Michael Roller

Strategic Aesthetics Top Five Posts (out of 100)

I just finished my 100th post and wanted to revisit my most popular work. Before I get into that, I wanted to revisit my initial objective for writing this blog. On the About page, I said:

Design’s role within business is still relatively new and undefined. As a result, so much of what we do in the design world is intuitive, unexplained, or inconsistent…I created this blog to try to explain how I use design thinking to help people and businesses. This site will serve as a documentation of my thoughts on design and the products I’ve created as a result.

I think that statement still holds true, although there is more to it than that. If I were to rewrite it now, I would say:

Because so much of the design world is intuitive, unexplained, or inconsistent, this blog explains design to designers.

I hope to write more within this theme, and provide more insightful, inspiring ideas and executions to share with others. So without further ado, here are my top five posts to date:

5. The Strategic Aesthetic Top Ten

Here are my picks for the best businesses using strategic aesthetics. Within their categories, these brands use aesthetic design in a unique, differentiated way that helps their business. I plan to update this list when appropriate, so please weigh in with your opinions and feedback.

4. My Favorite Things

To understand my intuitive design sense, an important step was to identify my favorite pieces of design. I’ve tried to analyze these picks to understand my preferences on a deeper level but am still searching for the right way to organize them. Any ideas on how I should do it?

3. How to Win a Design Competition

This was my 100th post, so I was sure to make it a good one. I’ve had some good experiences and some good luck entering design competitions, so I created 5 rules as a guide for how to be successful.

2. Four Essential Members of a Great Design Team

Although not the most popular, I’m most pleased with the thought put into this post and the feedback I’ve received. I’d still like to validate this idea with some sort of segmentation of creative professionals. Anyone want to collaborate on that?

1. Orange & Kaleidoscope Create Solar Tent Concept

Leave it to designers to pick the post with the coolest pictures. My friends at Kaleidoscope and The Greener Grass collaborated with Orange to develop a solar tent for Glastonbury, so I showed my support by sharing some images of it. This is a good example of how design must be thoughtful and visually compelling to be truly successful work.

Thanks to all who’ve supported me through this first 100. I hope to surpass each of these posts as I continue to think, write, and design over the next year. What is your favorite post? What else should I write about?

Tags: kaleidoscope, philosophy, strategic aesthetics

1 Comment to Strategic Aesthetics Top Five Posts (out of 100)

1. 

   Congrats on 100. I quite enjoyed all of those top 5. However I enjoyed number 2 – Four Essential Members of a Great Design Team more than the others. Good luck with the next posts 100 and beyond.
Raph on July 17th, 2009

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