1 00:01:08,136 --> 00:01:16,636 When you see an object, you make so many assumptions about that object in seconds. 2 00:01:17,282 --> 00:01:22,282 What it does, how well it’s going to do it, how heavy it is, how much you think it should cost… 3 00:01:27,604 --> 00:01:30,604 The object testifies to the people that conceived it, 4 00:01:30,605 --> 00:01:34,605 thought about it, developed it, manufactured it… 5 00:01:37,131 --> 00:01:42,131 ranging from issues of form to material to its architecture 6 00:01:42,132 --> 00:01:46,132 to how it connects to you – how you touch it, how you hold it. 7 00:01:47,131 --> 00:01:51,131 Every object, intentional or not 8 00:01:53,132 --> 00:01:55,132 speaks to who put it there. 9 00:05:34,801 --> 00:05:39,706 We work as consultants, which means we work with a lot of different companies in a lot of different fields 10 00:05:39,706 --> 00:05:43,335 But really our common interest is in understanding people, and 11 00:05:43,443 --> 00:05:48,048 what their needs are. So if you start to think, really what these 12 00:05:48,048 --> 00:05:52,252 do as consultants is focus on people, then it's easy to think 13 00:05:52,252 --> 00:05:58,157 about what's needed design-wise in the kitchen, or the hospital, or in the car. 14 00:05:59,860 --> 00:06:04,531 We have clients come to us and say, here's our average customer, for instance she's female, 15 00:06:04,531 --> 00:06:09,662 she's 34 years old, she has 2.3 kids. And we listen politely and say, well that's great but 16 00:06:09,836 --> 00:06:15,365 we don't care about that person. What we really need to do to design, 17 00:06:15,542 --> 00:06:20,946 is look at the extremes, the weakest, or the person with arthritis, or the athlete, 18 00:06:21,047 --> 00:06:26,007 or the strongest or the fastest person. Because if we understand what the extremes are, 19 00:06:26,620 --> 00:06:30,613 the middle will take care of itself. 20 00:06:32,559 --> 00:06:36,996 These are actually things I haven't seen in 1,000 years. 21 00:06:38,098 --> 00:06:43,058 We tried to use less material, like here's one that's hollow inside. 22 00:06:43,937 --> 00:06:48,897 A good friend of mine, Sam Farber, he was vacationing with his wife, Betsy. 23 00:06:49,009 --> 00:06:53,742 I got a phone call one night, he was so excited he said he couldn't sleep. 24 00:06:53,880 --> 00:06:58,681 And what he was excited about was he'd been cooking dinner with Betsy and she was making 25 00:06:58,818 --> 00:07:04,051 an apple tart. And she was complaining about the peeler, that it was hurting her hands. 26 00:07:04,190 --> 00:07:10,652 She had arthritis, and she just couldn't hang on to it. And it hit Sam at that moment 27 00:07:10,830 --> 00:07:14,766 that here's a product that nobody's really thought about. 28 00:07:15,068 --> 00:07:20,802 And our thought was, well if we can make it work for people with arthritis, it could be good for everybody. 29 00:07:21,474 --> 00:07:26,468 We knew that it had to be a bigger handle. Kids have big crayons because they're easier 30 00:07:26,579 --> 00:07:31,539 to hold onto. It's the same thing for somebody that might not have full mobility of the their hand, 31 00:07:31,651 --> 00:07:35,985 they need something a little bit larger, that's a little easier to grip with a little less force. 32 00:07:36,089 --> 00:07:40,856 So we did a lot of studies around the shape of the handle, the size of it, to come up with a size 33 00:07:40,927 --> 00:07:43,760 that would be perfect for everybody. 34 00:07:43,863 --> 00:07:49,460 But eventually we found a rubberized bicycle grip, and we basically did this. 35 00:07:51,504 --> 00:07:56,464 So, it really goes through many, many, more iterations than you would think 36 00:07:56,609 --> 00:08:01,569 to do a handle that's relatively simple in the end. 37 00:08:04,317 --> 00:08:09,186 I think one thing with a hand pruner is that you have this constant friction happening 38 00:08:09,289 --> 00:08:11,280 when you're closing it. 39 00:08:11,424 --> 00:08:15,758 But I feel like here's the spot that really hurts, this is the biggest pressure point for me. 40 00:08:15,895 --> 00:08:20,855 So it's like here in this area, on all four fingers, you have friction. 41 00:08:22,469 --> 00:08:27,168 So when we start out doing a project, looking at these different tools to understand 42 00:08:27,574 --> 00:08:32,534 how we can design a better experience for someone, ergonomically 43 00:08:32,645 --> 00:08:37,605 So what we did here was to map it out, when we did the exercise with the glove, understanding where 44 00:08:37,717 --> 00:08:43,519 the pressure points are, then we go into this process of developing models of some of the ideas. 45 00:08:44,557 --> 00:08:50,018 One thing we realized with this model, if you compare with other hedge shears, a lot of them 46 00:08:50,096 --> 00:08:56,626 just have a straight handle, you don't have any control over the weight. So if you're cutting 47 00:08:56,736 --> 00:09:01,264 far down, you have to squeeze harder to hold the tool in place, otherwise it's going to slide 48 00:09:01,374 --> 00:09:09,110 out of your hands. So by sculpting this handle area, it locks your hand around this form, 49 00:09:09,215 --> 00:09:14,050 so you have to squeeze less, so you have a really secure grip. 50 00:09:17,524 --> 00:09:22,484 We're really at the final stages of our design here, where we put them into a place where we can 51 00:09:22,562 --> 00:09:27,431 control them much more closely to get them ready for manufacture, and that is known as CAD 52 00:09:27,500 --> 00:09:29,798 or Computer Aided Design. 53 00:09:29,969 --> 00:09:34,463 It's very important that we constantly are verifying our CAD 54 00:09:34,574 --> 00:09:36,940 with physical models. 55 00:09:38,578 --> 00:09:43,345 Once you get into that, we use a set of technologies that are called rapid prototyping, 56 00:09:43,483 --> 00:09:48,443 so we can really finely control the ergonomics of these parts. 57 00:09:50,190 --> 00:09:55,150 So there are the two halves that come out of the machine, and you can glue them together to make 58 00:09:55,261 --> 00:10:02,258 an entire handle, and attach them to prototypes such as this so we can go out and feel the 59 00:10:02,368 --> 00:10:07,328 comfort and work with it, and make sure our CAD model really represents our design intention. 60 00:10:10,643 --> 00:10:15,603 The way we think of design is, let's put great design into everyday things, 61 00:10:15,815 --> 00:10:19,410 and understand how to make these gadgets perform better. 62 00:10:19,519 --> 00:10:24,479 And that's what we're always looking for whenever we design are ways we can improve 63 00:10:24,591 --> 00:10:28,721 the way people do things, or improve their daily life, 64 00:10:28,795 --> 00:10:33,528 without them even knowing it or thinking about it. 65 00:10:50,383 --> 00:10:56,219 Japanese gardeners, the bonsai must be cut in a way, 66 00:10:56,789 --> 00:11:03,217 that a small bird can fly through it. It's nice, isn't it? 67 00:11:04,797 --> 00:11:09,427 But all the other trees, you also have to cut them. 68 00:11:10,036 --> 00:11:15,997 It's much more so, in Japan. They have to cut them, they have to... 69 00:11:16,176 --> 00:11:21,136 we would say... to design them. But why are we doing all this? 70 00:11:21,281 --> 00:11:27,049 We are doing a lot, to design our world now, we even design the nature. 