The New Idiom | The Student Newsletter of the IIT Institute of Design

New IDer: Prashant Desai

Please quickly introduce yourself in a quick sentence.  Where are you from?  Major, age, etc.

Hi, my name is Prashant Desai. I’m a first-year foundation student and MDes candidate. I’m 25 years old and originally from the suburbs of Chicago. 

Married?   Not married
Children?  No kids.
Politics?   While I support Barack Obama, I do not align myself with either the Democratic or Republican parties – I support change! This is an exciting time to become an active American.
Religion?  I believe in peace and love, not push and shove.

How did you end up at ID?   What were your motivations for coming? Where were you before?

After graduating from Johns Hopkins University with a degree in Psychological and Brain Sciences, I ventured into the world of business. I briefly worked in brand equity research at a boutique marketing consultancy here in Chicago. Following that, I moved into the world of finance and worked at Standard & Poor’s in a variety of capacities – first as a Municipal Credit Rating Analyst in Public Finance, and then in Product Development & Marketing. The latter role, though more creative, focused mostly on product management and moving offerings to market. I desired skills that would allow me to organically conceptualize new product and service ideas and fully utilize my creative strengths. While working at S&P, I also completed my MBA at the Stuart Graduate School of Business. I was impressed by the design skills and other creative strengths that a few of my classmates exemplified. After learning they were ID students as well, I attended an open house. Inspired by this burgeoning field, I was convinced that it was perfect for me. The rest as they say – is history.

What are your first impressions about ID?

Having just completed my first semester of Foundation, I found myself thinking about this very question just a few days ago. My first impression of ID was positive.  Being that the student body is a self-selected group, I was happy to meet many like-minded, creative, and jovial people.  I found my peers and colleagues to be exceptionally intelligent, motivated, and hilarious as well.

What do you think you could bring to the people here at ID? (culturally, socially, etc.)

I bring a fine balance of subjective and objective creativity. My sense of creative idealism is tempered by a desire to create economically viable business opportunities. I believe modern innovation requires an integration of human centered design with business insight and analysis. I hope to share these insights with my peers and colleagues. Socially, I love making people laugh and joking around in general.

Is there anything from your home that you think people should not miss? 

I hail from a suburb outside Chicago called Naperville. I highly recommend spending half a day at The Morton Arboretum in either the early spring, or fall. It boasts an international collection of nearly 4,000 different kinds of trees, plants, and shrubs. It’s possible to drive through it in about 30 minutes, however, I’d recommend spending a day exploring it’s 14 miles of hiking trails. Bring your camera.

Which designers/thinkers have impressed you the most lately or you are following now?

I’ve recently educated myself about the late Victor Papanek. I’m intrigued by his belief in socially and ecologically responsible design. I’m very interested in the value of simplicity and ethical design in general. I recently picked up Papanek’s book, Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change. Being that I am also interested in politics, policy, and government in emerging nations, I’ve recently begun learning about leadership during the first Indian empire.  I’m most intrigued by Chanakya, an adviser and prime minister to the first Maurya Emperor, who was a pioneering economist and architect of the first Indian empire. He was rather controversial, but I find his insights on welfare, and international relations quite interesting.

Tell us quickly about a project that you're working on now that you're really excited about.

Given I am on winter break right now, I’ve spent a good amount of my time working on a non-academic project. I’ve been working with family and friends to brainstorm a new non-profit organization. Our fundamental goal is to raise awareness and enable those who participate to exercise their right to be active citizens. In addition to this - we aspire to provide an open forum for like-minded individuals who believe in peace.

What are the websites you could not live without?

• drudgereport
• metacritic
• onion
• wallstreetjournal
• digg
• google
• pitchforkmedia

What kinds of activities are you planning to do in your free time (in case you have any) while at ID? 

In my free time I’m a singer/songwriter currently looking to form a band. I like attending concerts and exploring museums. I love working out and playing sports (tennis/basketball). I’m planning on taking an acting class at Second City this spring.

