five questions
Five Questions for Mark Gallagher
Over the past few months, many industrial designers have responded to my interview requests. I’m excited now to get a perspective outside of ID. Mark Gallagher started brand expression consultancy Blackcoffee in 1994. Using his background in communications and design, he helps brands tell strong stories, and he writes some good ones of his own on the Blackcoffee blog.
How do you define good design?
“Good” is defined by context. Good design considers the values of its audience within the context of how the brand will provide value to a given market. The more value it delivers, the better the design. The irony is that what is considered good design today may very well be considered bad design tomorrow, and by the same individuals.
Changes in consumer values change the context in how value and costs are perceived. New vs. Vintage, Handmade vs. Machine made, Natural vs. Synthetic, Sustainable vs. Disposable, Classic vs. Modern… A change in context changes everything.
What is your favorite part of the design process?
I enjoy being challenged and I enjoy collaborating with people who have different expertise and perspective than my own. Fortunately, I get to work cross-functionally with a highly diverse group of very smart and talented individuals. Each of them brings tremendous value to the brand and to me personally. Together we develop systems that allow the brand to grow and evolve over time without the appearance of change.
What challenges you most as a designer?
What works for you today can work against you tomorrow. The biggest challenge is creating brand systems that are rigid enough to maintain brand consistency, yet flexible enough to maintain relevance within an ever-changing world.
In the context of your job, how do you define success?
Award shows don’t define success—the market does. My job requires that I work towards a definition of success that is predefined by the brand team. Everything is then measured against that definition. Because each member of the team defines success the same way, we work individually and collectively towards the same ends. This encourages everyone to leave their egos at the door and allows the team to maintain momentum throughout the process.
What has been the most unexpected part of being a professional designer?
The unexpected is the norm, and yet I’m still constantly surprised. I’ve seen great designers get stuck carrying out production work and below average designers lead major redesigns. The difference is often presentation, being able to talk about design though the vernacular of business.
Thanks, Mark!
Brand Expressionist® Mark Gallagher graduated from Pratt Institute receiving a BFA in communications with a minor in industrial design. In 1994 he co-founded the brand expression consultancy Blackcoffee®, which helps consumer-facing organizations to unlock trapped value by clarifying, simplifying and amplifying their brand stories. Clients include: Acura, Showtime, Cannondale, Puma, Hasbro, Timberland, MTV, Reebok, Rockport, Tonka, Sperry Top-Sider, Seven Cycles, New Balance and Zildjian. In addition to building brands, Mark is a nationally certified high-performance driving instructor and competes in the BMW Club Racing series.
Five Questions for Demetrius Romanos
I’m particularly excited about this latest interview with Kaleidoscope’s Demetrius Romanos. With a background in both corporate and consultant design, he has a great sense of empathy for both the needs of clients and those of his internal team. Empathy can be crucial to the success of design, and it has helped Demetrius be successful as a designer, design director, and currently as VP of Design. And just so that I’m being completely transparent here, Demetrius is my boss.
How do you define of good design?
I suppose that every year the definition of “good design” changes for me to a degree based on what annoys me at the time. Right now, for example, I just wish I had a phone that I could hear, one that would not regularly fail in the most basic functions. At the end of the day, I’m still sadly too aesthetically driven. To me good design is the considered detail. The special last button on a Ben Sherman dress shirt. The tag on the inside of my Scotch & Soda jacket that says “you look really great today”. The little rubber ring on the handle of a Swiffer that keeps it from sliding down when you lean it against the wall. Anyone can make something look great at 10 paces, but when you consider all the little things, that to me is good design.
What is your favorite part of the design process?
My favorite part is getting to the root of what’s needed, then planning the strategy of what we’ll do and how we’ll do it. I love mashing design, fashion, architecture and looking to all sorts of areas for inspiration. Mostly I like to see people smile when they buy things and use things. Joy from joy.
What challenges you most as a designer?
At this point in my career, I would say relevance in the eyes of younger designers is the biggest challenge. While I might not be “on the board” anymore, I am so engrossed in consumerism and pop culture that I still want to not only share my own ideas and experiences, but to see them implemented. That’s my best way to contribute as a designer now.
In the context of your job, how do you define success?
I most define success by repeat business. I love to be trusted and relied upon. I want to be the go-to place for when you get a call like ‘I have this huge initiative to do and I only want to work with someone I trust and that’s you”. It is so affirming and hardly gets better than that.
What has been the most unexpected part of being a professional designer?
I suppose there are a few things. I guess what I think is cool to work on has changed over the years. Like packaging for example. You sort of have to suspend the moral part out of it, but it’s fun to work on. Being a consultant has changed me too I’d have to say. I get so much more of a thrill at building our business, strategically growing our offerings and client base and seeing our talented designers grow than any single artifact I’ve ever designed.
Thanks, Demetrius!
