There are an uncountable number of business-related sites, articles, and books that use the phrase ‘real world.’ You can get an endless number of books or services offering insight into ‘real world’ business problems. You can go to a business school for ‘real world’ learning. You can get...
The French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan believed every unsuccessful act to be successful as discourse. Mistakes are reference points. They re-calibrate our assumptions and reorient our course of action. The culture that doesn’t identify and contemplate its mistakes is condemned to repeat them. Applied...
The phenomenon of cheaper, faster, better (better in terms of having more options) is more a result of global economics than it is a corporate mandate. If you think about Bauhaus (the origins of Industrial Design) and how it was intended to provide a social service of making houses and household product...
Two weekends ago, I had the privilege of representing Idea Couture at the Compost Modern conference here in San Francisco. Organized by AIGA SF, “‘Compostmodern’ engages designers, sustainability professionals, artists and entrepreneurs to collaborate in realizing a more environmentally,...
There are 365 days in the year and our travel luggage spends most of that time buried away in the closet. When luggage is not being used, it takes away valuable space, and adds to the frustration of clutter creating awkward surfaces that are difficult integrate with other items. After 100 years in...
After visiting the Kaos Pilots in Aarhus Denmark it was time to have some KP’s cross the pond to visit us. IC is an organization that is always open to new learning relationships and creative exchanges that help to expand our knowledge base and enrich our culture. So after a series of brief interviews...
Every one of us at Idea Couture has our own “outside of work” creative and quirky passions — that’s what makes us such effective creative and interesting professionals. For example, one of us runs a Design Collective, another plays in a rock-band, and yet another is a hard-core...
I Recently had the pleasure of visiting the Kaos Pilots in Aarhus Denmark. The school focuses on developing change-agents and action oriented revolutionaries through pedagogic models like appreciated inquiry, action learning, and systems thinking. The school uniquely combines elements of business,...
How will this shift and change the way products are defined, shaped, and made? Will it make products or services easier, better, more enjoyable, more intuitive or more meaningful to use? Consider the following scenarios: Mobile Location Based Services: You’re tired and cranky after another distressingly...
Traditionally, the notion of Beauty and Elegance is what makes classic examples of automotive design, which is designed to encourage observers to dream about an irreverent future. In the early days of the 1920’s and 1930’s these notions of dramatic proportions were predicated on people who lived...