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Pixar & Jay Shusters...

On April 1st, 2007 ilya wrote:

Jay Shuster had the good grace to show up on Saturday morning to speak to a congregration of certified ASID interior designers and two creative designers that cannot be put in any one category from the Netherlands.

Jay spoke about where he comes from, and why designing cars is in his blood. From his brilliant furniture creations (from salvaged airplane materials) it is clear he is not only about cars.

What was most inspiring for me was the power and expression in his sketches. An important lesson is in the way Pixar operates. There is a whole big team of super gifted creatives, designers and crafts-men (left brain / right brain in the words of Jay) but there has to be a design dictator (at pixar it is John Lasseter), to bring all the efforts together.

It was just great to hear his cool speech, see his awesome art-work, and get a Jay Shuster original sketch in my Moleskine :).

Visit to Ideo and thinking about Hybrids

On March 25th, 2007 ilya wrote:

Fred Dust really started the interiors ‘07 conference for us with his keynote on “predicting the future”. He shared with us 10 rules that can help you determine which developments might turn out to become BIG in the future.

I had already met with John Ravitch of IDEO when we started innberg in 2005, and he had some great insights and tips for us. The rules that struck me most are “Good technology changes people”, which speaks for itself. But rule 6; “Behaviors are best” really rung true. As you might know we are designing a product, and a lot of its intrinsic power comes from behavior we see day in day out around us. Also the trends that these behaviors result in will be amplified when people will use our product. Some of these trends have to do with business creativity, right brain-left brain thinking, and how innovation comes about.

In the afternoon we visited IDEO on pier 28 in San Fransisco. For me it was the second time I could inhale the atmosphere, but for Eelco it was a first, and it was as nice as the first time. Inspiring. We got a little tour from Patrice (human factors), and Beth (business) around the building. And then we had a little workshop. For some of our ASID companions it was a very new experience to work this way, but we felt very at home.

We first had to get a feel for a person by looking at some photo’s the person made. Empathy all the way. It was good to be forced to only work with this subtle feeling. We then had to develop a little scenario on how this person would go about acquiring a car (customer journey). The third part consisted of detailing the experience that occured at the dealership, and that turned him from a prospect into a owner. Our solution zeroed in on the fact that one can get tax benefits for driving a hybrid, but the paperwork is not as easy as could be. Therefore the dealer has specialized folks on site that help you fill out the lengthy forms, and on top of that, the dealer planted trees for a percentage of each purchase.

The day ended with us strawling over the beautiful embarcadero. And then it was off to the ASID Auction, where I whisked away the Alvar Aalto blue vase and the year long subscription to the building museum in Washington DC.

check out some more pictures

It was a great day.