This blank space is for you to tell people whatever you want about you. 

As I mentioned earlier, I’m looking to form a non-profit organization. I have a variety of ideas already in motion and I’d love to brainstorm with my fellow ID’ers should there be any interest. Feel free to drop me a line at pdesai@id.iit.edu

Past IDer: Zachary Jean Paradis

Please quickly introduce yourself in a sentence or two.

I was born and raised on the East coast in Maine, travelled to the Midwest in 1991 to attend University of Chicago to study anthropology and psychology and, although I've lived in various other places since, I've never really "left" Chicago. I graduated from the ID last May, 2007 and since then have been with Sapient as a user experience and business strategist.

Married?  No
Children? Not that I know of.
Politics? I'm a Leftist Independent and support Obama for President.
Religion? My faith is in the power of humans to solve their problems although I am a bit "buddh-ish".

In which ways and dimensions do you think ID changed your career?

ID was perfect for me because it connected the many activities and fields I had experience with previously. I was sort of built for ID because I had experience in the social sciences, business, and design but had never been really good at integrating these different points of view. ID allowed me to do my own synthesis of these disciplines while providing a few general frameworks (Balanced Breakthroughs, 10 Types, the Innovation Toolkit, etc.) to use as a starting point.

Also, I can't underscore enough the importance of the ID social network. I never really had a role model or felt like I had a meaningful cohort group before the ID. It's really transformed my personal and professional identity in some fundamental ways.

What are the skills learned at ID that you use the most in your current practice?

In my role as a strategist, the framework tools and analysis skills can't be be beat. Both taking and then acting as a teaching assistant in Vijay's Analysis and Synthesis classes has really given me a lot of very tangible ways I can make sense of the world for my clients.  One of the things I learned at ID that wasn't necessarily taught to me was how to empower teammates. I'm sure a few teammates early in my ID career would question this but I feel the experience really transformed my ability to get the most out of colleagues in terms of ideas and effort. I'm less forceful but more effective.

What hard times did you have at ID while a student, and what got you through them?

The hardest times I had at the ID related to my belief that I wasn't well "placed" having to do the Foundation program which is funny given the fact that I now think ID is too liberal with their placement practices. When I returned for my final year I really didn't know what I was going to do. That's obviously not to say I had nothing to learn but that I wasn't sure if I was going to be motivated to push myself further. You see, I really believe that graduate level education should be more about students pushing the environment and not necessarily just digesting what is taught. I think too many students at the ID have a point of view that they are there to learn "the way to innovate" while, in reality, there is no one way.

I stayed in school and focused in my final year by actively taking control of my education through a workshop sponsored by SAP that I helped to set up and run in the Fall and then by co-authoring Naked Innovation with David McGaw in the Spring. Students at the ID have to be "makers" and create situations for them to continue to grow and be successful.

If you could have changed one thing about your time at ID, what would it have been?

I'm someone who doesn't feel a lot of regret so this is a hard question. I don't think I would change anything. It's all grist for the mill.

What other advice do you have for current and/or future ID students?

I have two pieces of advice.  First, read as much as possible. It's the only thing guaranteed to make you smarter over time.  Second, I would ask them to fall out of love with their own ideas.  What you or I think isn't really valuable or important in general--it's the best idea that matters.

This space is for anything else you'd like to share.

I would like to thank people for the great support I've received related to Naked Innovation. It will most definitely be published when I get around to dealing with some of its key flaws. I'm also working on a couple of other books in addition to irregularly blogging at my website, www.creativeslant.com.

New IDer: Jonathan Campbell

In the hullabaloo of finals week, I managed to catch up with Jon Campbell, and asked him to squeeze in a quick interview. 

Please quickly introduce yourself in a quick sentence.

