Welcome to the Era of Design
"All businesses, no matter what they make or sell, should recognize the power and financial value of good design.
Obviously, there are many different types of design: graphic, brand, packaging, product, process, interior, interaction/user experience, Web and service design, to name but a few. ...
You see, expecting great design is no longer the preserve of a picky design-obsessed urban elite - that aesthetically sensitive clique who'd never dare leave the house without their Philippe Starck eyewear and turtleneck sweaters and buy only the right kind of Scandinavian furniture. Instead, there's a new, mass expectation of good design: that products and services will be better thought through, simplified, made more intuitive, elegant and more enjoyable to use.
Design has finally become democratized, and we marketers find ourselves with new standards to meet in this new 'era of design.' To illustrate, Apple, the epitome of a design-led organization, now has a market capitalization of $570 billion, larger than the GDP of Switzerland. Its revenue is double Microsoft's, a similar type of technology organization but one not truly led by design (just compare Microsoft Windows with Apple's Lion operating system)."
(Adam Swann, 5/03/2012, Forbes)
Fig.1 "Mille Miglia" bicycle by VIVA [http://www.vivabikes.com/].
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Shadow puppetry matches dreamlike quality of Kate Bush song
"50 Word's for Snow found the elusive Kate Bush at her most stark and stripped-down. The album was the aural equivalent of a single line of footsteps in a snowy pasture. It's no wonder then that Bush, who has always been skilled at pairing her music with their equivalent visuals, turned away from her trademark cinematics for the video of her song, 'Lake Tahoe.'
In the album version of 'Lake Tahoe,' only quiet strings and a piano accompany Bush as she weaves a tale of an old dog dreaming of his owner. And while the full song explains the animal's true situation, Bush - who directed the video herself - has trimmed it down into a more ambiguous excerpt here.
Her use of shadow puppetry matches song's dreamlike quality. The stark contrast between the black figures and the white world makes each set piece seem mystical. The dog runs through phantasmagorical lands filled with spooky woods, looking for his owner. It's beautiful in its simplicity - emphasizing small subtle movements over big extravagance. The elegant design of the puppets mixes fantasy elements like the moving trees with realistic pieces such as the soft sway of the woman's hair."
(Dan Raby, 24 January 2012, All Songs Considered Blog, National Public Radio)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