71 00:13:57,003 --> 00:14:01,963 I remember the first time I saw an Apple product. I remember it so clearly because 72 00:14:02,075 --> 00:14:07,342 it was the first time I realized, when I saw this product, 73 00:14:08,314 --> 00:14:14,514 I got a very clear sense of the people who designed it and made it. 74 00:14:16,489 --> 00:14:22,860 A big definition of who you are as a designer is the way that you look at the world. 75 00:14:24,897 --> 00:14:30,335 And I guess it's one of the curses of what you do, you're constantly looking at something and thinking, 76 00:14:30,436 --> 00:14:35,874 why is it like that? Why is it like that and not like this? 77 00:14:38,478 --> 00:14:43,438 And so in that sense, you're constantly designing. 78 00:14:48,755 --> 00:14:54,352 When we're designing a product, we have to look to different attributes of the product, 79 00:14:54,460 --> 00:14:59,465 and some of those attributes will be the materials it's made from, and the form 80 00:14:59,465 --> 00:15:05,131 that's connected to those materials. So for example with the first iMac that we made, 81 00:15:05,204 --> 00:15:10,164 the primary component of that was the cathode ray tube, which was spherical. We would have an 82 00:15:10,276 --> 00:15:15,179 entirely different approach to designing something like that, than the current iMac, which is a very thin 83 00:15:15,248 --> 00:15:17,182 flat-panel display. 84 00:15:17,383 --> 00:15:22,286 Other issues would be, just physically how do you connect to the product, so for example 85 00:15:22,388 --> 00:15:27,348 with something like the iPhone, everything defers to the display. 86 00:15:29,362 --> 00:15:34,459 A lot of what we seem to be doing in a product like that is getting design out of the way. 87 00:15:35,802 --> 00:15:41,172 And I think when forms develop with that sort of reason, and they're not just arbitrary shapes, 88 00:15:41,841 --> 00:15:47,006 it feels almost inevitable, it feels almost un-designed. It feels almost like, 89 00:15:47,180 --> 00:15:51,844 well of course it's that way, why wouldn't it be any other way. 90 00:15:58,257 --> 00:16:04,321 This is the bezel for the iMac. When we remove the aluminum for the display in the center, 91 00:16:04,464 --> 00:16:11,529 we actually take that material and then we can make two keyboard frames from it. 92 00:16:13,473 --> 00:16:18,433 These are literally just a couple of the stages of how you make the MacBook Air. 93 00:16:18,544 --> 00:16:25,507 Rough cutting... this is for the keyboard well. And there is just a remarkable efficiency and beauty 94 00:16:25,718 --> 00:16:32,715 to how much a single part can do, and one of things we push and push ourselves on is trying to 95 00:16:32,859 --> 00:16:38,456 figure out, can we do the job of those six parts with just one. 96 00:16:39,165 --> 00:16:48,130 This part actually starts off as this extrusion, this is an aluminum extrusion that goes through 97 00:16:48,374 --> 00:16:56,247 multiple operations, most of them CNC machined operations, to end up... 98 00:16:59,018 --> 00:17:05,150 to end up with this part. And you can see, just a dramatic transformation 99 00:17:05,291 --> 00:17:10,752 between this raw blank and the final part. But what we end up with, 100 00:17:10,897 --> 00:17:18,861 is a part that's got all of the mounting features, all of the bosses... this is just one part, 101 00:17:19,005 --> 00:17:24,443 but this one part is providing so much functionality. 102 00:17:24,677 --> 00:17:28,841 And this one part really does enable this product. 103 00:17:28,981 --> 00:17:36,251 So much of the effort behind a product like the MacBook Air was experimenting 104 00:17:36,355 --> 00:17:41,315 with different processes. There's a... it's completely non-obvious, 105 00:17:41,494 --> 00:17:47,023 but the way that you hold... to get from this part, to this part... 106 00:17:47,133 --> 00:17:55,097 there's an incredibly complex series of fixtures to hold this part in the different machine stages. 107 00:17:56,242 --> 00:18:00,110 And we end up spending a lot of time designing fixtures. 108 00:18:00,780 --> 00:18:05,376 The design of this, in many ways wasn't the design of a physical thing, 109 00:18:05,484 --> 00:18:08,282 it was figuring out process. 110 00:18:08,688 --> 00:18:12,954 It's really important in a product to have a sense of a hierarchy of what's important 111 00:18:13,059 --> 00:18:17,860 and what's not important, by removing those things that are all vying for your attention. 112 00:18:18,097 --> 00:18:22,261 An indicator has a value when it's indicating something. 113 00:18:22,368 --> 00:18:26,566 But if it's not indicating something, it shouldn't be there. 114 00:18:26,739 --> 00:18:33,474 It's one of those funny things, you spend so much time to make it less conspicuous and less obvious. 115 00:18:33,646 --> 00:18:38,606 And if you think about it so many of the products that we're surrounded by, they want you to be very 116 00:18:38,684 --> 00:18:43,485 aware of just how clever the solution was. 117 00:18:43,723 --> 00:18:49,252 When the indicator comes on, I wouldn't expect anybody to point to that as a feature, 118 00:18:49,395 --> 00:18:57,268 but at some level I think you're aware of a calm and considered solution, 119 00:18:57,336 --> 00:19:03,673 that therefore speaks about how you're going to use it, not the terrible struggles 120 00:19:03,876 --> 00:19:09,337 that we as designers and engineers had in trying to solve some of the problems. 121 00:19:10,850 --> 00:19:15,412 That's quite obsessive, isn't it? 122 00:19:18,691 --> 00:19:23,822 We now have a new generation of products where the form bears absolutely no relation 123 00:19:23,963 --> 00:19:28,662 to the function. I mean, look at something like an iPhone and think of all the things it does. 124 00:19:28,801 --> 00:19:33,761 In "ye olden days" of what are called analog products, in other words they're not digital, 125 00:19:33,906 --> 00:19:39,936 they're not electronic, something like a chair or a spoon. "Form follows function" tended to work. 126 00:19:40,079 --> 00:19:45,244 So if say you imagine being a Martian and you just land on planet Earth, and you've never seen 127 00:19:45,317 --> 00:19:49,947 a spoon or a chair before. You can guess roughly what you're supposed to do with them... 128 00:19:50,056 --> 00:19:54,720 sit on them or feed yourself with them... by the shape of the object, by the way it looks. 129 00:19:54,860 --> 00:20:02,198 Now all that has been annihilated by the microchip. So design is moving from this culture of 130 00:20:02,334 --> 00:20:07,465 the tangible and the material, to an increasingly intangible and immaterial culture, 131 00:20:07,640 --> 00:20:13,306 and that poses an enormous number of tensions and conflicts within design. 132 00:20:16,782 --> 00:20:20,843 I think there are really three phases of modern design. 133 00:20:20,953 --> 00:20:27,222 One of those phases, or approaches if you like, is looking at the design in a formal relationship, 134 00:20:27,359 --> 00:20:33,457 the formal logic of the object. The act of form-giving, form begets form. 135 00:20:33,666 --> 00:20:39,127 The second way to look at it is in terms of the symbolism, and the content of what you're 136 00:20:39,271 --> 00:20:45,972 dealing with. The little rituals that make up... making coffee, or using a fork and knife, 137 00:20:46,078 --> 00:20:52,608 or the cultural symbolism of a particular object. Those come back to inhabit and help give form, 138 00:20:52,752 --> 00:20:57,883 help give guidance to the designer about how that form should be, or how it should look. 139 00:20:58,090 --> 00:21:04,120 The third phase is looking at design in a contextual sense, in a much bigger-picture scenario. 