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Ethnography, Explorations

The Tyranny of the ‘Real World’ or Dealing with Insights

Posted by: Paul Hartley, at 7:41 am on December 15, 2011

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...

Art and Culture, Business Models, Explorations, Featured Articles, Organizational Design, Strategic Innovation, Uncategorized

EPIC FAIL: Error as the Site of Innovation

Posted by: rbolton, at 2:13 pm on May 16, 2011

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...

Art and Culture, Business Models, Consumer Electronics, Economics, Experience Design, Explorations, Industrial Design, Organizational Design, Retail Design, Service Design, Social Change, Strategic Foresight, Strategic Innovation, sustainability, Technology, Transportation Design, Uncategorized

An evolution in the making; from designing things to designing experiences.

Posted by: Jesse Diephuis, at 1:42 pm on April 19, 2011

Conditions are ripe for collaborative design to take place in creating solutions beyond Industrial Design programs and outside of traditional R&D centers of Automotive OEMs.

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...

Articles, CSR, Explorations, Featured Articles, Social Change, Strategic Innovation, sustainability

Some (Belated) Thoughts on Compost Modern

Posted by: Nicole Chen, at 2:26 pm on January 31, 2011

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,...

Articles, Experience Design, Explorations, Industrial Design, Retail Design, Strategic Innovation, Transportation Design, Uncategorized

Pack the bags for a new direction

Posted by: Jesse Diephuis, at 12:11 pm on January 3, 2011

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...

Explorations

The Kaos Pilot DK Experience Pt2

Posted by: Mathew Lincez, at 10:38 am on December 20, 2010

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...

Articles, Explorations, Strategic Innovation

Lessons in Innovation from a Mushroom Forager

Posted by: Nicole Chen, at 11:04 am on December 17, 2010

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...

Explorations, Featured Explorations, Strategic Foresight

The Kaos Pilot DK Experience Pt1

Posted by: Mathew Lincez, at 1:55 pm on October 19, 2010
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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,...

Articles, Explorations

From Touch To Feel- Part 3

Posted by: Mathew Lincez, at 9:03 am on May 21, 2010

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...

Articles, Experience Design, Explorations, Featured Articles, Industrial Design, Service Design, Social Change, Strategic Foresight, Strategic Innovation, sustainability, Technology, Transportation Design

Bygone Nostalgic Design VS. the Emerging World.  Part 1

Posted by: Jesse Diephuis, at 10:01 am on May 18, 2010

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...