“…I don’t think design involves that much creativity. It involves creativity in the way doing a crossword puzzle involves creativity. You need some imagination and knowledge. I think of artists as creative because they have to invent something out of nothing. I think designers design because they can’t invent something out of nothing. Or at…
The OK DESIGN Manifesto
Note: Inspired by the OK manifesto in the context of a fascinating story (Everything Is Going to Be OK: What a 1994 Branding Fiasco Can Teach Us About Counterculture and Commerce), the OK DESIGN Manifesto tried. So here it is. The OK DESIGN Manifesto* 1. What’s the point of design? Well, what’s the point of…
Designerly Thought of the Day #20180321
Maybe you don’t need more designers, but more managers and employees who understand design, so that they know when to bring in more designers, how to collaborate with them, what makes good design, and who are good designers.
Designerly Thought of the Day #20180302
All designers bring about their personal design cultures. Only good designers’ cultures challenge your own work culture for the better. Bad designers’ cultures merely hinder your business wellbeing.
Designerly Thought of the Day #20180301
The second step to understand design is to acknowledge that your way of designing is tightly coupled with your work culture and its subcultures. There is no universal process/method that “just works”, unless by “it just works” you mean “it works but”. Your work culture and the way of designing form a dynamic synergy of…
Designerly Thought of the Day #20180226
The peak-end rule is essential to designing experiences. When in doubt, ask an experience designer if he knows it. When in trouble, secure the end.
Designerly Thought of the Day #20180223
The first step to understand design is to know that the act of designing doesn’t quite fit into the traditional, analytical approach of problem solving ubiquitously seen in business. Design goes beyond deduction, inference, to the realm of abduction. Design abduction is the source of creativity in business.
Designerly Thought of the Day #20180221
There’s nothing wrong in thinking that certain things in business are immeasurable or intangible, until it becomes an unfortunately habit that facilitates indifference to creative problem solving or creativity itself. Don NOT ask “what have we been measuring lately?” Instead, ask “what haven’t we been measuring lately?”
Designerly Thought of the Day #20180214
In the business world, creativity in design is first and foremost creativity in solving business problems. It’s creative problem solving, at least initially. There are no dull scenarios in business, because there are always ways to be creative if you try hard enough.
2x2x2: Six Books You Deserve As a Designer
Do designers still read books? Despite the proliferation of short-form web content, books are still a thing. The former is very good at keeping us well informed, while the latter still best at delivering elaborated, accumulated, and well-organized collection of knowledge. Here are six books that helped and are still helping me. I hope they…
