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Transcript

Raph:  Soren thanks for joining us. Can you tell us a bit about Buro North and yourself?

Soren Luckins:  Sure; I started Buro North somewhere between four and five years ago. Can’t really remember exactly when it started, because it kind of started more as an idea than a business, and I was contracting at other design studios around town, doing small projects and freelance jobs and little things for friends. Eventually, it turned into a business that had one employee, and that took about 12 months. And then, in three years, it’s gone from 12 to 15‑ish, depending on the day.

[background noise]

We set up one meeting room when we started the studio. But invariably, we’ve always needed more meeting rooms, so we just keep shoving desks in places.

Yeah, it’s been an interesting, exciting ride. Buro North is a multidisciplinary design studio. We made that part of our brand, part of our title and identity, as in what we project and also what we stand for and what we’re interested in.

I studied industrial design in Melbourne and graphic design and architecture in Germany, and I guess it was the fusion of those design disciplines that I was interested in and excited by. And then, when I started working in Melbourne, I guess there weren’t that many people that were interested in multidisciplinary design, but rather had their niche and did what they did and kind of held the doors closed to everyone else, whereas now it’s a little bit more fluid, the design process. There’s lots of people that sort of cross the boundaries, and there’s interiors people that deal with architecture and architecture that deals with interiors.

This is the studio. There’s always a stack of people in here. It’s pretty busy at the moment because we’ve got a couple of big jobs coming to a head. This is the studio manager. Come down this way.

Some clients, it’s much easier to sell than others, because lots of clients, they don’t actually care if you’re a graphic designer or an industrial designer or a signage designer or a way‑finding strategist. They’ve just got a problem, and they want their problem solved. And so they’ll usually go and see a couple of people.

And there’ll be people that say “We’re graphic designers and we can develop this solution” and they’ll see somebody else who says something else. I guess we turn up to most clients and say that a multidisciplinary design studio is about solving problems. And we’ve got a lot of skills in‑house, but when we don’t, generally we’ll take them in.

We’ve got this cozy model‑making throw stuff together; create stuff area that clients don’t get to see. I guess it’s really the same as multi‑disciplinary design, for the last 12 months I’ve been seeing multi‑disciplinary design everywhere.

You’ve got a group that worked on this for the last 10 years. It’s a very narrow strain. I think you need to show clients what you’re selling, I think you’ve got to back it up with evidence of work that you’ve done, or work that you’re doing. Problem‑solving, I don’t know? I guess it’s a bit specific to industrial design.

It’s a trend that started in the United States. A lot of industrial designers turned into business partners because they took a broader perspective to dealing with a couple of problems. This is the other director Finn, hi Finn. [laughs] It’s a bit rough, because it was one of the studio’s first big commissions, and we won the job in cooperation with another company.

And basically, the client put out a tender saying “We’ve got some big concrete signs, a ski village signage system that is crumbling and useless and doesn’t really do it’s job effectively. Can someone come in, re‑skin them and make them look better.”

We went back and said that I probably wouldn’t do the job, and we should probably come up with a more sophisticated solution, so we designed a modular stacking system based solution.

That means they can change it from summer to winter, they can move signs for themselves. They can change them into different commissions, with one person, with one tool; and our casting, which was pre‑lot material.

We didn’t have to truck huge amounts of concrete and steel in to create it, which saved carbon emissions. It was the studio’s first big commission. It was also our most complex job.

Developing casting patterns is a complex process, and it really stretched us, so we ended up getting consultants in to help us with a lot of the technical aspects of a lot of the issues relating to the threes and fours of the materials. So, it was a big scary job. It took two and a half years and it’s just been finished. It was pretty successful.

Julian:  Did you set this one, too?

Soren:  Yeah, I went up there and it looks good in summer. I’d like to know how everything looks in winter.

Julian:  Wide focus.

Soren:  This is Dave and Ben. They’re trying to become a four season resort, with mountain biking and hiking, so part of the signage role is to respond to their changing needs so they can have a legible environment to abuse. I think it’s sort of one part of many things that have to do to become a Four Seasons resort. It’s an important part because signage is often the face of the resort that the people see that, I’d say, resort management or the board of the resort, they just see the signs the resort put up.

I find I get quite obsessed about things early in the design phase and then I get really unexcited about them as they progress through that difficult phase where you’re trying to protect the concept through execution and then I get really excited at the end again.