140 00:21:04,230 --> 00:21:11,159 It's looking at the technological context for that object, it's looking at the human-object relationship. 141 00:21:11,737 --> 00:21:16,299 For the first phase you might have something fairly new, like Karim Rashid's Kone vacuum 142 00:21:16,442 --> 00:21:22,779 for Dirt Devil, that the company sells as so beautiful that you can put it on display, 143 00:21:22,915 --> 00:21:26,749 in other words you can leave it on your counter and it doesn't look like it's a piece of crap. 144 00:21:27,219 --> 00:21:32,179 Conversely you can look at James Dyson and his vacuum cleaners. He approaches the design 145 00:21:32,291 --> 00:21:37,251 of the vacuum in a very functionalist manner, but if you look at the form of it, 146 00:21:37,396 --> 00:21:41,423 it's really expressing that, it's expressing the symbolism of function. 147 00:21:41,567 --> 00:21:45,765 There's color introduced into it, and he's not a frivolous person, so it's really there to articulate 148 00:21:45,938 --> 00:21:51,240 the various components of the vacuum. Or you could look at, in a more recent manifestation 149 00:21:51,343 --> 00:21:55,575 of this kind of contextual approach, would be something like the Roomba. 150 00:21:55,748 --> 00:21:59,912 There the relationship to the vacuum is very different. First of all there's no more human 151 00:21:59,985 --> 00:22:04,547 interaction relationship, the relationship is to the room it's cleaning. 152 00:22:04,690 --> 00:22:09,286 I think it's even more interesting that the company actually has kits available in the marketplace 153 00:22:09,395 --> 00:22:13,923 through iCreate, and it's essentially the Roomba vaccum cleaner kit that's made for hacking. 154 00:22:14,266 --> 00:22:19,966 People are really wacky, they've created things like Bionic Hamster, which is attaching 155 00:22:20,105 --> 00:22:26,169 the play wheel or dome that the hamster uses as the driving device for the Roomba, 156 00:22:26,312 --> 00:22:31,272 so it's the ultimate revenge of the animal on the vacuum cleaner. 157 00:22:32,318 --> 00:22:37,483 How I think about it as a designer myself is that design is the search for form, 158 00:22:38,791 --> 00:22:42,090 what form should this object take. 159 00:22:42,228 --> 00:22:47,188 And designers have asked that question, and used different processes. 160 00:27:14,299 --> 00:27:19,669 Hey, what about the forks for the bike? Can you make a few inquiries? 161 00:27:27,346 --> 00:27:31,407 Because l'd love to do the forks, I think the forks would be really cool. 162 00:27:35,754 --> 00:27:41,715 Well this is my little table of... one of my tables... you know l've got a whole workshop downstairs 163 00:27:41,793 --> 00:27:48,062 which is just full of shit. But these are just things that I just find interesting, 164 00:27:48,167 --> 00:27:54,003 and things I want to have around and look at. Sometimes these are the materials 165 00:27:54,072 --> 00:27:59,442 that l'm looking for an excuse to use, as opposed to the other way around. 166 00:28:00,112 --> 00:28:06,051 But things like Micarta, this is one of my favorite materials, and it's actually made of linen, 167 00:28:06,151 --> 00:28:12,750 so it's a bit like wood, actually, it feels like a living material. And it's enormously heavy. 168 00:28:14,826 --> 00:28:20,196 And these kind of weird meshes, how cool is that. I have no idea what they use this for... 169 00:28:20,299 --> 00:28:25,259 it's like this stainless steel... braided... stuff. 170 00:28:29,274 --> 00:28:34,234 My career didn't start after art school, it started when I made my first object 171 00:28:34,346 --> 00:28:39,784 in my grandfather's garage. I remember my uncle had said as soon as I could tell the time, 172 00:28:39,918 --> 00:28:44,514 he'd give me a wristwatch. So I figured out how to tell the time, and he gave me this wristwatch, 173 00:28:44,623 --> 00:28:50,027 and I promptly pulled it to bits. I went out to my grandfather's garage and found an old bit of 174 00:28:50,229 --> 00:28:54,791 Plexiglas and started hacking away at this bit of Plexiglas and drilling holes, 175 00:28:54,900 --> 00:29:00,236 and I transplanted this movement from this once-working watch into it. 176 00:29:01,106 --> 00:29:04,940 That was my first.... 177 00:29:05,043 --> 00:29:06,635 ...design, I guess. 178 00:29:11,016 --> 00:29:15,976 I grew up in a generation... you know I can remember when they landed on the moon. 179 00:29:16,288 --> 00:29:23,854 I can't deny that that was a massive event in my life. All of my dreams were about the future. 180 00:29:25,564 --> 00:29:33,562 What I want to do is to be able to have things that don't exist..... things you can't go out and buy, 181 00:29:33,772 --> 00:29:39,574 or things that irritate you. Anger, or dissatisfaction at the very least, 182 00:29:39,678 --> 00:29:44,547 plays such an important role in motivating you, to do what we do. 183 00:29:45,117 --> 00:29:49,713 But ultimately my job as a designer is to look into the future, 184 00:29:49,855 --> 00:29:54,724 it's not to use any frame of reference that exists now. My job is about what's going to happen, 185 00:29:54,793 --> 00:29:57,057 not what has happened. 186 00:30:05,470 --> 00:30:12,308 As a designer, my philosophy is fundamentally non-disposable, 187 00:30:13,178 --> 00:30:18,411 and somehow trying to offer products that you want to keep, 188 00:30:19,117 --> 00:30:24,384 and products that you feel most importantly will stand the test of time. 189 00:30:24,990 --> 00:30:29,950 That hopefully won't date as badly as other things. 190 00:30:30,462 --> 00:30:35,764 Because it's all about wanting to have new things, isn't it? Ultimately, we could all still be 191 00:30:35,934 --> 00:30:39,768 using the mobile phone we had three years ago. 192 00:30:39,905 --> 00:30:43,671 But you know we've all had about five in the meantime. 193 00:31:17,743 --> 00:31:22,703 Of course I fundamentally believe that something that's well-designed should not necessarily 194 00:31:22,814 --> 00:31:29,617 cost more. Arguably it should cost less. But the problem is that design has become a way 195 00:31:29,755 --> 00:31:34,715 for a lot of companies to "add value" because something is designed, and therefore 196 00:31:34,860 --> 00:31:37,294 charge more money for it. 197 00:31:38,730 --> 00:31:42,427 And it will become more and more pervasive, and things will be 198 00:31:42,534 --> 00:31:46,402 marketed in terms of design, in the future. 199 00:32:10,662 --> 00:32:15,622 The idea of elitism and the idea of design are merged. And it's out of this kind of culture 200 00:32:15,767 --> 00:32:20,795 that the idea of democratization of design comes from. I always tell people that I grew up 201 00:32:21,573 --> 00:32:25,339 with good design in my home, with all the Joe Columbo 202 00:32:25,444 --> 00:32:28,413 and Achille Castiglioni pieces, not because we were rich, or 203 00:32:28,513 --> 00:32:33,177 my parents were educated in design. Not at all, we were totally middle class and my parents 204 00:32:33,285 --> 00:32:37,278 are doctors. It's just because that's what you would find at the corner. 