Design Audit.

Design Audit 18: Consumer-sourced Innovation / The Power of Product Lust

The product release has become a cultural phenomenon. With the recent launch of the iPhone 4s, there was an initial backlash against the design. Consumers wanted a design that was revolutionary instead of evolutionary like the 4s is. Before the launch, consumers were weighing the speculation on rumor sites and getting excited about new product renderings that were circulating.

A unique form of extreme user has emerged creating an interesting paradigm around brands. Technology has enabled these people to express their affinity toward a brand or product by envisioning how a future product might be designed. Loyal users now have an active dialog about future product design and express their specific desires. Companies have dabbled with consumer-sourced design, and it has mostly been unsuccessful, however brands shouldn't overlook this unsolicited form of development. In the same way that the culture of modifying cars influenced the automotive industry, consumer-sourced design could illuminate some needs worth developing.

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Design Audit 17: Auto Spy Decoration / The Overt Branding of Secrecy

If you love cars and automotive styling, then you are likely familiar with spy shots. Spy shots are the automotive industry's version of paparazzi photos, usually taken during testing on track trial runs but are sometimes spotted on normal roads or parked in town. The automotive industry has developed solutions to disrupt spy shots and ultimately obscure details of design from getting out to the public or rival car companies. What they usually do is completely cover the car in black fabric covers which sometimes augment the headlights and trim to make it difficult to distinguish the car's form. BMW has a swirl camouflage pattern that is attached directly to body work or trim.
Recently, this camouflage has begun to take on new meaning. It has been used to cue new products and has been romanticized as an element of marketing early concept cars.

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Design Audit 16: The Dowling Duncan Dollar / Who is a Dollar's Target Audience?

Dowling Duncan a San Francisco/UK design firm has created a series of banknotes for the Dollar Redesign Project. The concept which their firm submitted was incredibly well designed and quite innovative. They re-oriented the bill vertically to correlate with the more common method of exchanging money by hand and created varied lengths so that the value of the bills could be recognized more easily. Another interesting feature that they suggested was to make the currency more "real time" by including an image of the current president on the dollar bill. The underlying design theme of their currency concept was around improving the United States' image abroad, by depicting aspects of American history that convey the great human rights accomplishments and global impact of America. Ultimately, the idea of using currency to echo foreign policy seems to be a pretty indirect method of communication considering tourists would be the ones with the most exposure to the currency.

The Dowling Duncan Dollar is an interesting concept which provokes greater questions about the role of currency as a vehicle of information and proposes new functionality for currency within a global economy.

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Design Audit 15: Information Graphics and Brands that Democratize Information

In an era of global economic chaos predicated on the mortgage crisis which was the result of a combination of a lot of greed and questionable ethics — coincidentally with the rise of social media there has been an emergence of a transparent society and brands that empower consumers with information. Brands like Mint and Trefis are companies leading the way.

These exciting companies are a refreshing voice in consumer advocacy within an era of questionable ethics. Mint provides a rich visual interface that categorizes a person’s monthly spending — the system aggregates people’s spending and compares it with national averages. Users are able to set goals and manage their finances.

Trefis is a brand that visualizes stock prices and is a community exchange for stock discussion / speculation. The core design of trefis is centered around a visual graphic that illustrates a stock price.

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Design Audit 14: Alliance Arena, Munich / Building National Symbology as a Foundation

Landmarks are often what we identify with when we think of a place or a culture. They become national icons in themselves like Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, and the Empire State Building. However, its rare to see landmarks branded or imbued with national character. Architecture is designed to be a statement in itself which is why Alliance Arena is so unique.

The stadium was designed by Hertzog de Meuron and is home to two football clubs. Football is the regional past-time within Bavaria. Depending on which team is playing, the buildlng will be illuminated in red or blue (the colors of each respective team).

The building is shaped like a large white oval and has bubbling geometric surface treatments similar to the Prada buildilng in Tokyo. These geometric shapes are diamond-like and combine to create a harlequin pattern which is the national flag for Bavaria. BMW also displays this symbology in their logo. The Bavarian reference is understated and it was only illuminated once during the festivities of the arena opening. There is a fine line between a building becoming overly commercialised or branded, especially in the days when most sports arenas are named after corporations.

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Design Audit 13: PUMA.Safe Shoe Packaging / Inspired Thinking on Sustainable Design.

In April, Puma debuted a new line of shoe packaging at the Design Museum in London. In doing so, PUMA initiated an ambitious effort to reduce the environmental impact of shoe packaging by limiting paper use by 65% and carbon emissions by 10,000 tons per year. In order to acheive these outstanding benchmarks PUMA conducted an internal audit for five years to define Environmental Key Performance Indicators to design around. The PUMA.Safe Shoe Packaging is one aspect of a larger initiative to reduce carbon, energy, water, and waste by 25%

A typical approach to sustainable packaging is to reduce materials and/or manufacturing processes, which often leads to impressive data points which are then used for marketing purposes. What makes PUMA packaging compelling is that they've designed a new behavior around the packaging that has added functionality and extended the useability lifecycle.

http://vision.puma.com/us/en/2010/04/puma-launches-new-sustainable-packaging-...