A University of Cincinnati grad, Demetrius Romanos is a driven design leader with 15 years experience as a design professional in both corporate and consulting environments. He has strategically focused his career for maximum engagement, beginning with working in the film and juvenile products industries, then as a key part of a high caliber corporate design team, and now as a leader building a world class product development team. As Vice President of Design for product development firm Kaleidoscope, Demetrius leads a team of multidisciplinary specialists in design, strategy and research for international clients including: Motorola, Procter & Gamble, Whirlpool, International Trucks, Staples, Evenflo and J&J. Demetrius’s work was selected for the Cooper Hewitt’s Design Triennial in 2000. He is an avid traveler, shopper, pop culture junkie and artist, all of which round out his creative eccentricity.
Five Questions for Jed Farlow
Born and raised in Boston, Jed Farlow studied human factors and ergonomics at Cornell University and then industrial design at University of Cincinnati. He currently works at DEKA Research & Development, creating smooth and understandable user experiences for life-saving medical and infrastructure (power, water) systems.
How do you define of good design?
Good design fulfills a stated need or solves a problem, efficiently and elegantly.
What is your favorite part of the design process?
The concept generation space between research and refinement, generating solutions to specific parts of the problem. At the moment, this involves a lot of back and forth with engineers about feasibility.
What challenges you most as a designer?
I’m having a major debate with myself about the sometimes subtle differences between design, art, and junk. A lot of what gets praised by the ID world at large seems off-base to me, and I’m trying to decide what’s reasonable to do about it.
In the context of your job, how do you define success?
Basically, success is how well-suited one of my products is to its users. We test this. Early involvement in projects is a big deal; the earlier I or my team get asked to provide research or input, the more successful we’re likely to be. I’m waiting for a few major projects to get released, so my definition is likely to get updated as I see how they are received and used (or not!) by their markets.
What has been the most unexpected part of being a professional designer?
The amount of subtlety and diplomacy it takes to protect design intent and user experience through the development process.
Thanks, Jed!
Five Questions for Colin Roberts
Colin Roberts is a Designer 1 at Fiskars Brands with a Bachelors in Industrial Design from the University of Cincinnati. He enjoys sneakers, reading on his back porch and drinking in daylight.
How do you define good design?
Good design is creating objects appropriate to their context that resonate with someone to the point of making life more enjoyable. Good design isn’t about a physical ethos or style.
What is your favorite part of the design process?
I don’t think I have a favorite part. It’s the process itself that I love, from exploration, to visualization and final development. When I’m getting too much of one and not enough of others I can get cranky.
What challenges you most as a designer?
I think our world is rich with ideas and lacking in executional ability. With all the good ideas floating around it can be challenging for a young designer to avoid being used simply for execution. Maybe even more so within a larger corporation.
How do you define success?
There are so many variables to successful products, even award winners can be failures in the market place. I think I’ll define success when I can look across my company’s product line and see a spread that’s given us the opportunity for success in the market place.
What has been the most unexpected part of being a professional?
I’ve been surprised by the lack of formality in the design process. It seems that with so much time in school, in books I’ve read, and on designer blogs devoted to exploring and perfecting processes, more emphasis would be given towards implementing those processes.
Thanks, Colin!
Five Questions for Michael Seum
Michael Seum is a Chicago native currently working from Italy. He is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Industrial Design program. Seum’s work as a Principal Designer for Global Consumer Design, Whirlpool Europe fuels his interest for highly complex design problems. In his current role in the platform studio, he is integrating design led innovations and demonstrating the role design can play in the early phases of planning and product development. Michael’s work is diverse in nature as he fluidly moves between setting a vision, leading complex, multi-functional teams to working the intimate details of a product. Michael’s past design experiences include the design of award winning products for Sterling, Kohler, Procter & Gamble, and KitchenAid.
How do you define good design?
It’s really not up to me to define good design as the designer. Although I have my opinions, I leave the final judgment to the person who purchases the product at the end of it’s creation.
What is your favorite part of the design process?
The parts I am most passionate about are the collaboration aspects. There are some really smart and talented people out there and my favorite projects always found a way to pull seemingly different minds behind a single objective. I also like the espresso breaks.
What challenges you most as a designer?
A pencil, seriously. I am not the best with a straight line or creating wicked sketches to say the least. I prefer clay, paper, glue, duct tape and interns.
How do you define success?
Currently, I am working from our Italian design studio so my measure of success is very much influenced by my recent transition from working in the states to now working in Europe. Success (for me) is earning the respect and trust of my colleagues outside of design.
What has been the most unexpected part of being a professional?
I am sometimes surprised at how geeky designers can be. Recently, I’ve seen one designer who wears silver shoes.
Thanks, Michael!
Five Questions for Michael DiTullo
How do you define of good design?
My definition of good design is broad. For me, good design is an object, service, brand or communication that successfully serves humans. There are many examples of good design in the world today. You can even get some pretty solid good design off the shelf from OEM manufacturers.
Great design is more than culturally relevant, it goes on to influence the culture it that created it. Great design kicks good design’s ass.
