ID [PNW]

The Vanity Kodak of 1928. owned and photographed by Ralph London. It's time for an update on the progress of the   Walter D. Teague documentary . My last update was July 2011 when I returned from my research trips to New York City, Aspen, Oregon and Denver.  Well, the reality is that when classes start in September (being a full-time professor) I don't have much time to work on the doc at all.  But, in the fall, I worked with my industrial design students to recreate, digital models of some of Teague's greatest designs.  They painstakingly studied photographs and patent drawings to make these designs with Solidworks software. Kodak cameras, Steuben glass, and Sparton radios were re-created so that we can show them 3 dimensionally and animate them for the film!  It's going to look amazing! The raw, unrendered Solidworks model of the Sparton Sled radio model 557 1936. Modeled by Sean Missal.         ...

Curvilinear Space Analysis by Johan Axelson I'm attempting to bring some traditional form studies from Rowena Reed Kostellow's Elements of Form into the design education at Western Washington.  These studies date back to the 1940's and the development of the original industrial design curriculum.  This is a space analysis that I did as a student of Lenny Bacich at Pratt Institute.  He was a student of Rowena's and tried to teach these very difficult form abstractions to me.  Only now that I'm teaching it do I realize what they mean and why they are so valuable.  Rectilinear Space by Larisa Schulze The forms here are done by my junior ID students.  They are not computer models, they are made with paper and wire. They have very strict rules regarding the elements used and where they can be placed.  But the intent is to expand the negative volume and create a beautiful and interesting space.  But the real goal to increase the visual and ...

Announcing the IDSA Western Design Dialogue Conference 2012 Seattle, May 4th and 5th. And now for something completely different! Industrial designers are pushing across the boundaries of other disciplines, bringing their unique perspective, creative thinking and user centered approach to solve various problems.  Today, industrial design is influencing diverse areas such as politics, interaction, music, film, fashion, and business strategy.   At the 2012 IDSA Western Design Dialogue Conference we will explore how the role of industrial design is evolving and expanding by breaking through the traditional boundaries.  The role of design is changing in within many contexts; corporations, small firms, and the community.  We will hear from creative and inspiring individuals who are utilizing design in the unexpected places.  These will not be the usual suspects. There will exceptional networking opportunities to connect with the Western US design commu...

Star Destroyer visits Seattle I've been making Photoshop video tutorials for my students, and here is a short one about integrating two separate images.  Not perfect, but it illustrates the technique and was only done in 8 minutes.

Part 3 of 5: Office Atmosphere and Building Alliances with Clients ( click here for part 1 and part 2 ) Figure 1: Teague drafting room, New York City, circa 1938. photo by Stowe Myers. Office Atmosphere     How did Teague run his office?  What was it like to work at WDTA during its heyday?   In 16mm film shot by partner, Stowe Myers, the 1940’s staff of Teague is shown at work and at play in their New York office studio.  Drafting desks are arranged in two long rows, all facing the front of the room, where the most senior designer or architect would be working.  The film also shows office parties, which included drinks and group singing.  It also documents a casual office art exhibition, where staff could display their personal artistic works, painting, drawing, and watercolors.  Although everyone worked rigorously, he allowed occasions for staff to celebrate their hard work and talents with parties and other creative events. Stowe Mye...

The Successful Design Business Practices of Walter Dorwin Teague Part 2 of 5 Walter Dorwin Teague in his office-photo WDTA archives Gaining New Clients: Role Playing with Raymond Loewy and Walter D. Teague How did the early industrial designers sell themselves to new clients?  Raymond Loewy and Walter D. Teague answered this question during a conference in 1946 entitled “Industrial Design: A New Profession” held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.  They demonstrated this by having a mock discussion between designer and client, with Teague acting as the potential client. What is interesting about this discussion is that much of the conversation sounds the same as our discussions with clients today with some notable exceptions.  Here is an excerpt: Raymond Loewy:  …Mr. Teague, let us try to discuss it together.  Would you like to take the part of the client? Walter Dorwin Teague:  All right, fine. Well, Mr. Loewy, I know that you ...

David Kaisel   has worked for 25 years integrating design, business strategy, user research and global health. Pursuing design as a tool to help people lead healthier lives, his design career progressed from office seating in Italy to client management in Silicon Valley to designing morgues, emergency housing and malaria treatment programs in Angola, Colombia and Brazil. Four years coordinating projects for Doctors Without Borders confirmed his interest in design for global health. Exploring how design impacts sustained adoption of health interventions, he advises clients such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and PATH on user research design and product innovation for household water treatment and community sanitation. As a research director at the Institute for the Future, he developed strategic forecasts of trends in the global health economy for Fortune 100 clients. His past work includes research on biomass stove test protocols and standards for the Shell Foundation, ...