I think one of the things that I learned early and probably one of the best things I’ve done in the studio is to surround myself with people that are good at things that I’m not good at. I think I’m particularly good at the early creation ideas and I’m really bad at the documentation phase.

So, I might need to be focused by guys that are way better than me at documentation and delivery. It means that those ideas do translate through to the end. We’ve just finished all of internal graphics and signage for Myer’s new headquarters.

It was designed 18 months ago and it’s been going through this process where they try to make it more or they do value management and they try to remove some of the cost space and try to protect the design.

All those factors come into play and it’s pretty exciting after 18 months to turn up and see that it looks pretty much exactly like you envisaged.

Julian:  Do you find when you’re working with bigger corporations that it’s difficult to manage that organizational inertia; you have 18 months for a signage project?

Soren:  Yeah, it is. I think a lot of people, and I certainly did. When I started I sort of had this naive idea that design was the main part of our job. The sad reality is that design is kind of, I don’t know, maybe 40% and then there’s just massive tracking, administrating a project, and protecting the design and matching client relationship and expectations and managing the contractual issues that come up.

Yeah. The thing that I find exciting about the business side of things, I think, is that you’re designing the business as well. So I find it interesting the designing processes that we go through and how we manage a client, all that stuff is quite interesting because it’s essentially designing an outcome.

But yeah, the business side is really hard and you don’t really like it when [indecipherable 0:09:51.6] , but I didn’t learn it at the university and one of the other things I did early in the business was to hire a business adviser who helped steer through all of those commercial risks.

But it is a huge part and sometimes I wake up and think that it’s some kind of miracle that I somehow got to here. It’s a thriving business that puts out what I like to think is great design and we have happy people and we have happy clients and we make money.

Then, other times business is hard and it’s a really fine balance to get all those things right. Sometimes you have a big client but you’ve blown your budget. Sometimes you’ve got a happy client but that so‑and‑so’s not what you wanted.

Sometimes you’ve made money but you’re not that happy with the design. Getting all that right happens on some jobs.

To get it to happen on all jobs, you’ve got to really work very, very hard. And even just being across all the information, so knowing exactly how the client feels, exactly where the design’s at, how the finance is coming and how your project team are if they’re happy with it. Are they overworked? Are they comfortable with the project? You know all those issues.

Julian:  All the time across 20, 30 different jobs.

Soren:  Yes. It’s a big ask. So one of the things we’ve done in the last 12 months is develop some of the younger guys we have in the studio up to a point where they’re managing their own jobs and the clients. It means essentially they’re more in control which is better for them. There’s been more autonomy for me which means I can go back and dabble in the design rather than worry about some of the administrative things.

It was a big thing for me, after four years, to wake up and realize that the design part of it, which was what excited me, was sort of getting further away so at last I wanted to work pretty hard to get that back.

Julian:  Reclaim it.

Soren:  Very satisfying.Yeah, I think it’s an extremely exciting place to be, the design room. I think it’s safe to say when I went to start this business, either I wasn’t aware of it, or it’s developed in the last five or so years. Certainly, it’s an exciting, energetic design community. We’ve recently started doing a lot of work interstate, and we’ve just opened a mini‑studio in Sydney which is just one person. But it’s definitely a different scene in Sydney and they’ve got a different level of engagement here.

The mainstream media really gets involved in design, which means my dad, who has no idea about design, knows enough that he can have a conversation. He even knows enough about architecture that he can say he likes or he doesn’t like a new building in the city.

Julian:  How much does something like that where you’ve got the general public able to have a conversation about design or interact with design affect the studio or business?

Soren:  I think it just drives the design community to be more focused and more leading edge. I mean, a lot of people around Australia, I think, tend to believe that Melbourne’s the design hub of the country. And I think that’s probably just because it’s so competitive here. There’s so many businesses. I mean, when I think about the little design studios in Melbourne that I know. There’s just hundreds. It’s just a really competitive, striving and active community. And things like Australia Design, design festivals, I think they’re really good for kind of keeping things moving.

And we get invited to participate in design exhibitions and shows and talks and series and things all the time. And I think if that sort of stuff didn’t happen, it wouldn’t further that discourse and keep it such an energetic place for members.

Raph:  Thanks for taking time to chat. First, can you tell us a bit about you and what you do here at Buro North?

