Today's product designers are presented with a myriad of choices when creating their work and preparing it for manufacture. They have to be knowledgeable about a vast repertoire of processes, ranging from what used to be known as traditional "crafts" to the latest technology, to enable their designs to be manufactured effectively and efficiently. Information on the internet about such processes is often unreliable, and search engines do not usefully organize material for designers.
This fundamental new resource explores innovative production techniques and materials that are having an impact on the design industry worldwide. Organized into four easily referenced parts—Forming, Cutting, Joining, and Finishing—over seventy manufacturing processes are explained in depth with full technical descriptions; analyses of the typical applications, design opportunities, and considerations each process offers; and information on cost, speed, and environmental impact. The accompanying step-by-step case studies look at a product or component being manufactured at a leading international supplier.
A directory of more than fifty materials includes a detailed technical profile, images of typical applications and finishes, and an overview of each material's design characteristics. With some 1,200 color photographs and technical illustrations, specially commissioned for this book, this is the definitive reference for product designers, 3D designers, engineers, and architects who need a convenient, highly accessible, and practical reference.
IDEO doesn't believe in the myth of the lone genius working away in isolation, waiting for great ideas to strike. The fact is, as Kelley points out, everyone is creative, and the goal at IDEO is to tap into that wellspring of creativity among its employees. How does it do that? First, IDEO fosters an atmosphere conducive to freely expressing ideas, throwing out (most of) the standard rules, and freeing people to design their workspaces and environment to fit their personalities. It is IDEO's focus on teams that has resulted in its countless innovative breakthroughs—the constant give-and-take among people willing to share ideas and trust in the group process, dubbed "the deep dive" by IDEO. In entertaining anecdotes illustrating some of IDEO's own successes (and mistakes), as well as poineering efforts at other leading companies, Kelley shows how teams—usually in groups of twelve to twenty people—research and completely immerse themselves in every possible aspect of a concept or problem, examining it from the perspective of the companies they are designing for, from the perspective of safety, and from the perspective of consumers. In the course of the book, Kelley outlines the steps IDEO and other successful companies use to achieve successful problem solving:
IDEO has won more awards in the last ten years than any other design firm, and a full half-hour Nightline presentation of its creative process received one of the highest ratings in the show's history. Total immersion in The Art of Innovation will provide business leaders with the insights and tools they need to make their companies the leading-edge, top-rated stars of their industries.
Digital technology has changed the way we interact with everything from the games we play to the tools we use at work. Designers of digital technology products no longer regard their job as designing a physical object—beautiful or utilitarian—but as designing our interactions with it. In Designing Interactions, award-winning designer Bill Moggridge introduces us to forty influential designers who have shaped our interaction with technology. Moggridge, designer of the first laptop computer (the GRiD Compass, 1981) and a founder of the design firm IDEO, tells us these stories from an industry insider's viewpoint, tracing the evolution of ideas from inspiration to outcome. The innovators he interviews—including Will Wright, creator of The Sims, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, and Doug Engelbart, Bill Atkinson, and others involved in the invention and development of the mouse and the desktop—have been instrumental in making a difference in the design of interactions. Their stories chart the history of entrepreneurial design development for technology.Moggridge and his interviewees discuss such questions as why a personal computer has a window in a desktop, what made Palm's handheld organizers so successful, what turns a game into a hobby, why Google is the search engine of choice, and why 30 million people in Japan choose the i-mode service for their cell phones. And Moggridge tells the story of his own design process and explains the focus on people and prototypes that has been successful at IDEO—how the needs and desires of people can inspire innovative designs and how prototyping methods are evolving for the design of digital technology.Designing Interactions is illustrated with more than 700images, with color throughout. Accompanying the book is a DVD that contains segments from all the interviews intercut with examples of the interactions under discussion.Interviews with:Bill Atkinson• Durrell Bishop • Brendan Boyle • Dennis Boyle • Paul Bradley • Duane Bray• Sergey Brin • Stu Card • Gillian Crampton Smith • Chris Downs• Tony Dunne• John Ellenby • Doug Englebart • Jane Fulton Suri • Bill Gaver • Bing Gordon • Rob Haitani • Jeff Hawkins • Matt Hunter • Hiroshi Ishii • Bert Keely • David Kelley • Rikako Kojima • Brenda Laurel • David Liddle •Lavrans Løvlie • John Maeda • Paul Mercer • Tim Mott • Joy Mountford •Takeshi Natsuno • Larry Page • Mark Podlaseck • Fiona Raby • Cordell Ratzlaff• Ben Reason • Jun Rekimoto • Steve Rogers • Fran Samalionis • Larry Tesler• Bill Verplank • Terry Winograd • Will Wright
The man who launched a revolution in product development with his bestselling Developing Products in Half the Time is back with a new book that's also certain to be a classic. In Managing the Design Factory Donald G. Reinertsen presents concepts and practical tools that will be invaluable for anyone trying to get products out of the pipeline and into the market.
The first book to put the principles of World Class Manufacturing to work in the development process, Managing the Design Factory combines the powerful analytical tools of queuing, information, and system theories with the proven ideas of organization design and risk management. The result: a methodical approach to consistently hit the "sweet spot" of quality, cost, and time in developing any product. Reinertsen illustrates these concepts with concrete examples drawn from his work with many leading companies across different industries.