205 00:32:37,389 --> 00:32:43,089 There's design that costs more, and design that costs less. Some of it is good, some of it is bad. 206 00:32:43,662 --> 00:32:48,622 "Democratization of design" is an empty slogan, it should really not even exist. 207 00:33:05,817 --> 00:33:12,723 Target, in particular, fell right into line with, and influenced a lot of pop culture thinking 208 00:33:12,891 --> 00:33:18,523 about the importance of design and the virtue of design. The basic idea was good design is 209 00:33:18,663 --> 00:33:22,599 something you want, good design is something that distinguishes you, 210 00:33:22,734 --> 00:33:25,259 it's sort of a mark of progress, 211 00:33:25,370 --> 00:33:31,741 if you are a person who recognizes good design it distinguishes you from all the naive and 212 00:33:32,511 --> 00:33:38,780 corny bourgeois of the past, the past being everything up to that minute. 213 00:33:39,784 --> 00:33:45,313 So you can now buy into that, you can buy into progress, good design, good taste. 214 00:33:46,691 --> 00:33:52,254 And they had it available to you in a very attainable way. 215 00:33:54,733 --> 00:34:00,330 Often the way that a product comes into being isn't because a bunch of expert designers 216 00:34:00,505 --> 00:34:04,601 sat down and said, "What are the ten most important problems we can solve?" 217 00:34:04,876 --> 00:34:09,904 There's a company that's writing a check. And what the company wants is new SKU's, 218 00:34:10,015 --> 00:34:15,419 they want more stuff, and they want more people to buy it. And that's the name of the game. 219 00:34:23,828 --> 00:34:28,288 We tend to want new things. 220 00:34:29,167 --> 00:34:34,935 They can do something that has a different look, a fresher look, a newer look, 221 00:34:35,206 --> 00:34:39,643 a new-now, next-now kind of look. 222 00:34:39,978 --> 00:34:44,506 And the problem with spending a lot of time focusing on what's very now and very next 223 00:34:44,649 --> 00:34:49,712 is that it isn't very forever. And that means it doesn't last, because there's someone else coming along 224 00:34:49,821 --> 00:34:54,224 trying to design what's now and next after that. And part of their agenda, 225 00:34:54,459 --> 00:34:59,396 whether it's over-articulated or not, is to make whatever used to be now, 226 00:34:59,497 --> 00:35:02,694 Iook like then, so that people will buy the new now. 227 00:35:23,588 --> 00:35:28,287 Cars are the biggest and most abundant set of sculptures that we have 228 00:35:28,393 --> 00:35:30,953 in contact every day in our lives. 229 00:35:31,596 --> 00:35:37,000 Although they're reproduced by machines, and computer milled stamps that make them, 230 00:35:37,202 --> 00:35:42,162 actually every one of them was originally carved by hand, by men and women using techniques 231 00:35:42,307 --> 00:35:46,073 not a whole lot different than Michelangelo. 232 00:35:46,344 --> 00:35:49,279 Car designers are making extremely dynamic, sexy 233 00:35:49,381 --> 00:35:54,341 objects, in theory. But in reality, they're bending metal, plastic, 234 00:35:55,020 --> 00:35:59,423 glass. This isn't like a woman coming down a catwalk, where she's swishing the dress and 235 00:35:59,491 --> 00:36:04,622 showing a little bit here and there, and getting your eyes to goggle. Unh-uh. This thing is frozen in time. 236 00:36:04,729 --> 00:36:11,032 Which means we have to create it in a way so that you as the observer look at it, 237 00:36:12,070 --> 00:36:18,407 and you put the motion into it, by the way you scan it. Because that car has to be a reflection 238 00:36:18,510 --> 00:36:22,844 of that emotional energy that you want to see in it. 239 00:36:27,352 --> 00:36:33,018 I believe very strongly in the emotional authenticity of the product, it should reflect what it is. 240 00:36:33,892 --> 00:36:38,022 So if the car is a performance object it should have that feel. 241 00:36:38,697 --> 00:36:45,296 It is quite bothersome to me when I see humanistic elements of a car being strangely handled. 242 00:36:46,604 --> 00:36:50,005 For instance, cars have a face. 243 00:36:50,141 --> 00:36:56,603 Well, you can have lots of faces. But when you put that one face on a car, it's there forever, 244 00:36:57,015 --> 00:37:03,386 it's just one expression. And because cars have evolved to having two elements, 245 00:37:03,488 --> 00:37:08,824 big taillights and a license plate, the backs of cars have also evolved a face, 246 00:37:08,927 --> 00:37:13,159 also very interesting, and some of those are awfully... challenging. 247 00:37:16,468 --> 00:37:21,428 How do we solve problems of lightness, how do we solve problems of efficiency? I think these 248 00:37:21,539 --> 00:37:26,499 are things that are going to be difficult, but we can solve those. But the real challenges of car design 249 00:37:26,711 --> 00:37:31,045 are going to be addressing the future generations' perceptions of what they want cars to be in their 250 00:37:31,116 --> 00:37:35,644 Iives? Do they want them to fade into the background, and just be there when they need one? 251 00:37:35,787 --> 00:37:39,848 Or do they want them to stand up and be a representative of them, basically like we grew up 252 00:37:39,924 --> 00:37:45,453 with it, they're kind of like avatars. I show myself to the outside world through this car. 253 00:37:50,869 --> 00:37:55,670 When you own the car and you drive the car, even your decisions about are you going to put 254 00:37:55,807 --> 00:38:00,676 a bumper sticker on it... there's an idea of an audience. 255 00:38:02,046 --> 00:38:06,506 I feel pretty strongly, and this is true not just for cars but for almost everything we buy, that our real 256 00:38:06,618 --> 00:38:13,353 audience is really ourselves. And that the person that you're really speaking to 257 00:38:13,591 --> 00:38:19,052 when you're speaking about why me in this car, why is this the right car for me... 258 00:38:19,931 --> 00:38:25,028 you're making a statement to yourself about yourself. 259 00:38:28,239 --> 00:38:33,609 In sort of an abstract way, you're thinking about what they might be thinking of you, 260 00:38:33,778 --> 00:38:38,477 and whether or not they like your Obama sticker, or your Save the Whales, or... 261 00:38:38,616 --> 00:38:43,178 or your Christian fish, or whatever it might be. But the crucial thing is the self, 262 00:38:43,288 --> 00:38:48,658 it's your own audience, your own story of l'm not that guy, or I am that guy, or that woman. 263 00:38:48,827 --> 00:38:52,820 Because the truth is no one cares, on the highway. 264 00:42:38,623 --> 00:42:41,820 Design is about mass production. 265 00:42:43,294 --> 00:42:48,254 Design is using industry to produce serialized goods. 266 00:42:49,534 --> 00:42:54,870 And I try everything I can in the mass market to change the goods, that people who know 267 00:42:54,972 --> 00:42:58,999 nothing about design, or the people who say they don't care about design, or the people who 268 00:42:59,143 --> 00:43:03,409 don't believe their world should have contemporary goods in it. 269 00:43:04,048 --> 00:43:09,281 Those are the people I think design can have such an amazing affect on their lives. 