We’ve been running ethnographic projects at Idea Couture since go. Almost three years ago, when I first joined what was then a five-person team on the fifth floor of our building, I was jettisoned into the field on a CPG project designed to examine the role of the kitchen in people’s lives. Since then – [...]

Product or service design to introduce new or tweak existing sales is one thing. Service-cum-experience design for the purpose of encouraging healing and transformation is another. A brief article on Fast Company details some inspiring ethnography+ methods that informed Astorino’s design of the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. To get the full scoop, make sure you [...]

When it comes to product, service or marketing design, following the bell curve can sometimes lead you astray. This is certainly the case for businesses and brands courting the highly coveted, often elusive consumer category known as early adopters.
Early adopters are typically described as curious, adventurous consumers who buy first, talk fast and spread [...]

A recent article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette describing how consumer feedback (or lack of it) impacts the design of cars once again reinforces how ethnographic studies trump focus groups in concept development and testing. It points out that the 2010 Ford Taurus and Buick LaCrosse were designed with input from ethnographic studies. That’s a step [...]

Last year around this time they redesigned the cans. Millions of dollars in the making, the result, as many critics loudly announced when it first dropped, is a flop – little more than a played-out font from 2004. A while back they redesigned Tropicana. Also in the making range of millions of dollars, the result, [...]

I’ve rallied against personas before and, admittedly, I’m doing it again in reference to Ericsson’s intriguing 2020 project. In addition to these issues, I wonder if Mel Tamahori’s Dollynet is “inspired” by Idea Couture’s Doll Adoption.

If there was ever a video game made for Idea Couture CEO and Master Assembler, it’s Lego Arcade.

The biggest brand in the world right now isn’t selling search, touch or performance: it’s wooing consumers through a historically unparalleled romance with the undead.
Google? Apple? Nike? Whatever. For all of the passion, love and sex that’s happening between humans and vampires right now, Twilight and True Blood are leading the way in cultural brand [...]

Creativity is not innovation. We need creativity in order to innovate, but there’s a key difference between creativity and innovation – while any idea can be an expression of creativity, it must have economic value in order to be considered an innovation. Some might balk at economy as the precedence setting measure of innovation, but [...]

As new neighbourhoods continue to stretch up rather than across, the citizens of cities are increasingly finding themselves disconnected from those friendly and supportive neighbourly networks that build vibrant communities.