InterSections podcast

Business thread: Are design schools the new B-schools? Jeremy Myerson chairs

podcasts@designcouncil.org.uk (Design Council) — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Business Week has floated the idea that tomorrow's Business school might be a design school. Jeremy Myerson, from the RCA, Janet Abrams, from the University of Minnesota Design Institute, John Bates, London Business School and Christoph Böninger, formerly of Siemens discuss whether designers can really go head-to-head with the MBAs and whether students would be better equipped for the business world if they were design trained?

Business thread: What can design bring to strategy? Kevin McCullagh chairs

podcasts@designcouncil.org.uk (Design Council) — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Design strategy is a growing sub-discipline of design. This session, chaired by conference director Kevin McCullagh, asked what strengths designers bring to strategy building and what new skills they might need to acquire. The panel, Jonathan Sands from Elmwood, Richard Eisermann from Prospect and Ed Silk from Interbrand, covered the topic with reference to their own wide experience as designers and strategists.

As designers, are we guilty of killing the planet? John Thackara chairs

podcasts@designcouncil.org.uk (Design Council) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 12:00:00 GMT

John argues that 80 percent of the environmental impact of the products and buildings is determined at the design stage; and the ways we have designed the world force most people to waste stupendous quantities of matter and energy. But for John, playing the blame game is pointless, the best way to redeem ourselves is to become part of the solution.

New connections: question time - Jeremy Myerson chairs

podcasts@designcouncil.org.uk (Design Council) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 12:00:00 GMT

At the final panel session of Intersections 07, delegates had the chance to put questions to the panel, ranging from the lack of women in design, to the role of designers in creating unnecessary landfill, and how best to reconcile the desire for visionary design with co-creation. This session draws together some of the key themes from the conference.

Interactions thread: Can good design be co-created? Nico MacDonald chairs

podcasts@designcouncil.org.uk (Design Council) — Thu, 3 Jan 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Can good design be co-created? What can designers learn from the open source software movement and 'wikinomics'? While everyone is a designer, isn't it the job of professional designers to champion good design? Writer and journalist Nico MacDonald chairs a discussion about the possibilities and pitfalls of co-design.

Interactions thread: Interaction blur - Nico MacDonald chairs

podcasts@designcouncil.org.uk (Design Council) — Thu, 3 Jan 2008 12:00:00 GMT

How is interaction design changing and what the drivers behind this? Has it managed to develop the skill sets it needs to deal with the challenges ahead? And how does interaction design overlap with other design disciplines? Andy Altmann from Why Not Associates, Durrell Bishop of Luckybite and Daljit Singh, founder of Digit discuss with chair Nico MacDonald.

What is the new know-how in service design? Jeremy Myerson chairs

podcasts@designcouncil.org.uk (Design Council) — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 12:00:00 GMT

Services have been around for centuries, but Service design has recently become a hot topic. Designers Gillian Crampton Smith, Chris Downs, and Heather Martin outline some examples of good, and bad, service design and discuss what the core skills of service designers are whether traditional designer notions such as craft, beauty and visualisation are still important.

Clever by design - Jeremy Myerson chairs

podcasts@designcouncil.org.uk (Design Council) — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 12:00:00 GMT

Where does design fit into management thinking? What is the role of the designer in the modern economy? Sir George Cox, Design Council Chairman and Dr Andrea Siodmok, head of its Design Knowledge team discuss with chair Jeremy Myerson whether businesses are making more use of design capability and, if so, whether designers have the right skills to talk to business.

Culture thread: Fashion connections - Vicky Richardson chairs

podcasts@designcouncil.org.uk (Design Council) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 12:00:00 GMT

Vicky Richardson, Editor of Blueprint magazine, Ignacio Germade, Design Director of Consumer Experience Design at Motorola, Sarah Maynard, Designer and MD of Maynard Bespoke and Tom Savigar from Future Laboratory discuss the influence of fashion on wider design practice. They argue that fashion is not just about the type of things that designers create, but it can be an approach to design thinking about products, interactions, space and environments.

Culture thread: But is it art? Vicky Richardson chairs

podcasts@designcouncil.org.uk (Design Council) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 12:00:00 GMT

Can design fill the aesthetic and cultural vacuum left by contemporary art? Where are the boundaries between the two disciplines and is it even useful to try and draw distinctions between them? Designers Allan Chochinov, Peter Saville and Richard Shed are joined by artist and writer Matthew Collings in a discussion about the nature of 'design art', chaired by Vicky Richardson, editor of Blueprint magazine.

Clive Grinyer - The silence of design

podcasts@designcouncil.org.uk (Design Council) — Thu, 6 Dec 2007 12:00:00 GMT

Clive introduces us to some of the people in his world (his father, his wife, his boss...) and describes what design does - and doesn't - do for them. He questions our model of design and looks at how designers must step into the world and show their value.

Peter Higgins - Lines, words, pictures and sound

podcasts@designcouncil.org.uk (Design Council) — Thu, 6 Dec 2007 12:00:00 GMT

Does the convergence of architecture and communication media create a new genre? What is the role of narrative in creating environments that work? Peter Higgins of Land Design reflects on the importance of editorial control in creating unique experiences for users of buildings, exhibitions and public spaces.

James Woudhuysen - Mission creep: The limits of design

podcasts@designcouncil.org.uk (Design Council) — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 12:00:00 GMT

As design makes inroads into business, public services and policy, it has developed greater ambitions. What are design's merits and limits? How far can design go? James Woudhuysen firmly believes in the principles of universalism, humanism and rationalism and their value for design. He calls for designers to stop the handwringing and for design to start being the handmaiden to technological progress.

Frans Johansson - Innovation at the Intersection of disciplines and cultures

podcasts@designcouncil.org.uk (Design Council) — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 12:00:00 GMT

What's the connection between termites and architecture, candy and computers, between sneakers and Hummer and techno music and Martin Luther King? The answer, according to Frans Johansson, lies in the Medici Effect - the breakthroughs that happen when new connections are made at the intersections between ideas, concepts and cultures.

Jeremy Myerson - Pressing the pause button

podcasts@designcouncil.org.uk (Design Council) — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 12:00:00 GMT

Jeremy Myerson, Chair of InterSections 07, reflects on some of the key themes to emerge from the conference and considers how design practice has widened its repertoire over recent years. InterSections 07, he observes, was one of those rare moments in design when we press the pause button to consider where design is heading next.

Tim Brown - The challenge of design thinking

podcasts@designcouncil.org.uk (Design Council) — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 12:00:00 GMT

Tim Brown, CEO of Ideo, is a design industry leader and key promoter of the concept of 'design thinking', a term given to the introduction of design methods and culture into fields beyond traditional design, such as business innovation. Though Tim sees design thinking as a catalyst for Ideo’s work he questions whether it can help us be more optimistic about the future of design.

Richard Seymour - Leviathan: The rise of the polymath

podcasts@designcouncil.org.uk (Design Council) — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 12:00:00 GMT

Reflecting on his discipline-busting career, Richard believes that designers need to adopt a wide-spectrum approach to the future, encouraging them to broaden their bandwidths. In a lightning tour covering Leviathan, lasagne and Dan Dare he argues that we now have a unique opportunity to reinvent our future and that designers need to start focusing on the real problems that matter.