertise products that are good stuff as well as good thoughts.

The winners of the Observer ethical awards seem to bear out this simple truth. Finisterre, the ethical fashion category winner, is a great little company that stands out for me for its customer service and product quality. I bought one of their jackets last year and I soon forgot that their fibres are recycled and their suppliers fair.

Natural Collection, the winning online retailer (which does not, unfortunately, sell furniture) commented at the 2006 awards that they already have the ‘green’ customer’s attention: their website is aimed at mainstream customers with a green interest.

All this good sense brings me back to Pli’s principle: we don’t like ‘green’, we like ‘transparent‘. After an enjoyable day answering tough questions from potential retailers, I’m learning to keep the conversation focused on the benefits for the customer, not so much of the big picture stuff. Nobody’s going to kid them into selling something their customers don’t need. Why should they?

The Royal Society of Arts hosted a lecture yesterday evening in London, discussing the recent book ‘Fixing Climate’ with the authors and a panel of eminent climate scientists. An excellent debate ensued, centred around the premise that ’scrubbing’ carbon from the exhaust of coal-fired power stations is going to be one of the very most significant industrial solutions to man-made CO2 emissions. The panel preferred the term ‘anthropogenic’ to man-made, which I found reassuringly science-y.

The authors were kind enough to sign the copies which my colleague and I bought. I began reading mine over my porridge this morning and, like the oats, it’s fairly heavy going but I feel it’s probably worth it. I’ll post a review when I finish it but I want to share an interesting comment made by Lord Oxburgh on the panel yesterday, answering a question from the BBC’s David Shukman about higher energy costs and the people who don’t like them (that’s everyone).
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A daily digest I received from a design mailgroup highly praised a new phone concept called Morph, which has been recently developed by the mobile giant Nokia. The introductory post went into further detail to prove how breakthrough the concept was: “works with solar energy, calculates the hazardous substances on the apple you’re going to eat, never gets dirty and cleans the dirt around it, the Nokia of the future…”

While it is just one of the features proposed by this interesting concept, the ability to calculate the hazardous substances on the apple one is going to eat has especially caught my attention.

With all due respect to the hard work being put into nanotechnology and similar scientific developments, sometimes I find it impossible not to stand aghast at how they’re being translated into consumer products by designers, in the name of ‘adding value’. It reveals a good deal about the flaws of our civilization—and, in particular, the design profession.

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Annie Leonard, the genius behind the short movie ‘The Story of Stuff’, was in Istanbul on May 31st for a screening of the movie. I was among the few lucky Istanbulites-–nothing related to being invited, simply due to people’s lack of awareness!–-who were able to watch the movie with her, after which a Q&A session took place.

I already had a question in mind as I approached the movie theatre, since I had watched the movie several times–thanks to its brilliant webpage. What preoccupied me was something which I had come to realize after looking at what socially and environmentally aware thinkers has said back in the 50s and 60s. I think that today we cannot help but refer greatly to their studies, go against what they’ve gone against, and circulate around the same terms: Corporatism, consumerism, planned & perceived obsolescence, etc.

My question to her was, “Have we failed in coping with these menaces, and if we have, what has gone wrong?”

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