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Design Audit 12: BMW Art Cars / The Art of Innovation?

The BMW brand has had a history of involvement with the arts typically through sponsorships and promotions. More recently, BMW cars were the subjects of art on exhibit within notable contemporary art and design venues in Europe. In March, BMW was part of an exhibition at the Milan Furniture Fair and later in the spring at the Tate Modern.

The exhibtion at the Salone Internationzionale del Mobile was particularly unique because it involved a collaboration between product designers, Patricia Urquiola and the BMW design team (lead by Adrian van Hooydonk) to explore the integration of behaviors/activities with a car and the affordances provided by new materials. The entire focus of this exhibition was on the human needs within an interior of a car (a 5 Series GT). This exhibition provided inspiration for future product innovation and good publicity for the launch of the 5 Series GT brand.

http://www.bmw.tv/com/article/show/video.do?articleID=7070&spaceID=2

http://www.kvadrat.dk/company/news/?tx_tcsimplenews_pi1[test]=test&tx_tcsimplenews_pi1[showUid]=187&tx_tcsimplenews_pi1[pointer]=0&cHash=b174bad63e

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Design Audit 11: The 5 Series GT – A Unique Departure for the Brand.

BMW made a bold move when it chose to leave Formula One in 09. The brand continues to evolve with this year’s introduction of the 5 Series Gran Turismo. According to Adrian Van Hooydonk BMW’s director of design, there are new categories of transportation emerging. Essentially, the GT is an alternative to the luxury SUV – a luxury hatchback that is designed to accommodate a family road trip or group excursion comfortably. The GT is opening up a new category of crossover vehicles and other luxury car makers are moving into this space. The four door Porsche Panamera is also in this space.

An interesting aspect of the launch is the limited edition bags that were designed for the GT by Stefan Dietz.

http://www.monocle.com/sections/design/Web-Articles/Adrian-van-Hooydonk/

https://shop.bmwgroup.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/Store-BMWShop-Site/en...

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Design Audit 10: Greeny's & Daylesford / Two Different Takes on Organic Branding in Europe.

It seems there is an opportunity for convenient food to be more healthy. An organic eatery called "Greeny's" is an interesting concept that has emerged in Munich. The concept is to provide a variety of tasty organic food options at affordable prices and make it easier for people to dine healthy. The menu is designed to highlight items based on nutritional quality such as, low in calories (300 or less), vegan, low glicemic index and superfoods (high in antioxidants).

The overall restaurant experience emphasizes the concept of green holistically, and therefore all food packaging is sustainable and branding explicitly references organic and sustainable using the images of leaves and the color green.

Greeny's offering is a careful balance of convenience and quality crafted food. In a refrigerator, a variety of salads are pre-prepared, however any menu item ordered fresh may take 5-10 minutes to prepare.

http://greenysfood.com/

Daylesford Organics is a chain of organic eateries and a private label organic brand from the UK. The Daylesford brand is a larger experience beyond their restaurants, quick serve food products and organic house ware products, the brand is about teaching and facilitating an organic lifestyle. Daylesford offers education on all aspects of living greed from planting organic produce to preparing healthy food.

The interior of a Daylesford location is a balance of a pure white-washed, almost sterile environment combined with a wholesome, earthy farm-like décor. The merchandising is absolutely inspired with products displayed elegantly on aged wood crates and fixtures. The mixture really works and demonstrates that green branding doesn’t need to be literal.

http://www.daylesfordorganic.com/

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München, Germany

Design Audit 9: Platoon Berlin / An Organization of Design

Platoon is a simultaneously a political movement, a social network of
thousands of designers/artists/etc., a staffing company, a marketing firm
and a spotter of up and coming talent in the art/design world.

Its headquarters in Berlin and its branch office in Seoul are constructed of
large container vessels and when you first enter, it seems like you are
walking into a gallery or a marine recruiting office targeting artists or
designers. The overall purpose of Platoon to organize
artists/architects/designers for the greater good of society. This sometimes
materializes in the form of a public installation or viral campaign usually
trying to influence political change in some form. During the 08 election,
they were campaigning for a minimum wage increase, but were unsuccessful.

Despite the failed effort, Platoon has been incredibly successful in its
recruiting efforts and has a very formal process for enrolling new members.
Each recruit is entered into the social network of other designers/artists
and gets an individual dog tag. The goal is to grow the network and create
layers of involvement. Anyone who visits their headquarters and is
interested can apply to become a member.

Platoon's staffing strategy is to build a broad network of people within
various fields, from art to architecture and IT to Infrastructure.
Ultimately, the model is very inclusive allowing people contribute to
platoon in multiple capacities from the top of the organization down to the
bottom. The inclusive nature of the network serves to continually serve to
grow the network. Some members are simply fans of the platoon concept,
others are famous artists collaborating with the org to launch large public
installation works and others are involved in commercial projects to bring
income in.

http://blog.platoon.org/home