Shane Loorham:  Yes, sure. My name is Shane. I’m a graphic designer here at Buro North. We’re a pretty small to medium size design studio, but with kind of multidisciplinary skills across all sort of angles. I’m one of just a couple of graphic designers, which means I sort of, yes, get a really good opportunity to do a whole bunch of different stuff. I’ve been here for just over a year and prior to that I’ve worked in a few studios locally and abroad.

Raph:  Awesome, awesome. So in terms of working in, I suppose, a multidisciplinary design studio, here at Buro North, in terms of design, you do graphics, but how much interaction and input do you have into other areas of other projects that run across multiple areas.

Shane:  Yeah, yeah, well most of our projects run across a whole sort of breadth of sort of different disciplines. As I say, we’re still kind of a pretty tight crew. So we often get to, like we all collaborate. We also sort of get to crossover, so you’re not just sort of doing your bit and then stepping back, everybody sort of gets involved.

Raph:  Awesome.

Shane:  And it makes it exciting.

Raph:  What sort of differences do you notice in design scenes, especially the Melbourne design scene, which is pretty robust? And what are your thoughts on what’s going on in Melbourne in terms of design? Is it happening, or is it…?

Shane:  Yeah, yeah, I think it’s totally happening. So I’ve only really worked here and a pretty short spell in London. And then I sort of spent like a year in Norway. And I don’t know, you get a really good, sort of rep internationally for Scandinavia and what’s going on there. But I think what’s happening here is more exciting, really. We’re kind of our biggest [indecipherable 0:16:21.3] we’ve got there. And yet sort of placed in real sort of position of growth. So there’s just always so much going on.

In London, I felt like, as a designer, you were really pigeonholed. You wouldn’t get the opportunities you got here. Where I was a graphic designer and I would work as a graphic designer because anywhere that I sort of put my foot in the door was kind of a lot larger. And really, you were kind of doing your thing. So I think Melbourne’s as good as any place in the world to be a designer.

Raph:  Thanks very much.

Giovanni Mendini:  No, thank you.

Raph:  So can you tell us a bit about yourself; a bit about what you’ve been doing, and what you do?

Giovanni:  I’m Giovanni, and I’m Italian. I’m here for a year so far, and a points I’ve been at Buro North for a couple months now, and I’ve been lucky because I’ve been doing a lot of different jobs. Being in design, signage, and I’ve been designing small stuff like this. This is like a paper model of a chameleon that was sort of like a joke in the beginning, but then it’s developing more creative things besides normal projects that we do in the studio. I really like the approach we have here.

It is very, very different; like in the name you say multi‑disciplinary design. Because I’ve been working on graphic projects in that sort of project, industrial project signage and so many things.

Raph:  What sort of designer are you originally?

Giovanni:  I studied in Italy for being an industrial designer.

Raph:  OK.

Giovanni:  But I came here as a graphic, but slowly I am moving to be a proper industrial designer. I’m quite happy about that.

Raph:  That’d be nice. What sort of big differences have you noticed, or similarities even, between Italian design and what’s going on?

Giovanni:  I think there is a big difference in approach. Back in Italy, we’re really focused on our history in design and architecture. What design means, and what it meant before. Before designing everything, we are used to taking a huge look at what has been done on the field, yeah. We like to be quite informed about what’s gone before. Here, I love the thing that there is less history, probably, and this allows you to take a more spontaneous approach or more creative, what can I say? Almost randomly, at the beginning, and then you can focus and develop. But, yeah, the big difference is the freedom here compared to Parisian, you can say.

In a way there so, of course, not going to be too original. The group stays in the middle, probably, backspace. Yeah, I’m glad I’m not the Italian background because I’m more focused on research before doing things, and I’m glad to be here because creativity here is way better.

Raph:  I think you’d be inclined.

Giovanni:  I think so. I think I can compare the two things. Talking to college in Italian, in Australia the world is more open. So, yeah, I think it’s a good move to come down here. That’s what I did.

Raph:  I hope you enjoy it. Do you plan to stay long?

Giovanni:  Yes, yes. The first reason was for a year, and now I’ve got promised sponsorship. It’s taking longer. I’d like to stay here as long as I can, actually, yeah.

Raph:  Awesome. Thanks for your time.

Giovanni:  Thank you guys.