Dawn Danby   wants the things designers make to benefit both people and the world.  Her goals goals are simply to develop environmentally sustainable systems and products that change the way individuals experience the things around them. Dawn is a cross-disciplinary designer, strategist, art director, project manager, producer and artist. She currently manages Autodesk's Sustainable Design Program, integrating sustainable thinking into the digital tools used by 9 million designers and engineers worldwide. Dawn has collaborated with international artist Noel Harding on Windsor, Ontario's Green Corridor initiative, designed a $3.5 million tree-covered, wind-powered pedestrian bridge on the US-Canada border and developed closed-loop manufacturing strategies for a leading outdoor footwear manufacturer. Dawn is a  co-author of  WorldChanging: A User's Guide to the 21st Century and has spoken at  TEDGlobal 2005:  Ideas big enough to change th...

We are excited to have Mike Simonian and Maaike Evers presenting at the IDSA Western District Conference, San Jose, CA.   And check out the latest Metropolis magazine (March 2011), it features Mike and Maaike as some of the great new design talent in America. " Mike & Maaike is a progressive industrial design studio led by Mike Simonian and Maaike Evers.   Formed as a design laboratory, the San Francisco studio works both independently and with clients to create new opportunities through products, technology, furniture, environments, packaging and transportation.   Maaike Evers is Dutch, Mike Simonian, Californian. These distinct backgrounds inform a diverse body of work marked by experimentation, substance and strong conceptual narratives.   Recent collaborations include: Google, Belkin, Steelcase, Xbox, Blankblank, Council, Coalesse, Incase,  Dupont, Fritz Hansen, Ironkey, and the City of San Francisco." - from their website. Mike and Maaike's atnmbl...

Kodak Brownie Junior - Photo by J.A. Morris This summer has been busy with new progress on the Teague documentary and biography.  Here's a quick summary: New Alliances             Thanks to Vicki Matranga , I connected with Charlie Myers , son of C. Stowe Myers, partner at the Teague New York office.  Charlie has compiled films, audio interviews, and photographs and is offering them for us to use in the doc.  I just received a DVD of digitized 8mm film of the Teague office from 1939 to 1943.  It has great scenes of employee designers working, drawing, rendering, making models, smoking pipes and having parties.  Awesome stuff, thanks Charlie!             Gifford Jackson was a designer at the Teague office from 1954 to 64 and I was recently introduced to him through Budd Steinhilber.  He was personal friends with the Teague family.  He live...

A tapestry by William Morris in 1879. The theme of this year’s IDSA International Conference in Portland, OR was D.I.Y.   Some of the presenters were incredibly talented and interesting; others were a bit smug and self-important.    While listening to the creator of Etsy.com gloat about how “revolutionary” they were by selling handcrafted items on their website, I was reminded of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement of 100 years ago.  This Etsy-DIY can be described as people with internet access and spare time making expensive crafty non-essential items for other rich people with internet access.  That’s all it is.  This has very limited impact on only the richest 1% of the world.  In fact it is more elitist and limited than what a professional industrial designer can do who is designing a $20 mobile phone for Nokia, which today allows communication for millions of poor Africans and Indians. So, why is mass production inherentl...

This is a design concept by Cecilia Forsgren, our exchange student from Sweden.

Here's the next segment of Hoima Bicycle.  An imperfect example of design for social impact. 

A Biographical Documentary about Walter Dorwin Teague begins Development. Walter Dorwin Teague (1883 - 1960) is considered one of the founding fathers of industrial design as well as one of the most prolific American industrial designers in history.  He established his design office in the late 1920’s, which continues today as one of the important design institutions in the world.  His most notable design work includes all of Kodak camera’s from 1927 to 1957, Texaco’s art deco gas stations in the1940’s, the Boeing Stratocruiser and the 707 aircraft.  His legacy led to the design all subsequent Boeing aircraft including today’s 787 Dreamliner.  He directed the design and architecture of the 1939 World Exposition.  He was also an architect whose work includes the Texaco exhibition hall at the 1935 Texas Centennial Exposition in Dallas, Texas, the Ford pavilion for the California Pacific International Exposition (1935) in Balboa Park in San Diego, and the 1961...