I’m a 31-year-old MDM student from Milwaukee, WI.  I grew up in Dallas, TX and spent summers in Denmark, where my mom is from.   I left a marketing manager position at Harley-Davidson a few months ago with the idea of using design planning to pivot into a new point in my life helping create something wonderful and new and meaningful.  I don’t know what that is or how it will take form yet but I’m jazzed to be on the road toward that goal.

Politics?  Socially liberal, fiscally conservative (well, what used to be termed conservative but now maybe should be “fiscally responsible.”)
Religion? Lutheran.

How did you end up at ID?   What were your motivations for coming? Where were you before?

It started a few years ago working at an ad agency on new product development for WD-40.  That got me interested in design and helped me realize that marketing should be more about creating stuff for people, instead of just yelling for their attention.  But at this point I’ve broadened from wanting to just make stuff or market stuff to looking at ways to solve problems and help add value to the world.  I guess in its simplest form I’m at ID to learn new ways to approach and solve problems.

What are your first impressions about ID?

It’s an incredible feeling to meet like-minded people who are looking to accomplish great things in new ways.  I am super jazzed to see the energy, passion and creativity of students and professors.

What do you think you could bring to the people here at ID? (culturally, socially, etc.)

Enthusiasm and passion.  Insights into the business world and marketing in the New World.  All things Danish.  Oh, and how to develop a greater appreciation for the Dallas Cowboys.

Is there anything from your home that you think people should not miss?

In Wisconsin:
- the Harley-Davidson headquarters on 35th and Juneau
- Lakefront Brewery where the tour takes four minutes but you get lots of beer
- the beautiful lakefront in July

In Denmark:
- Nyhavn, where you can walk along the harbor and sit and watch people at outdoor cafes
- If you’re into history, Roskilde Domkirke and Kroneborg castle

In my house:
- My dog, Darby – a Doberman/Lab/Pointer mix rescued from a shelter
- My motorcycle
- My shrine to Vince LaConte

Which designers/thinkers have impressed you the most lately or you are following now?

More thinkers than designers.  I’m interested in new ways of seeing the world and approaching problems, so recent thinkers include Clyde Prestowitz (author of Three Billion New Capitalists) and John Wood (social entrepreneur/founder of Room to Read).  As for old standbys, I continue to enjoy the risk-taking, status quo-questioning way of thinking that Tom Peters and Seth Godin advocate.

Tell us quickly about a project that you're working on now that you're really excited about.

The Design Planning project with Larry has helped me look at problems and solutions on a grander scale – the class has increased my interest in tackling huge problems with confidence that design is the best way to solve them.  Plus after one of his lecture’s you feel pumped up, like a “design” football player running out of the locker room onto the field of business ready to go to battle.  But then instead of 50,000 cheering fans I walk out to cabs honking at me.  My hope is that they install a metal “Play Like a Champion Today” sign over the exit to the lecture room so we can all hit it on the way out of class.  Uh, really?  I’m the only that wants that?

What are the websites you could not live without?

• sethgodin.com
• tompeters.com
• core77.com
• typepad.com
• businessweek.com
• dallascowboys.com
• …and obviously SeeID

What kinds of activities are you planning to do in your free time (in case you have any) while at ID?

Haven’t had a ton of free time during this semester but I’m looking forward to winter break.  I’ll be traveling to Denmark; working on the ID Methods project; blogging; reading; sitting down and wrapping my head around everything I’ve learned in the first semester; and trying to put some order to what I want to do after graduation in May.

This blank space is for you to tell people whatever you want about you. Thanks

I am addicted to reading and quotes.  If you have a good quote or a recommendation for a good book, feel free to send it my way.  I’m always looking.  It doesn’t matter the topic.

I used to be a good magician and did birthday parties when I was younger.  I kind of shelved it when I found that girls in college didn’t find it that cool (huge surprise).  But if anyone has a birthday coming up, I’m sure I can arrange an ID discount rate.