[end of transcript]

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Profiles

Stephen Clune

Stephen has a background in Industrial Design, having worked on award winning projects such as the Jacana Marines ‘ Nemesis’, the Australian Marine Industries Boat of the Year in 2003. Stephen is a member of the Sustainable Products and Packaging group within the Centre for Design. His role promotes the application of design for sustainability thinking, tools and methods by the broader design community, positioning design as a leader in the move towards a sustainable society and generating new knowledge within the field.

Simon Lockrey

Simon is a Research Fellow in the Sustainable Products and Packaging team at the Centre for Design. He has worked as a Product Design Engineer both in Australia and Europe for almost a decade. His work has crossed a large range of industries, including design consultancies, leading commercial interior furniture manufacturers, and multinational appliance companies. The products he has designed have been both ‘small run’ and ‘mass produced’, as his roles have covered all stages of the design process. He has worked with a plethora of materials and processes, in both design and manufacturing environments.

Transcript

Simon Lockrey: CFD has been a part of the design community in Australia for nigh on two decades, I think. And really did start at the cold face of redesign and eco‑redesign. CFD now has moved more to a policy‑driving level. So a lot of work feeds into federal or state based projects.

Stephen Clune: One of the projects with that notion‑of‑design thinking, which is really interesting that we’ve done recently, is we’ve worked with an aged care provider to actually try to identify sustainability opportunities for them. That was using sort of a lifecycle assessment in auditing their facilities, and then we sat them down and had a discussion about what the results of that audit actually meant as far as their daily practices. And then ran sort of design brainstorming sessions more or less to say if these are the practices, how can we adjust these to reduce the environmental improvements.

So, again, it was interesting that it was quite similar to running, say, a design studio or something like that within a design class. The client that you’re dealing with is very far into design.

Simon: Australia is a small market. Australia is, like you mentioned, an emerging market. But there’s also some quite established players in Australia that are extremely innovative worldwide on the design scene. In terms of looking at the way the world is moving with sustainability, those sort of core values are being embedded within the design area. But not only that, it’s the interdisciplinary stuff. So bringing in marketing, bringing in sort of brand owners or consumers and actually getting the mix right.

I think just from being back for a year, that isn’t happening so much in, say, the design scene in Australia. Generally, the designers on the Australian scene seems to me, and from the feedback I’m getting from designers ‑ they’re not the decision‑makers yet. There might come a time where that might evolve, like it has started to evolve in bigger markets like Europe.

Stephen: I think I would articulate our worth a little bit better, which is really difficult because there’s a huge amount of talk on design thinking, but what exactly design thinking is and how you communicate that to other people. It’s interesting, like we said in our presentation the other day by Village Well, one of the most popular urban planning groups now in Australia. They’re quite desirable to work for them, like industry are calling them and government are calling them.

They’re using a lot of creativity methods which are identical to what we would traditionally use in design. So in that sense, you’ve got some instances where that design thinking is being applied at a really high level and it’s really desirable.

And it sort of simulates the most simple thing for designers to do, which rings true for me, which is to just to go out there and identify what are the people out there that are doing the really positive stuff, and just know on their door and say, “I’m a designer. Can I help?” Because I think in Australia to sort of diversify who is it you can potentially work for is important.

Simon: The best advice I can give is don’t fret about not being able to be part of that decision‑making process. And don’t worry about your profession, because I think design will play a critical role in what’s coming up in terms of the world movement towards this thrifty, efficient, low‑carbon economy. I mean, designers and engineers, creatives, ingenuity‑type professions are going to be at the core of that work, the sustainability movements. Where the technical drivers there, as well as just the traditional green drive, it’s actually moved past that. It’s now at the core of design as well.

So I think that it’s a bright future. Just keep doing what you’re doing and learn as much as you can and soak as much as you can from the people who are promoting this.

Stephen: That’s another thing, what we define as people and companies that are doing good things, and put your hand up and try and be involved in some capacity. And a lot of those industries maybe haven’t been exposed to design before, so they’re quite willing sometimes, when you’re able to present what you’re actually able to do. They’re all ears, and look at things and go, “Wow, that’s a really interesting approach.” There’s a long list of examples where people have been able to find a foot into the door of an industry by that mechanism of presenting your work to someone and putting yourself out there.

Simon: There’s a bright future.