Fresh and thought-provoking, the book challenges many of the conventional approaches to product development. "There are no best practices," Reinertsen writes, "the idea of best practices is a seductive but dangerous trap." Unlike other books that promote rules and rituals based on benchmarking "best practices," this book focuses on practical tools that account for varied situations. He breaks new ground with a disciplined, quantitative approach for making decisions on critical issues: When should we use a sequential or concurrent process? Centralized or decentralized control? Functional or team organizations?
Full of practical techniques, concrete examples, and solid general principles, this is a real toolkit for product developers. Moreover, it is written with the clarity, precision, and humor that are Reinertsen's trademarks. He promises to challenge the thinking of anyone involved in product development.
Finally, we are learning that simplicity equals sanity. We're rebelling against technology that's too complicated, DVD players with too many menus, and software accompanied by75-megabyte "read me" manuals. The iPod's clean gadgetry has made simplicity hip. But sometimes we find ourselves caught up in the simplicity paradox: we want something that's simple and easy to use,but also does all the complex things we might ever want it to do. In The Laws of Simplicity, John Maeda offers ten laws for balancing simplicity and complexity in business, technology, and design—guidelines for needing less and actually getting more.Maeda—a professor in MIT's Media Lab and a world-renowned graphic designer—explores the question of how we can redefine the notion of"improved" so that it doesn't always mean something more, something added on.Maeda's first law of simplicity is "Reduce." It's not necessarily beneficial to add technology features just because we can. And the features that we do have must be organized (Law 2) in a sensible hierarchy so users aren't distracted by features and functions they don't need. But simplicity is not less just for the sake of less. Skip ahead to Law 9: "Failure: Accept the fact that some things can never be made simple." Maeda's concise guide to simplicity in the digital age shows us how this idea can be a cornerstone of organizations and their products—how it can drive both business and technology. We can learn to simplify without sacrificing comfort and meaning, and we can achieve the balance described in Law 10. This law, which Maeda calls "The One," tells us: "Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful."
Universal Principles of Design is the first cross-disciplinary reference of design. Richly illustrated and easy to navigate, this book pairs clear explanations of the design concepts featured with visual examples of those concepts applied in practice. From the 80/20 rule to chunking, from baby-face bias to Ockham's razor, and from self-similarity to storytelling, 100 design concepts are defined and illustrated for readers to expand their knowledge.
This landmark reference will become the standard for designers, engineers, architects, and students who seek to broaden and improve their design expertise.
Fabricated tells the story of 3D printers, humble manufacturing machines that are bursting out of the factory and into schools, kitchens, hospitals, even onto the fashion catwalk. Fabricated describes our emerging world of printable products, where people design and 3D print their own creations as easily as they edit an online document.
A 3D printer transforms digital information into a physical object by carrying out instructions from an electronic design file, or 'blueprint.' Guided by a design file, a 3D printer lays down layer after layer of a raw material to 'print' out an object. That's not the whole story, however. The magic happens when you plug a 3D printer into today’s mind-boggling digital technologies. Add to that the Internet, tiny, low cost electronic circuitry, radical advances in materials science and biotech and voila! The result is an explosion of technological and social innovation.
Fabricated takes the reader onto a rich and fulfilling journey that explores how 3D printing is poised to impact nearly every part of our lives.
Aimed at people who enjoy books on business strategy, popular science and novel technology, Fabricated will provide readers with practical and imaginative insights to the question 'how will this technology change my life?' Based on hundreds of hours of research and dozens of interviews with experts from a broad range of industries, Fabricated offers readers an informative, engaging and fast-paced introduction to 3D printing now and in the future.
Universal Principles of Design is the first cross-disciplinary reference of design. Richly illustrated and easy to navigate, this book pairs clear explanations of the design concepts featured with visual examples of those concepts applied in practice. From the 80/20 rule to chunking, from baby-face bias to Ockham's razor, and from self-similarity to storytelling, 100 design concepts are defined and illustrated for readers to expand their knowledge.
This landmark reference will become the standard for designers, engineers, architects, and students who seek to broaden and improve their design expertise.
"Reduce, reuse, recycle" urge environmentalists; in other words, do more with less in order to minimize damage. As William McDonough and Michael Braungart argue in their provocative, visionary book, however, this approach perpetuates a one-way, "cradle to grave" manufacturing model that dates to the Industrial Revolution and casts off as much as 90 percent of the materials it uses as waste, much of it toxic. Why not challenge the notion that human industry must inevitably damage the natural world, they ask.
In fact, why not take nature itself as our model? A tree produces thousands of blossoms in order to create another tree, yet we do not consider its abundance wasteful but safe, beautiful, and highly effective; hence, "waste equals food" is the first principle the book sets forth. Products might be designed so that, after their useful life, they provide nourishment for something new-either as "biological nutrients" that safely re-enter the environment or as "technical nutrients" that circulate within closed-loop industrial cycles, without being "downcycled" into low-grade uses (as most "recyclables" now are).
Elaborating their principles from experience (re)designing everything from carpeting to corporate campuses, the authors make an exciting and viable case for change.
About the Author:
Tom Peters, public speaker and author, graduated from Cornell University and received a M.B.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University. He has also received honorary doctorates from the University of San Francisco and Rhodes College.
He was in the U. S. Navy during Vietnam and later served as a senior White House drug abuse advisor (1973-74). He worked for McKinsey & Company from 1974 to 1981. He holds about seventy-five seminars a year and has created and starred in a series of corporate training films.
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