270 00:43:14,592 --> 00:43:21,020 When I was a teenager, I had this white -- from Claritone, I think it was a Canadian company, 271 00:43:21,132 --> 00:43:26,365 it was a white bubble stereo, with two bubbled white speakers. 272 00:43:26,771 --> 00:43:31,731 And it was probably very inexpensive, it was a real democratic product. It was a turntable, 273 00:43:31,843 --> 00:43:37,543 and the whole thing built in. And it was a beautiful thing... Looking back, 274 00:43:37,715 --> 00:43:42,516 and thinking why it was a beautiful thing, was because it was very self-contained, 275 00:43:42,620 --> 00:43:47,353 and the message was very strong and very simple, and at the same time it was very human. 276 00:43:47,458 --> 00:43:52,418 There was a quality about it, it was like a womb, it was like an extension of us, somehow. 277 00:43:52,730 --> 00:43:58,066 It was soft, it was engaging. And I used to have this alarm clock radio, a Braun, 278 00:43:58,269 --> 00:44:02,831 that Dieter Rams designed in the late '60s. 279 00:44:03,174 --> 00:44:09,443 And they were these objects in my life that I really was in love with, they brought so much to me. 280 00:44:09,780 --> 00:44:14,274 And I can remember going through the teenage angst thing, of feeling depressed or something, 281 00:44:14,418 --> 00:44:18,855 and lying on my bed, and I would just look at the alarm clock, and felt better immediately. 282 00:44:19,090 --> 00:44:24,050 So I always had this really strong relationship with physical products. 283 00:44:28,466 --> 00:44:34,405 There's something that moves through a lot of my forms, and that is to speak about a kind of 284 00:44:34,572 --> 00:44:40,067 digital, technological, or techno-organic world. Somehow if I do things that are very, 285 00:44:40,244 --> 00:44:46,240 very organic, but l'm using new technologies, I feel like l'm doing something in a way 286 00:44:46,384 --> 00:44:52,323 that's a physical interpretation of the digital age. 287 00:44:55,159 --> 00:45:01,496 We have advanced technologically so far, and yet somehow it's some sort or paranoia where we're 288 00:45:01,599 --> 00:45:08,334 afraid to really say We live in the third technological revolution. I have an iPod in my pocket, 289 00:45:08,472 --> 00:45:13,239 I have a mobile phone, I have a laptop, but then somehow I end up going home and sitting on 290 00:45:13,344 --> 00:45:19,112 wood-spindled Wittengale chairs. So in a way you could argue that we're building all these 291 00:45:19,250 --> 00:45:26,679 really kitsch stage sets, that have absolutely nothing to do with the age in which we live. 292 00:45:26,924 --> 00:45:32,658 It's strangel. I find it extremely perverse, in a way. I mean imagine right now, l'm sitting here on my 293 00:45:32,763 --> 00:45:38,326 Iaptop, and l've got to go out. What am I going to do, get in my horse and carriage? Of course not! 294 00:45:39,437 --> 00:45:45,171 Why do we feel like we need to keep revisiting the archetype over and over again? 295 00:45:45,643 --> 00:45:50,648 Digital cameras, for example, their format and proportion, the fact that they're a horizontal 296 00:45:50,648 --> 00:45:58,556 rectangle, are modeled after the original silver film camera. So in turn it's the film that defined 297 00:45:58,556 --> 00:46:02,754 the shape of the camera. All of the sudden our digital cameras have no film. 298 00:46:02,827 --> 00:46:07,665 So why on earth do we have the same shape we have. Now without sounding like a hypocrite, 299 00:46:07,665 --> 00:46:12,500 I revisit archetypes, l've designed many chairs. With that given, you say, okay now l'm going to design 300 00:46:12,570 --> 00:46:17,575 a chair. What can I do here? How can I put my fingerprint on it and differentiate it from everyone 301 00:46:17,575 --> 00:46:22,672 else and every other designer? And am I playing a game to show I can differentiate? 302 00:46:22,747 --> 00:46:28,151 or am I actually really doing something that is contributive? Because the big issue with design is, 303 00:46:28,219 --> 00:46:32,121 are the things we are doing really making an affect and making change? 304 00:46:34,925 --> 00:46:40,886 78% of the world is completely impractical. 78%% of the world is uncomfortable. You feel it. 305 00:46:40,965 --> 00:46:45,736 You feel that hotel rooms are poorly designed, you sit in chairs that are very uncomfortable. 306 00:46:45,736 --> 00:46:49,507 And it's craziness. Imagine that if you design a million chairs to date, or however many chairs have 307 00:46:49,507 --> 00:46:53,010 been done in the world, why on earth should we have an uncomfortable chair? 308 00:46:53,010 --> 00:46:56,343 There's no excuse whatsoever. 309 00:46:56,847 --> 00:47:02,286 People need to demand that design performs for them and is special in their lives. 310 00:47:02,286 --> 00:47:04,413 these objects that they buy. 311 00:47:04,522 --> 00:47:08,185 If you can't make your GPS thing work in your car, 312 00:47:08,259 --> 00:47:11,786 there should be a riot because they're so poorly designed. 313 00:47:11,896 --> 00:47:17,425 Instead, the person sits there and thinks, "Oh, l'm not very smart, I can't make this GPS thing work." 314 00:47:17,501 --> 00:47:21,403 I can't make the things work! This is my field and l can't make them work! 315 00:47:21,939 --> 00:47:26,774 If you design something that's precious and that you really love, you're never going to leave that. 316 00:47:26,844 --> 00:47:31,304 My father's briefcase, made out of a beautiful piece of leather, gets better with use. And l've inherited it 317 00:47:31,382 --> 00:47:37,048 and l'll pass it on, right? It's a really interesting thing, sometimes I get that task which is:. 318 00:47:37,221 --> 00:47:43,561 design something that gets better with use. There's very few things, they mostly degrade, but... 319 00:47:43,561 --> 00:47:47,930 some things like this briefcase get better with use. 320 00:48:03,247 --> 00:48:07,616 Now that's a pretty sweet tick-over, don't you think? 321 00:48:09,987 --> 00:48:14,947 I like the concept of wearing in rather than wearing out. 322 00:48:15,059 --> 00:48:21,055 You'd like to create something where the emotional relationship is more satisfying over time. 323 00:48:21,165 --> 00:48:28,333 And you may not worry about it, or think about it... people don't have to have a strong 324 00:48:28,439 --> 00:48:35,208 Iove relationship with their things, but they should grow a little more fond of them over time. 325 00:48:36,046 --> 00:48:41,245 For example on the laptop that I designed, it's actually a magnesium enclosure 326 00:48:41,318 --> 00:48:46,950 but it has paint on the outside. And when it gets dinged, if it's dropped and 327 00:48:47,024 --> 00:48:50,394 a bit of paint chips off and you see some of the magnesium showing through, 328 00:48:50,394 --> 00:48:54,353 somehow it feels better because of that. 329 00:48:55,933 --> 00:49:02,964 The computer we call the Grid Compass, the Compass computer, arguably the first laptop 330 00:49:03,040 --> 00:49:08,842 that was actually ever produced is this one. You could carry it with you, we designed it to be 331 00:49:08,913 --> 00:49:13,441 thin enough to fit in half your briefcase, so you could put papers in as well. 332 00:49:13,517 --> 00:49:20,491 Then there was a leg at the back that flipped down, to put it at the right angle, for using 333 00:49:20,491 --> 00:49:25,451 the ergonomic preferred angle of 11 degrees. We wanted to devise a hinge that would allow it 334 00:49:25,529 --> 00:49:32,059 to rotate so the display could come up, but also not let anything into the electronics behind. 