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Profile

Ben Rennie is a serial entrepreneur, married with 3 cool kids and lives in a really small town south of Sydney where he likes to surf, skate and patrol the local beach from time to time so the kids can get some fresh sea air. In the winter he volunteers part time as snowboard patrol in the Australian alps so the kids can get some fresh mountain air. Ben is the founder of Uncluttered White Spaces and a Director at 6.2.

Presently: Working on establishing 6.2 as an important contributor to the Australian business community.

Past lives: Director for R3FM and Boxfresh, GM for a global licensing group in Melbourne, national manager for Ray-Ban and Luxottica and a very previous life as a ski & snowboard Instructor in Australia and Canada which proceeded a very bad cricket career in Australia and England.

Wants: The world to consider consumption and cease purchasing bottled water.

Check out Uncluttered White Spaces and IF Talks.

Transcript

Ben Rennie: …I’m not a designer, and I’ve never studied design. I’m not a Web developer. I never have done that. But nonetheless, I’m obsessed by it. I’m obsessed by beautiful things, clean lines, great topography. So I think it communicates in a certain way. I think in terms of  Uncluttered White Spaces one of the things I wanted to do there in communicating the message of our brand strategy and marketing was to give it in this really cool, clean, unfussy website that just has the content.

What was the inspiration behind IF Talks?

One of the things I wanted to do was to sort of say, well I can sit down with Johannes Wasenbeck from Play and he can give me his insights into making a community better which he does really well. Let’s create a platform for him to share with other people who aren’t as lucky as me to sit down with him on a free time basis to chat with him.

So we created IF Talks to sort of create a forum for these people, aspiring thought leaders and innovators to sit in a room full of other smart people who can share, ask the questions, bounce ideas around, and leverage knowledge basically.

What advice would you give to designers for working successfully with marketers and business people?

It’s amazing the amount of businesses that we work with where the sales director really has no comprehension of the start process to the end process, you know. So it’s not just an issue for designers; it’s an issue for the whole business. So I think it needs to be a bit more transparency from everyone in terms of what the processes are for each department, especially design.

How important is it to be connected with the most up to date information?

I spend the best part of two hours a day in the morning sort of going through current trends, looking at things online, speaking to people. So there’s a lot of information out there. It’s amazing how often this information just sort of can take over your life and you can feel like there are things happening and you’re behind the eight ball.

So I think from my point of view it’s important to be across information and understand what’s going on in the world but put a filter on it. It’s got to be relevant to you. It’s got to matter. There’s a lot of stuff out there that really isn’t relevant.

How important is an active lifestyle to idea generation and business development?

You know I spent a long time working in a big corporation spending 55 hours a week in a box in a room with grey walls and doing some pretty important work. But it was time consuming. So one of the things I sort of found when I chose to leave that environment and start working in smaller roles and with smaller partners was to ensure that there was me time, family time, work time and just try to blend them all together.

So it’s not about nine‑to‑five; it’s just about saying whatever. If I’m having a bit of a tough time at work and it’s not clear in my head, I go for a surf. Get in the water. Go for a paddle. It doesn’t matter if it’s 11 o’clock or 12 o’clock or one o’clock. Provided it’s not interfering with somebody else’s schedule, then just do it. Because I get out on water and I feel better. I feel more relaxed.

What do you see as the big trends that will emerge over the next decade?

I think things that I’m passionate about that I believe in that I think, that I hope will be big soon is social enterprise. If you could look at Streat and I’ve been very vocal about Streat. It’s something that I’m really passionate about. You know Rebecca Scott from Streat and the guys there are doing an amazing job.
You know they’ve built this sort of a sustainable community of people creating a business model out of providing opportunities for homeless youth. To me there should be more of that and that’ll grow. I think there are opportunities around that.

Rachel Botsman is writing a book at the moment called “Collaborative Consumption” about collaborations and about smarter ways to do business like Zip cars for example. There are a thousand and one stories around collaborations.

So I think that gives a lot of power to smaller businesses. I think, to me, that’s a real opportunity in the future for social enterprise to continue to grow and for small businesses to collaborate with other companies to sort of be real powerful and create work that’s important.

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Transcript

I’ve had this video transcribed (below) for those who prefer to get it that way.

Raph Goldsworthy: Hi, Michael. Welcome to the first Design Droplets video interview. Thanks for taking the time to be here and chat with us. You recently released your first book, titled Analog Dream: Sketches of Michael DiTullo. Can you give a quick rundown of what the book is about and what made you decide to write the book?

