Design Like a Surfer… and How Hyundai Caught the Wave

Over the past decade, driven by an ever-more sophisticated consumer, design has gone from being a bonus to being an essential ingredient in almost every market sector.

Target earned itself a spot on Fast Company’s 2008 Fast 50 list by hiring designers like Michael Graves to bring design to the masses. Motorola shook up the world of cell phones with the Moto Razr. Consumers have evolved far beyond accepting products based on function alone. They’ve developed a hunger for design and even the current financial crisis isn’t going to cause them to lose their appetite.

Designing From the First-Person Perspective

In professional industrial design, designs aren’t really for the designers. They aren’t even for the clients. They’re for the end-users. I believe we get the best results when we “design from the first-person perspective” and really immerse ourselves in the user experience. When we understand the touch points the user identifies with, the needs that drive them, and the benefits they seek, we can create designs people crave. The more we’re able to focus on the user, the more we’re able to create deep emotional connections.

Change-Agent Designs: They Inspire You to Do the Right Thing

While designs are often the result of great inspiration, I’m even more interested in designs that themselves inspire. I’m a great believer in design’s power to effect positive change in the world. Understandably, the first job at hand is often to create a positive effect on a company’s bottom line. But it’s absolutely possible to make money and make a difference.

iPhone Apps and the Making of the 99 Cent Hero

A couple of weeks ago, the billionth iPhone app was downloaded from the App Store. Not bad for only nine months. How are iPhone apps related to heroes? I believe that a key to truly successful design is creating products that make users feel like heroes. The iPhone apps do this day in day out. Have you ever seen an iPhone user, giddy and eager to share the new app they’ve downloaded? They’re delighted to whip out their iPhone and use an app to split a tab, calculate a tip, or check traffic to find a route that will get your group to an important meeting on time. This kind of excitement, pride, and need to share is predictable and repeatable, especially when you learn to look at the consumer’s journey through the lens of the Hero’s Journey.

The Web Design That Changed the World

I like to explore design’s reach into unexpected places. Today, I’d like to focus on design in politics… specifically, how, by creating emotional connection, the Web site my.barackobama.com (commonly known as MyBO), empowered a grassroots campaign that put a young Senator from Illinois in the Oval Office.

I don’t know if Chris Hughes, the Facebook Boy Wonder behind MyBO, considers himself a designer, but I certainly do. In fact, I believe he’s an extraordinary designer. No matter which side of the aisle you sit on, or what color your state, it’s impossible not to recognize the monumental impact the Internet played in the 2008 campaign.

Design’s Reach: Let’s Begin a Dialogue

Design. Everyone seems to know about it. Some discredit it as superficial, while others crave it as a lifestyle. Business can be perplexed by it or harness its power. Not even designers can agree on its meaning.

It’s no wonder the design profession can’t get its story to the world straight. It was much easier thirty years ago we could simply tell the story about our process of sketching and model-making that led to more beautiful and desirable objects. But now, any story focused on “objects” doesn’t begin to tell the story of design’s expansive reach… both outward to every aspect of our lives, and, most especially, inward to our hearts.

Read more of Ravi’s blog post on Fast Company here.

Inspire and be Inspired!

When Carson Hill and Steve Johnson of Neuma recognized the need for an online community for creatives and artists of all types, they enlisted RKS to design and build Amuen.com, the new social network where creative souls can connect to celebrate, showcase, and inspire all kinds of creativity and art.

A New Age of Tattoo Artistry

The traditional electric coil tattoo machines have barely evolved since their invention in the late 1800’s. Still in wide use today, these machines are heavy, awkward, loud, temperamental, and, worst of all, they can’t be sterilized in medical grade autoclave machines. This significantly increases chances of spreading blood-borne disease.

Dissatisfied with traditional coil machines, award-winning tattoo artist and inventor Carson Hill set out to create a completely new kind of tattoo technology – the first air-powered tattoo machine.

Yeah. The Earth Just Moved

JBL’s unveiling of the EON500 series powered and lightweight speakers immediately raises the bar in the category of molded powered loudspeakers in all aspects, from industrial design to sonic performance, integrated utility and portability.

The New Catalyst

Innovated by Ravi Sawhney, founder and CEO of RKS, IDSA’s new Catalyst case study program looks at design’s positive impact not only on the bottom line, but also on our lives, and on the world itself.