335 00:49:32,169 --> 00:49:38,631 So in order to avoid something like a pencil falling into it, let me just show you what could happen, 336 00:49:38,742 --> 00:49:43,702 if you put a pencil on the back it would roll down and drop inside. I designed a scoop, 337 00:49:43,781 --> 00:49:48,445 that would then self-eject the pencil when you closed it. 338 00:49:49,119 --> 00:49:53,055 That was a little trick.... of that. 339 00:49:55,826 --> 00:50:01,958 When I got the first working prototype, I took the machine home, really thrilled about 340 00:50:02,132 --> 00:50:09,139 wanting to use it myself. And it was with great pride that I opened up the display and thought 341 00:50:09,139 --> 00:50:13,769 how clever I was to have designed this latch and this hinge and all this stuff. 342 00:50:13,844 --> 00:50:19,680 And then, I started to actually try and use it. And within a few moments, I found myself 343 00:50:19,750 --> 00:50:26,280 forgetting all about my physical design, and realizing that everything I was really interested in 344 00:50:26,357 --> 00:50:31,124 was happening in my relationship between what was happening behind the screen. 345 00:50:31,228 --> 00:50:36,188 I felt like I was kind of being sucked down inside the machine, and the interaction between me 346 00:50:36,300 --> 00:50:41,567 and the device was all to do with the digital software and very little to do with the physical design. 347 00:50:43,574 --> 00:50:48,978 That made me realize that if I was going to truly design the whole experience, I would really have 348 00:50:49,046 --> 00:50:56,248 to learn how to design this software stuff. That made me search for a name for it, 349 00:50:57,321 --> 00:51:01,758 which we ended up calling interaction design. 350 00:56:21,311 --> 00:56:27,216 Arguably the biggest single challenge facing every area of design right now is sustainability. 351 00:56:28,252 --> 00:56:33,212 It's no longer possible for designers to ignore the implications of continuing to produce 352 00:56:33,290 --> 00:56:38,250 more and more new stuff that sometimes we need, and sometimes we don't need. 353 00:56:38,929 --> 00:56:43,798 Designers spend most of their time designing product and services for the 1 0%%% of the world's 354 00:56:43,867 --> 00:56:51,171 population that already own too much, when 90%%% don't have even basic products and services 355 00:56:51,241 --> 00:56:54,677 to lead a subsistent life. 356 00:56:57,547 --> 00:57:03,008 Although a lot of designers believe emotionally and intellectually in sustainability, 357 00:57:03,420 --> 00:57:08,824 they and the manufacturers they work for are finding it very difficult to come to terms with. 358 00:57:09,092 --> 00:57:15,599 Because sustainability isn't some sort of pretty, glamorous process of using recycled materials 359 00:57:15,599 --> 00:57:19,729 to design something that may or may not be in the color green. 360 00:57:19,803 --> 00:57:27,505 It's about redesigning every single aspect, from sourcing materials, to designing, to production, 361 00:57:27,577 --> 00:57:32,582 to shipping, and then eventually designing a way that those products can be disposed of responsibly. 362 00:57:32,582 --> 00:57:37,120 That's a mammoth task, so it's no wonder designers and manufacturers 363 00:57:37,120 --> 00:57:39,247 are finding it so difficult. 364 00:57:44,962 --> 00:57:50,628 If one's really honest with oneself, most of what you design ends up in a landfill somewhere. 365 00:57:51,301 --> 00:57:56,534 And l'm pretty sure most of the products that l've designed in my career, 366 00:57:56,606 --> 00:58:02,476 most instances of the millions of things that have been produced are probably in landfills today. 367 00:58:02,813 --> 00:58:07,684 That isn't something I was conscious of when l started working as a designer, it didn't even really 368 00:58:07,684 --> 00:58:12,018 occur to me because it didn't really occur to us as a society, I think. 369 00:58:12,122 --> 00:58:17,719 Now, to be a designer, you have to take that into consideration, because we have to think about 370 00:58:17,794 --> 00:58:22,629 these complex systems in which our products exist. 371 00:58:22,933 --> 00:58:29,338 If the shelf life of a high-tech object is less than 11 months, it should all be 1 00%%% disposable. 372 00:58:29,973 --> 00:58:35,240 You know, my laptop should be made of cardboard, or my mobile phone could be a piece of cardboard, 373 00:58:35,412 --> 00:58:40,372 or it could be made out of something like sugar cane or some bio-plastic, etc. 374 00:58:42,019 --> 00:58:46,353 Why on earth does anything have to be built to be permanent? 375 00:58:47,124 --> 00:58:55,122 If I think about my admiration for Eames, it was an admiration for his ability to identify 376 00:58:55,232 --> 00:59:00,771 the qualities of new materials which could be used to create new objects. But nobody worried about 377 00:59:00,771 --> 00:59:05,868 whether fiberglass was going to cause disease, or be difficult to dispose of. 378 00:59:05,942 --> 00:59:11,505 Life was a little bit simpler for him, in that regard. He could just think about using the materials 379 00:59:11,581 --> 00:59:14,607 for their best design attributes. 380 00:59:17,754 --> 00:59:23,160 But now, we have to face this idea that what we do is not just the way we create some 381 00:59:23,160 --> 00:59:25,560 individual design. 382 00:59:27,164 --> 00:59:32,568 It's what happens afterwards, when we've finished our design and people have used it. 383 00:59:33,804 --> 00:59:38,764 So this sort of "cradle to cradle" concept. 384 00:59:51,188 --> 00:59:55,955 One of my very first projects was to design a toothbrush, a kids' toothbrush. 385 00:59:56,026 --> 01:00:01,555 Brushes at that time typically were just a stick with bristles at the end, which was pretty boring. 386 01:00:01,865 --> 01:00:06,461 So we introduced other materials to it and we made the handle thick. 387 01:00:06,536 --> 01:00:11,735 And in the end it became a really successful product. But my boss, 388 01:00:11,808 --> 01:00:17,041 maybe half a year after we launched the brush, went on vacation... 389 01:00:17,147 --> 01:00:22,686 the idea was to go to the most remote beach. And the way Paul tells the story is 390 01:00:22,686 --> 01:00:26,747 the next morning he steps out of the tent and he wants to go the pristine beach, 391 01:00:26,823 --> 01:00:32,193 whales frolicking and all perfect, and what does he stumble over:. it's our toothbrush. 392 01:00:32,329 --> 01:00:38,234 And it's there, and it's this brush, it's covered in barnacles, the plastic is faded, 393 01:00:38,368 --> 01:00:45,433 the bristles are worn. This brush, within months of the product being launched, had been used up, 394 01:00:45,542 --> 01:00:51,310 had been discarded, and found its way in the Pacific. So even though it's a little, small object, 395 01:00:51,448 --> 01:00:56,579 it creates a big piece of landfill that apparently goes just about everywhere. 396 01:01:01,291 --> 01:01:05,625 Let's go ahead and start defining some of the challenges and some of the questions we might be 397 01:01:05,695 --> 01:01:11,190 asking ourselves. Is there any toothbrush that we'd actually feel comfortable washing up on the beach? 