Michael DiTullo: I’ve always wanted to do a book, and I think it has to do with the way I found out about design as a child, I think. I learned about design when I was about 14 years old by finding the book Design and Rendering Techniques by Richard Powell, who is one half of the design firm, Seymourpowell, the British design firm. And I remember finding this book. It was down on the bottom shelf in the art section in this little book store in New York state, where I grew up. And I just remember flipping through that book, trying to have a photographic memory, just memorize every little page of it. And I was with my mom, 14 years old, and she says, you know, Michael, time to go. And I said mom, I’m not leaving here without this book. It was an expensive book, but I was a good kid and never really asked for anything. And I think she must have seen in my eye this kid is serious. And I still have that book, and you can see that the binding is ripped off. It’s well marked up. This was a little bit like my Bible for my teenage years. And chapter one is about how a magic marker is made. And that year for Christmas, I asked for a set of magic markers and draft paper.

So that was the start of it. So I think, for me, making my own book completes the circle a little bit. And I wanted to do a book that explains why analog sketching is important to me and put that back into the sphere.

Raph: …main reasoning for you, too, which is your fantastic new book, which I see you’ve got a copy of there. Do you want to hold it up? That’s … yeah. Analog Dreams, which is quite a fantastic book. I’ve had the time to finally sit down and have a good read through it. It’s actually great.

Michael: Cool, thank you.

Raph: Yeah, it’s fantastic to see. I mean, I’ve seen through Core77 a lot of your sketches online, and through various other interviews and stuff you see a lot of your sketches digitally, but it’s really nice to see them on a printed page, as well. From my perspective, it’s nice to see a more high level approach to the … I suppose, not really theory, but the practice of sketching. What you sort of talk about, I think, what it is, the eight elements of a good sketch, which really gives it that much more high level, instead of this is how you draw. This is how you can train yourself. And to actually publish it, you used Blurb, which is a self‑publishing service. Probably ten years ago, that’s not something you would’ve done. To do a book, you would’ve had to go through a publisher and it would’ve been a whole different process. Can you tell us a little bit about Blurb?

Michael: It’s definitely worthwhile. It’s pretty amazing, and I think it’s also amazing that several publishers have contacted since this book has gone live because of the response. And so online publishing is a great prototype, kind of test zone for these kinds of things. It was incredibly easy. I’d been toying with it, researching. There’s several different competitors to Blurb. I’ve been researching. Each of them has their own pros and cons. And Blurb actually reached out to me. They say I was digging around, and they said, you know what, try us out. Try us out for one print and see what you think. I love their tools. They have a great mini‑app called Book Smart, which is kind of in design like, if you will, but what’s great is it ties directly to their capabilities. So it knows how big an image should be before it breaks up. It knows when text and images overlap, like what can look good, what can look bad. So it was super simple, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone with a body of work or just printing up a portfolio. It’s pretty effective.

And it was fantastic to see the interest in the work from the public. I mean, it’s been about three weeks now. I think actually today is three weeks. About 60 copies have sold so far.

Raph: How many copies?

Michael: About 60.

Raph: 60? Fantastic. That’s awesome.

Michael: So that’s not too bad for a three week launch, and it’s been a pretty soft launch. We didn’t really do much PR around it so far. So it’s been fantastic, and the people at Converse, at Hugo design, whose simple sketches are in the book there, have been super supportive of it. And I think the idea of… For me, it’s just kind of bringing design to the forefront and hopefully it’s a little bit about what we do behind the scenes and hopefully, influencing people to value that a little bit more. And also, it’s a book that I would want. Like I said, it doesn’t really go into depth. It kind of touches on the tree tops, and hopefully it just provides a bunch of sketches that you could consider inspirational, to have value.

Raph: Sweet. Can you tell us a little bit about your philosophy on sketching as a language?

Michael: I think for me, I didn’t want to duplicate some of the great work that’s been done, and there’s been some fantastic books by Scott Robertson with Design Studio Press, and great websites like idosketching.com that go through the technique on a tutorial level of how to. And I think in this digital age, I wanted to step back a little bit and talk a little bit about why sketch at all? Why do we do this? And I use an analog medium versus a digital medium. And I’m thinking of, like, Scott Robertson, Design Studio Press books, and he’s sketching. There’s so many resources for step by step tutorials, both in book form and online. And in today’s digital world, I wanted to take a step back from that, not duplicate the great work that had been done by others, but think a little bit about why we sketch in the first place.

