Visible sign of market creation for a product designed for social impact
It struck me when I saw this Moneymaker pump by Kickstart on a street corner matatu stand in Nairobi while wandering around a market with Muchiri who was shopping for shoes. I’m giving this level of detail so you can see the context in which we spotted this classic and oft quoted example of a […]
On the challenge of merging Business with Design
Helen Walters recently published her complete speech from Design Thinkers 2010 online under various titles such as “The 7 Biggest Challenges in Merging Design and Business” as well as “Design: The bottom line” which provides much food for thought as a current day snapshot of the interstitial space where business meets design. After having sat […]
National design and innovation policies: a user centered perspective
I’ve been chewing over Tim Brown’s post on Design Nations since I came across it for the first time yesterday morning. He touches upon Aalto University and Finland in his musings viz., Finland is a great example of a country that has done many of the right things. It has an integrated design and innovation […]
Design ecosystem for new and emerging market opportunities
I recently had cause to discuss the design ecosystem as a holistic approach to entering a new market or addressing the needs of a customer demographic that was unfamiliar or very different. I’d touched upon this earlier this year in a post I wrote summarizing my learnings from the field when considering the markets at […]
We arrive in Shanghai
with the PowerKiss table. The team that took off from Helsinki on the evening of the 20th arrived early morning of the 21st of May and went directly to the Aalto Tongji Design Factory premises in Shanghai. Naturally, the first thing to be the built was the sauna on the roof – construction started in […]
Helsinki to Shanghai
Flying out to Shanghai today with the Design Factory. Lots of exciting things happening over there, not the least is the chance to see the World Expo and the city itself.
From Top to Bottom: New Design Magazine Emerging Markets Special February 2008
The challenge to address the issues faced by the significant proportion of the world’s population who live on less than £ 1 a day has been taken up eagerly by many in the global design industry. The INDEX awards regularly nominate some of the best in the world, and others are frequently seen in the […]
Why is design important?
Design is first and foremost a philosophy, based on a system of values, which seeks to solve problems. What are we creating? Why and for whom? Are we correctly framing the problem to be solved? These are the questions to which the answers are then manifested tangibly in the form of a new product, service […]