398 01:01:11,735 --> 01:01:16,434 So much of the toothbrush does not need to be disposed of, right? You put the bristles 399 01:01:16,506 --> 01:01:21,466 in your mouth, the rest of it is all cleanable material. Why are we tossing this stuff out every time? 400 01:01:21,578 --> 01:01:26,583 There could be the greatest handle in the world, because if you only use one handle in your lifetime 401 01:01:26,583 --> 01:01:32,385 you could make it out of sterling silver, it could be this heirloom and then you just replace the heads. 402 01:01:32,856 --> 01:01:37,816 I think also the solution of the toothbrush assumes the only approach to oral care, 403 01:01:37,894 --> 01:01:41,762 or one of the main approaches to oral care is through the toothbrush. 404 01:01:41,831 --> 01:01:46,791 What is we didn't need toothbrushes? What could it be? 405 01:01:49,873 --> 01:01:54,744 When I first started the company, the role of the industrial designer was primarily about the 406 01:01:54,744 --> 01:02:03,311 aesthetics, or the cleverness around function, but it was always as a minor piece... 407 01:02:03,453 --> 01:02:12,259 the company was in charge of the major piece, and we were hired guns to complete some aspect. 408 01:02:12,495 --> 01:02:17,762 The question is actually not "What's the new toothbrush?" but "What's the future of oral care?" 409 01:02:17,867 --> 01:02:21,394 A fortune cookie with floss inside? 410 01:02:21,605 --> 01:02:26,042 As we grew it became clear that companies were happy for us to do more and more 411 01:02:26,109 --> 01:02:29,545 of the actual design of the overall product. 412 01:02:29,679 --> 01:02:33,513 I don't know, l'm really just enamored with the idea of doing teeth cleaning at NASCAR. 413 01:02:33,650 --> 01:02:38,849 I kind of think of it as they do analytical thinking and we do this kind of innovative or design thinking 414 01:02:38,922 --> 01:02:46,886 where we're more focused on user-centered ideas, stuff that will resonate with the people who 415 01:02:46,963 --> 01:02:51,832 are going to actually use the product. We come in from the point of view of, 416 01:02:51,901 --> 01:02:57,771 "What do people value, what are their needs?" And it just results in different products. 417 01:02:58,708 --> 01:03:03,145 You get these things, and you break them apart and it's like a wishbone. 418 01:03:03,713 --> 01:03:08,151 The big design challenge here is there's a lot of things we care about and 419 01:03:08,151 --> 01:03:12,110 cleaning our teeth is probably not high on that list. 420 01:03:12,322 --> 01:03:16,622 I think the wishbone is nice, but it should take the real shape of a wishbone. 421 01:03:16,826 --> 01:03:24,460 Design thinking is a way to systematically be innovative. You know how some people make lists, 422 01:03:24,534 --> 01:03:29,164 designers make what I call mind maps, where they keep going further and further. 423 01:03:29,239 --> 01:03:31,775 Something leads to something else, which leads... 424 01:03:31,775 --> 01:03:35,336 And as you're branching out you're getting to new ground, where your mind 425 01:03:35,412 --> 01:03:42,375 has never taken you before. And that's where interesting design stuff happens, in my mind. 426 01:03:45,922 --> 01:03:47,724 When I came into design, 427 01:03:47,724 --> 01:03:51,683 designers would be at their drawing boards, one, and they'd work at the 428 01:03:51,761 --> 01:03:55,532 drawing boards. They would maybe have some magazines and things to 429 01:03:55,532 --> 01:04:03,962 Iook at to inspire them. One of the things that I did when I came was drag people out of the studio 430 01:04:04,074 --> 01:04:10,980 into the environment, and put designers in the position of looking at people, 431 01:04:11,081 --> 01:04:16,485 and going through the steps that other people were going through as a source of inspiration. 432 01:04:26,029 --> 01:04:30,989 It's really about trying to make an empathic connection with people in their context. 433 01:04:32,435 --> 01:04:34,266 Is that Helvetica? 434 01:04:34,337 --> 01:04:36,430 It's not Helvetica, no. 435 01:04:36,606 --> 01:04:42,772 So that as designers we're picking up on the vibration of what they're about, 436 01:04:44,414 --> 01:04:49,252 and being able somehow to identify with that, and have that spur our 437 01:04:49,252 --> 01:04:51,777 creative thinking and creative response. 438 01:05:00,663 --> 01:05:07,535 Technology, and things you keep, things you love, things that get better with time. 439 01:05:09,739 --> 01:05:11,604 Cool. 440 01:05:12,876 --> 01:05:19,145 I think today, I see my role as a designer to help define what we should be creating for people, 441 01:05:20,183 --> 01:05:25,644 and the output is not necessarily obviously a design, it's not obviously a product. 442 01:05:27,757 --> 01:05:33,195 Recently we designed a new banking service for one of the big banks here in America. 443 01:05:33,863 --> 01:05:38,823 And there are two and a half million people using that savings account today. 444 01:05:39,469 --> 01:05:44,065 So we're not just giving form to the thing that has been created. 445 01:05:46,543 --> 01:05:52,038 I think that what designers will do in the future is to become the reference point for policymakers, 446 01:05:52,115 --> 01:05:57,075 for anybody who wants to create a link between something that highfaluting and hard to translate, 447 01:05:57,220 --> 01:06:02,852 and reality and people. And I almost envision them becoming the intellectuals of the future. 448 01:06:02,959 --> 01:06:07,919 I always find it really funny, the French, whenever they have to talk about the price of gas or 449 01:06:07,997 --> 01:06:13,094 the cheese war with ltaly, they go to a philosopher, right? You know, it's kind of hilarious but 450 01:06:13,203 --> 01:06:20,166 philosophers are the culture generators in France. I want designers to be the culture generators 451 01:06:20,276 --> 01:06:25,578 all over the world, and some of them really can. And no matter what, they should become really 452 01:06:25,648 --> 01:06:31,780 fundamental bricks in any kind of policymaking effort, and more and more that's happening. 453 01:06:31,855 --> 01:06:37,487 But I see designers as designing not any more objects, per se, in some cases yes, 454 01:06:37,594 --> 01:06:44,466 but also scenarios that are based on objects that will help people understand the consequences 455 01:06:44,567 --> 01:06:50,995 of their choices. And people like Dunne and Raby do that, exactly, they call it design for debate. 456 01:06:56,546 --> 01:07:01,677 We use design as a medium to try and explore ideas, find out things, question. 457 01:07:02,151 --> 01:07:06,815 We've got cinema, fine arts, literature, craft... 458 01:07:06,890 --> 01:07:10,951 every other medium seems to have a part that's 459 01:07:11,060 --> 01:07:16,020 dedicated to reflecting on important issues, yet design, the thing that's responsible for so much 460 01:07:16,165 --> 01:07:21,125 of the built environment around us doesn't do that. I think that's one of the things that attracts us. 461 01:07:21,237 --> 01:07:26,197 So even though our design ideas are never really put into mass production, we always try to 462 01:07:26,276 --> 01:07:31,236 suggest that they could be mass-produced or they could be on the scale of hundreds of thousands, 463 01:07:31,314 --> 01:07:35,273 because that's part of what we're interested in. 464 01:07:35,418 --> 01:07:40,253 We love the idea that with a product, or shopping... we love showrooms. 