I mean, a few weeks ago ‑‑ and I think we’re seeing a lot of resurgence in the interest of analog sketches ‑‑ I know a few weeks ago, personally, we had a designer view in the studio. And most of my designers sketch digitally at this point, but I sketch still primarily in an analog fashion, at least in the early stages. And we put all the sketches up on the wall, and everybody goes straight to the analog sketches, and there’s a reason for that. And I’ve been noticing this pattern over the past five years. I think the fact that an analog sketch is so much more humanistic, and to define analog sketch, I’m almost even considering part of that, like, tablet sketches, like with sketchbook pro, that feel more analog, I guess that’s just a lower fidelity sketch, versus a higher fidelity digital sketch.

And so I wanted to back up a little bit and talk about why I thought that is. I think that there’s something hardwired in our brain as humans that allow us to respond to that level of communication. I think it’s really not a surprise that our early written languages were pictograms. And I think our brains are really hardwired to read really abstract visual communications and put together common symbols or things. And I think sketches allow designers to take advantage of that and communicate a maximum amount of information with a really minimal amount of work, allowing us to focus more on the idea and less on the vehicle for the idea.

Raph: What sort of main tips would you give to designers who do want to improve their sketching visualization skills?

Michael: The biggest tip of all, and it’s not going to be anything shocking, I’m just probably going to reinforce what professors around the world are saying, is just do it all the time. And you’re going to do a bunch of horrible work, just really shitty. Just churn through it and develop that visual language. Like any language, if I were to learn French or Spanish, to become fluent in sketching, in visual language, is no different. You’re going to need to be with people who are already fluent in it. And I’m going to need to speak that language as much as possible to gain that fluency. Visual language is a little different because most of us, or a lot of us at least, know how to read that visual language. We don’t necessarily know how to write it. So, spending as much time with fluent visual authors as possible, learning that benchmarking, what worked for them [audio skips] you would improve on.

Then working with a peer group that’s at your level, you push each other and working with those even at a level below you so you get that interaction, is really ‑ and just forcing yourself to get in the habit. And at this point, I feel like I really think on the page, there’s not a lot of filters between here and here.

And I think one of the reasons why I do it in analog fashion is because I really don’t like to sketch at my desk. I like to sketch away from my desk, at home, in the park, at a table with a bunch of other designers, in our design library. So I think, for me, it’s really important to get my brain out of the static environment where implementation work is done and to get more into a [audio skips] environment. So I think I work analog.

I don’t know. We’ll see what happens when the iPad ‑ maybe I’ll go all SketchBook Pro. But I think the style, or the level of communication I think is a better word than style. The level, I think, will be the same, just highly efficient ideas on a surface. And you get to the level where you’re so fluent, where at first you’re just putting down two‑dimensional symbols or three‑dimensional things. And you get to a level where you’re so fluent, where you can sculpt on a page or sculpt in your mind and transport that sculpting to a two‑dimensional surface.

Raph: OK. Apart from the other half of Seymourpowell inspiring your sketching were there any other designers that really inspired you to sketch and, I suppose, get your sketching to the level you are right now?

Michael: I’ve always been a little bit of a nerd about it. I think, as a kid ‑ it’s a really tangible form of design. Really, it’s like five percent of what we do.

Raph: Yes.

Michael: And five percent might even be an exaggeration. But, in terms of a tangible, visible where others can see what we’re doing and see our impact in our process. In process it might be more like 75 percent. So I think, as a kid, when you’re seeing all the drawings in Popular Mechanics and Popular Science magazines, Motor Trend, I just really wanted to do that. I remember as a 13‑year‑old when my parents said, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” not knowing the word “design,” I said, “I want to draw stuff from the future.” And I just thought, “That has to be a job.” [laughs] “Somebody’s role in this culture has to be to imagine and visualize the things from the future.”

And in my 13‑year‑old childlike way, it was the most efficient way to describe that. And I think I’ve always been a student of those kinds of designers, starting with Raymond Loewy and Teague who ‑ Raymond Loewy and Walter Dorwin Teague both started as illustrators and basically became so proficient as illustrators for product catalogs that companies started approaching them to visualize ideas for products, instead of products, and the birth of industrial design.

