DownsideUpDesign

I first came across Sandy – not pictured above – during some expert interviews Sense Worldwide conducted for a financial services client. Somebody had tipped us off to the fact that she was writing a blog about the value of the ephemera that we surround ourselves with. After seeing the delightful Things&People with it’s impeccable presentation of people’s stories about their stuff, we just had to get in touch.

Sandy had a lasting impact on our project and I was intrigued to know more about this creative who lists Pentagram, Time Out, Apple and Nokia on her C.V. Over coffee in the Sense Worldwide loft, we spent a couple of hours discussing the ups and downs of a career in Cupertino, the richness of the mundane, stitching paper bags and her upcoming projects. I knew that if CreativeMornings came to London, I’d have to have Sandy on board.

And here we are.

Sandy will be taking over the amazing space at Forward in Camden on August 5th for our second CreativeMornings London. I can’t tell you how excited I am to have her speaking. You can sign up for the event from August 1st at 11:00 here.

But enough from me, it’s time to hand over to Sandy for our CreativeMornings London interview.

Where do you go when you need to concentrate?
My work room but generally hatching ideas and refining them happens anywhere.

Is it about what you know or who you know?
Both. If you only know people there’s no disguising a lack of ability.

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Two obsessions of mine collided today. I learnt that Apple-man Jonathan Ive has written the forward to Dieter Rams latest book As Little Design as Possible.

The year after I started my industrial design degree, I took on a part-time job in Apple’s brow-beaten reseller chain. For years they’d been peddling uninspired, underpowered product.

They then suffered the humiliation of selling jelly beans and clam shells when everything else was black.

Life in Apple-land felt hopeless.

Yet as I fell for German industrial design during the week, it wasn’t long before I was selling it’s American second coming on weekends.

First came the seminal G4 Cube and then the iPod. They were the first expressions of a design aesthetic that has now come to define the brand.

However, the most fascinating thing about these products was not their design, brilliantly engaging as it remains.

Rather, it was the effect the objects had on anyone who came into contact with them. Customers were fascinated, resellers revitalised. We began to tell great stories about the products rather than trying (and failing) to win on specs.

The products delighted us and we wanted to share that with the world.

And here’s a video that explains how that delight happened; 8-odd minutes of Dieter Rams loveliness:

The key take-away for me?

“…learn a little bit that not the spectacular things are the important things. The unspectacular things are the important things”

If Apple has shown us anything over the years, a dogged determination to get the unspectacular right, those head-slapping problems of the modern age, really can underpin success.

It’s something I try to remember every day.

Today sees the launch of perhaps one of the most important developments in the automotive sector in its 100 year-plus history. After much speculation, fuelled by a drip feed of information from BMW, the Munich-based company has pulled the wraps off BMW i.

Much more than a new car launch, i represents a new way of thinking, not just about personal transport but also urban mobility.

There had been clues all along that BMW wasn’t interested in simply producing a smaller car. The project codename -MegaCity- hinted that the company was well aware that there were some much bigger issues that it would have to deal with to stay relevant long into the future. Read the rest of this entry »

“The [Peugeot] 505 is a saloon with quite a pleasant appearance, quite efficient engines, quite comfortable seating, quite nice steering and a quite reasonable price. And it is quite well constructed. So, you might say it was merely average. But can it really be that simple? Have Peugeot in fact, played a very clever game where, instead of dazzling us with technology or breathtaking styling, they have decided to woo us with understatement of the profoundest kind?”

Archie Vicar, Automotive Journalist, writing in The Monthly Car Review in October, 1979

The iPad is a tablet computer with quite a pleasant appearance, a quite efficient processor, quite comfortable physical dimensions, a quite nice user experience and a quite reasonable price. And it is quite well constructed. So, you might say it was merely average. But can it really be that simple? Have Apple in fact, played a very clever game where, instead of dazzling us with technology or breathtaking styling, they have decided to woo us with understatement of the profoundest kind?

Given how often I talk about the intersection of automotive design strategy and a generation of kids more interested in their iPhones and iPads than cars, how could I not repurpose the wonderful Mr. Vicar?

And on a similar but different tack: having comprehensively lost their way stylistically, Peugeot would do well to revisit Archie’s observation because it neatly sums up what made the brand so loveable.

Apple, on the other hand, clearly needs no such advice…

Just read this really interesting extract from an interview with Simon Collins, the Dean of Fashion at Parsons where he talks about the impact of the recession on fashion.

Am I alone in thinking that what he says could be easily be translated into rationalising some of the largesse of the car industry?

“The biggest challenge was the biggest opportunity with designers eschewing big runway shows into a static exhibition. This in tandem with an internet presence is a more modern way of working and I think we’ll see much more of it.

A lot of the rubbish will be swept away. We are going to focus on brands with real integrity. There was a much more intelligence to the merchandising of the lines. There was the same level of creativity but less window dressing and more focus on salable items.”

His comments regarding shows is particularly pertinent given the impending Salon de Geneve. Yes, I will be there (hopefully) enjoying my three course lunch with champagne at Audi, I’ll admit. But what if car makers moved away from the massive cost of running their motor show stands and introduced new product like Apple will, who has decided to not continue with their traditional MacWorld keynotes?

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So I’m an Apple user (and a passionate, sometimes envangelical one at that) but I’m not beyond overlooking the niggles that crop up every now and then.

Up until now my biggest gripe (and it is a HUGE one) is that the otherwise lovely iWork apps have not autosaved. This struck me as crazy, especially as I learnt it the hard way by losing 4 hours of work on a presentation.

EverSave, found via SwissMiss, has come to the rescue though! It’s a handy app that automagically saves your work as you go in any or all of your applications. Check it out: Eversave

swissmiss: Automatically Save Your Work on Your Mac On Any Application.