The more important definition is that of great design. Great design does everything that good design does, but it has a presence that makes good design pale in comparison. Great design is culturally and personally impact-full. Great design leaves an imprint on its owner. It not only creates the desire to buy it, but it also engenders the desire to keep it, use it, and take care of it. Great design is full of little things that you will never hear in a focus group and that you can not measure in user testing. Great design is more than culturally relevant, it goes on to influence the culture it that created it. Great design kicks good design’s ass. I think I’ve done some really very good design, but my goal is to do great design. Luckily I’ve only been doing this for 11 years. Fingers crossed, I have another 40-50 years more of work in me, so I’m hopeful that if I keep working at it, I’ll get there.
What challenges you most as a designer?
What challenges me most as a person is patience. If I had my way I’d design everything. After over a decade of doing this professionally, I am still as excited about design as I was in school. I have a “bucket list” of sorts of things I need to design before I hang up the six guns. I’d love to get a chess set into production, a furniture piece, some small electrics like a toaster and coffee maker, flatware, some more consumer electronics, a camera, a phone, a video game system, a laptop…. OK, really pretty much everything is on that list. I’ve been able to check off a few items on the list; a tea kettle, I collaborated with Icon on a production vehicle that is being shown at this year’s SEMA show, and obviously a lot of footwear. With patience I know I will get to most of it.
Patience is a big part of the game. As designers we have the ability to see, in both the literal and figurative sense of the word. We are lucky when we have the opportunity to collaborate with others that have this skill. When we don’t have collaborators with this ability, we have to have patience to find out what their strengths are, what is important to them, educate them, and bring them along with us to better design solutions.
In the context of your job, how do you define success?
I don’t define success as perfection. What I look for is progress. If we can look back on the products that came before and say we made progress with this design, then I feel pretty good about it. It is a very simple and personal measurable. Of course I want to have great
sales, and awards are nice, so are magazine write ups, accolades and other forms of recognition. They all look great on your resume. What really matters is that I feel I in some way made progress.
What has been the most unexpected part of being a professional designer?
One of the things that surprised me the most is how resistant designers can be to talk about design. I was at a design conference in which the keynote speaker was a photo-journalist whose opening line was “I have no idea what industrial design is or why you asked me here, so I’m just going to show my portfolio….”. I have never been to a convention for lawyers, but I bet they talk about law.
Designers can be so eager to learn the languages of business and engineering that it comes at the expense of their native design tongue. In the vacuum of designers talking design, we are loosing ownership of our language. Terms like Innovation, Design Thinking, Iconic, Modern are so miss-used that they are the verge of meaningless.
To be a successful designer it is important to understand how to speak to and influence business and engineering. As designers, we inherently have flexible thought patterns and a capacity for empathy that allows us to do this. As we learn these skills we must remember to educate others about our own language and the value of design.
I read that an article by a designer in a well known global design firm that said “Artifact making is dead”. Humans have been making artifacts since the dawn of our existence. It’s not a fad, it is hardwired into our spirit, as it is hardwired into a bird to build a nest and a beaver to build a dam. We tell stories through objects. We leave things behind for others to examine our lives. Are we proud of them? Can they represent the ideals of our age? Can they embody who we want to be as individuals and as a civilization?
The search for the answers to those questions are what keep me at it everyday.
Five Questions for Geoffrey Baldwin
To understand the meaningful similarities and differences between different types of designers, I’ve started collecting a series of short interviews with a broad range of students and professionals. The first was with Neal Mabee, and here is the second. Geoffrey Baldwin is an Industrial Designer at IDEO Chicago. He is a 2006 graduate of the University of Cincinnati’s Industrial Design program. Prior to joining IDEO, he made the internship rounds at Lexmark, Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Design Continuum, Nike, and The Rockwell Group. While Geoffrey is quite passionate about design it isn’t his first love – that would be baseball. He spends the Spring, Summer and Fall playing baseball all over the Chicagoland area, refusing to grow up.
How do you define good design?
Good design is a balance, it’s about what’s best without being too much. Two phrases that help me are… “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” “A design isn’t finished when there’s nothing left to add, but rather when there’s nothing left to take away.”
What is your favorite part of the design process?
Reduction. Whether its synthesizing research down to one salient insight or embodying that perspective into a simple object, I like simplifying information.
What challenges you most as a designer?
Making things tangible…“Design thinking” has created a lot of interest in “strategy.” Strategy is a fancy word for having a plan and no plan is worth anything if it doesn’t have an outcome. My passion and greatest challenge is having strategic conversations that end with a tangible outcome.
How do you define success?
It would be easy for me to say that success is when my client is happy. But I think making clients happy isn’t that hard, just do what they want. To me success is self satisfaction within the constraints of a project. It’s two questions: “did I help my client?” and “did I fulfill myself?”
What has been the most unexpected part of being a professional designer?
I’ve always been surprised to work with designers who, admittedly, cannot draw. This has been a circumstance I’ve found myself in at several studios and it never ceases to amaze me. In my opinion, sketching is the heart of what design is all about. It’s as much about imagination as it is about hard details.
Thanks, Geoffrey. Please check back to see how other designers have responded to these questions!
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