Up until Seymourpowell, JoJo Brujaro ‑ and I’ve always been very fascinated with these prolific designers who ‑ I don’t think they see themselves as, “Oh, I’m a car designer. I’m a footwear designer or a medical product designer.” They see themselves as a designer, as a creative that can work anything and apply their skill sets to any problem.

Raph: You’ve got such an amazing backdrop there. Can you, maybe, give us a quick rundown on some of the bits and pieces? You’ve got, I assume, some of your shoes, some amazing books and then a kettle as well. Maybe you can give us a quick rundown on a couple of things? Maybe a couple of great books that you’ve got, maybe tell us a little bit about one or two of the shoes. Is that alright?

Michael: Yeah, definitely. This is actually the first shoe I ever designed in 2003. It’s the Zoom Street Miler. It actually launched with the Sydney Olympics. So another designer designed a track version of this shoe, which was worn by various track athletes at the Olympics and then I took that upper and tweaked it and did a street version and designed this new bottom. I thought it was kind of an emotive abstraction of track [audio skips] where these are placed. Internally it has a full length Zoom airbag, so it’s a super comfortable street product that’s inspired by sport.

But, as my first shoe ‑ it’s kind of like the place where you met your wife or something. This is the first one I did. So, it’s always special to me. This tea kettle, I worked on this tea kettle with the team at Evo Design while I was working there, with Aaron Szymanski and the team there. And this was for Chantal Cookware. And I think this product is one of my favorite products because when you’re working with a client like Chantal, they’re really specific about what screw head you’re going to select right here.

And working with a client that pays as much attention to detail as you do is a real pleasure, but it’s always just been a marker of a great product experience. When everybody’s putting the same amount of care into every little detail, you can’t help but lead to a great product. And I think we designed this product in 2001 and it’s still in production today in a variety of colors.

That was the goal of the product, in the brief, was to make a timeless piece in design and so far we’ve done it. We’ll see.

Raph: Fantastic.

Michael: I think the newest book on the shelf is probably this one, which is a retrospective of Marcel Breuer’s work by [audio skips] .

Raph: Ok.

Michael: And to me, again, being a student of design and art in our culture is really important. It’s easy to make a product that satisfies a wrong need. I think, at this point, most products are pretty good, but designing a product that’s great or above average is increasingly difficult ‑ that ties to culture. And for me, it’s always been really important to be a student of those designers. I’ve just been able to do that consistently. I think if you go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, let’s say, in New York and you to the Asian art section at the museum, that floor, the Egyptian art section of the museum; you actually don’t see a lot of art. You see a lot of artifacts from daily life, objects that made life better at the time, vases and spoons and pottery.

I think it’s important for designers to think, “Well, how are our objects going to fit in? How is what we’re doing right now going to convey what is important to our culture 500, 1,000 years from now?” Because, it’s going to be there. It’s going to be buried somewhere.

Raph: OK. Fantastic. That’s the whole interview. So thanks for taking the time to sit down, chat with me, share about the book, share about your design process and sketching process, and philosophy and all the bits and pieces we’ve talked about. Have you got any final thoughts before we wrap it up?

Michael: I just want to thank you, Raph, thank Design Droplets for all the support. And I really believe in everything that you’re doing there.

Raph: Oh, thanks. That’s fantastic to hear. [crosstalk]

Michael: [audio skips] So, I’m really excited to be the first video interview. I hope that everyone that has bought the book enjoys it. And hopefully it’s just the first of many for me and from other designers out there now that these tools are available.

Want a copy to put on your iPhone or iPod? Right click & Save As…. on this here linky.

In a previous post we promised that we would have video coverage of the event. Well after a few technical glitches (yes we know its 2 months later – we promise it won’t take so long for future videos) we can proudly present to you the This Is Not A Design Market Design Droplets video coverage.

I would like to introduce to you the newest member of the Design Droplets team, Dave Manzin. I would also like to thank Dave for his awesome effort to help make this video a reality.

If you didn’t make it to the event, you can finally find out what all the fuss was about.

If you were able to be there, why not relive the wonders?

Without further ado I give you, This Is Not A Design Market on film.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you want to know more about the companies and people featured in the video, have a squiz at their websites:

Like Butter

Paper Tiger

Melbourne Museum of Printing

Melbourne Design Guide

Jardan

Want to download a High Definition copy to keep for yourself? Right click & Save As…. on this here linky.

Want a copy to put on your iPhone or iPod? Right click & Save As…. on this here linky.