465 01:07:40,423 --> 01:07:45,827 Because what is a showroom, you go in there, around lKEA and you imagine this is in your home, 466 01:07:45,962 --> 01:07:51,025 you project yourself into this other space. But you could actually buy that and have it at home. 467 01:07:51,167 --> 01:07:56,002 It's true, when you walk into a gallery, you don't imagine the sculpture at home and how it's going 468 01:07:56,105 --> 01:08:00,643 to impact on your life. But if you walk into a shop, whether it's electronics, or furniture, or a car 469 01:08:00,643 --> 01:08:05,046 showroom, you do imagine yourself experiencing this thing and enjoying it. 470 01:08:06,282 --> 01:08:10,820 So when we do conceptual products, we're hoping that people will imagine how that will impact 471 01:08:10,820 --> 01:08:13,084 on the way they live their lives. 472 01:08:15,858 --> 01:08:20,454 We were part of an exhibition and Fiona and l decided to focus on robots. 473 01:08:21,197 --> 01:08:23,927 There are four of them altogether. 474 01:08:24,167 --> 01:08:29,002 One of them, for example, might become the interface for important data you keep online 475 01:08:29,072 --> 01:08:34,408 or on remote servers. So it's a strange, wooden shaped object that you pick up 476 01:08:34,477 --> 01:08:38,848 and it has two holes at the top, and you stare at its eyes for about five minutes. 477 01:08:38,848 --> 01:08:43,581 And when it's checked it's you, it releases the information. So it's not just a quick glance 478 01:08:43,686 --> 01:08:50,182 at a retinal scanner, but a meaningful stare into this machine's eyes. And also you feel better, you feel... 479 01:08:51,694 --> 01:08:54,097 "Yes, it gets me," and then you access it... 480 01:08:54,097 --> 01:08:56,031 "There's no chance it mistook me." 481 01:08:57,166 --> 01:09:02,126 Another thing we became interested in is as devices become more clever or more smarter, 482 01:09:02,338 --> 01:09:07,298 one of our roles as designers might be to handicap the technology and make it dependent on us 483 01:09:07,410 --> 01:09:12,482 in some way, or needy. So we thought it might be interesting to design one that has 484 01:09:12,482 --> 01:09:16,418 to call the owner over to it whenever it wants to move. 485 01:09:17,086 --> 01:09:22,046 We really wanted to look at the materiality of what a robot might be, so one of the key things 486 01:09:22,125 --> 01:09:27,085 we wanted was when someone saw the robots, we wanted them to go, "Well that's not a robot." 487 01:09:27,196 --> 01:09:33,403 That's not even within the robot language. But the minute they ask that question, then they're 488 01:09:33,403 --> 01:09:39,933 immediately thinking, well what is a robot, what a robot should be, what kind of identity it might have. 489 01:09:40,677 --> 01:09:45,910 People, especially students, often say at the end of lectures, "But you just design things that 490 01:09:45,982 --> 01:09:50,853 get shown in museums and galleries, shouldn't you be trying to mass produce?" And because we're 491 01:09:50,853 --> 01:09:55,381 more interested in designing to deal with ideas, actually putting things into a museum like MoMA 492 01:09:55,491 --> 01:10:00,451 reaches hundreds of thousands of people, more than if we made a few arty and expensive 493 01:10:00,563 --> 01:10:06,058 prototypes. So I think it depends, I think we're interested maybe in mass communication 494 01:10:06,135 --> 01:10:08,365 more than mass production. 495 01:10:13,776 --> 01:10:19,043 Industrial design has been so closely tied to industry, and working within the constraints 496 01:10:19,148 --> 01:10:25,678 set by industry. Very quickly you come to edges of the spectrum of choice, the official choice, 497 01:10:25,788 --> 01:10:31,249 of what kinds of things that the companies who produce these products believe people want. 498 01:10:32,161 --> 01:10:37,497 And we know, people want a lot more interesting things, but so far we haven't managed to... 499 01:10:37,700 --> 01:10:39,895 to cross that gap. 500 01:10:44,874 --> 01:10:52,303 People are creative, by nature, and always not quite satisfied with the design of something 501 01:10:52,381 --> 01:10:57,341 that they have, that they've bought. They adapt it. 502 01:11:00,623 --> 01:11:06,084 Is there some way we can better engage with people's creativity to make more of it 503 01:11:06,195 --> 01:11:11,292 or to enhance what they can do for themselves, or create the tools or the platforms 504 01:11:11,400 --> 01:11:14,528 from which people can operate. 505 01:11:17,273 --> 01:11:22,233 The tools with which we do design today are our tools. 506 01:11:22,845 --> 01:11:26,337 We make the shapes, people buy and use the shapes. 507 01:11:26,616 --> 01:11:31,576 Tomorrow, this will be different. The tools to make things, and to define your world, 508 01:11:31,654 --> 01:11:34,384 will be available to everybody. 509 01:11:37,860 --> 01:11:43,093 Because of the connected world, the idea of designing something for a different community 510 01:11:43,199 --> 01:11:47,804 in a different part of the world is now becoming very much more prevalent. 511 01:11:47,804 --> 01:11:52,002 Before there was a sense that Africa was so far away you couldn't do anything about it, 512 01:11:52,108 --> 01:11:58,308 but now there seems to be a sense that because of the connected world, we can make a big difference. 513 01:11:58,881 --> 01:12:05,946 As designers I think we're so far removed from the actual object. You can design virtually, 514 01:12:06,022 --> 01:12:11,460 prototypes can be made remotely, the actual product's often manufactured on another continent 515 01:12:11,594 --> 01:12:16,361 That's why a lot of the products we're surrounded by, a lot of our manufactured environment, 516 01:12:16,465 --> 01:12:19,730 seems too easy, too superficial. 517 01:13:00,610 --> 01:13:07,812 If I had a billion dollars to fund a marketing campaign, I would launch a campaign on behalf of 518 01:13:08,117 --> 01:13:12,713 "Things you already own, why not enjoy them today?" 519 01:13:13,289 --> 01:13:18,249 Because we all have so many things, they're just around, they're in the closet, in the attic, 520 01:13:18,427 --> 01:13:22,932 that we don't even think about anymore, because there's not enough room left in our brains 521 01:13:22,932 --> 01:13:26,060 because we're so busy processing all the exciting new developments. 522 01:13:27,904 --> 01:13:32,864 At the end of the day, when you're looking around at the objects in your house, and you're deciding, 523 01:13:32,975 --> 01:13:38,208 "What here really has value to me?" They're going to be things that have some meaning in your life. 524 01:13:39,048 --> 01:13:44,008 The hurricane is coming, you have 20 minutes, get your stuff and go. You're not going to be saying, 525 01:13:44,153 --> 01:13:49,819 "Well that got an amazing write-up in this design blog." You're going to pick the most meaningful 526 01:13:49,926 --> 01:13:55,523 objects to you, because those are the true objects, that truly reflect, 527 01:13:55,598 --> 01:14:01,332 the true story of who you are, and what your personal narrative is, and the story that you're 528 01:14:01,437 --> 01:14:06,670 telling to yourself and no one else because that's the only audience that matters.