I’ve ridden motorcycles across the U.S., over the Alps and through the Rhine river valley and found there is no better, more stimulating, romantic way to see the world than on a motorcycle with the engine rumbling, the wind in your face, your mind clear and fresh, riding winding roads and meeting real people at diners and gas stations.

I love writing and almost quit my job at an ad agency in 2001 to get my MFA in creative writing.  But I played it safe to my regret.  I’m happy I took the leap this time to come to ID and don’t intend to play life safe anymore.

New IDer: Tal Shay

Tell us a little about yourself.

I was born in Israel and lived there all my life.  In '96, like all other Israeli 18 year olds I went into the army.  That is where I started the journey that led me to discover the field of Usability.  11 years later I'm now 29, still nuts about it, and still got tons left to learn.  I believe my major will be comm. design, but I'm also interested in research and want to spice it up a bit with design planning.

I love traveling, and try to visit new places whenever I can.  I've been to 5 continents, but haven't seen enough. Not sure when we'll get to travel next, because now we spend all our holidays going to visit family in Israel. I also LOVE eating and cooking, but Eitan is such a good cook I don't bother enough anymore.

Married?

Happily to Eitan.  We met while working at ICQ, but it always makes me laugh when people get confused and think we mean we met through chatting on icq.

Children?

Not ready for that yet.

Politics? Religion?

I hope we could live in a world where both of these didn't matter, and we'd all be considered the same and have less reasons to fight with one another. But I guess that's just wishful thinking, I don't believe that will ever happen.

How did you end up at ID?   What were your motivations for coming?  Where were you before?

By pure luck.  I've been going back and forth between learning, working, discovering I'm missing some tool or knowledge in order to work better, and going to study to get that knowledge.  I used to work as a UI designer at ICQ's web team, and then realized I needed to know more about Human Computer Interaction.  There wasn't anywhere to study that in Israel, so I went to study the human part - psychology and cognitive sci (I threw in East Asian studies just for fun). 

After I worked as a UI specialist at Pamam, a consultancy firm, and learned tons, I realized it was time to get a masters.  I wanted to do it at the cutting edge, so I looked for places in the U.S.In the meantime Eitan got relocated from work to Chicago.  I didn't know ID existed until a friend from Carnegie-Mellon suggested I check it out.  I went into the website and my eyes opened.  Here was a place that was teaching exactly all the tools I felt I was missing while working.  I loved being a consultant for UI and thinking of how to simplify things for others.  I'm sure that after learning the tools and methods here I'll go back and be even better than I used to be.

What are your first impressions about ID?

I love it.  I love the diversity of the people (you should hear the backgrounds of my foundation cohort), and I'm amazed by the degree of curiosity.  I used to be the odd bird with how curious I was, but it's nice to be around others who are similar in that respect.

The classes are fascinating.  Sometimes I still can't believe I'm actually learning these things in class.  It feels like someone picked all the things I loved doing after business hours and compiled a curriculum out of it.

What do you think you could bring to the people here at ID?  (culturally, socially, etc.)

Infecting boundless curiosity and a will to learn and improve everything (not just products and systems but yourself as well).  Good spirits and someone who'll tell you the truth to your face (I'm Israeli - we're not good at sugar coating).  A mind that thinks almost nothing is impossible.  I'll always try to think of other ways to solve a problem.

Is there anything from your home that you think people should not miss?

Tel-Aviv.  It's an amazing city for many reasons, mainly the beach, the people, the excellent food and the unsatisfiable will to live.

Which designers/thinkers have impressed you the most lately or you are following now?

I know it's getting too popular to say this, but I have to say Don Norman.  I've been following him for years, I love taking his books with me on holidays.  When we went to Sinai I think I didn't lift my head out of it until I finished it.  I guess that his being from such a strong  background in cognitive sci makes his rational resonate well with me.  I'm so used to reading him while on a beach holiday (Sinai and Thailand) that it will be a change to read his coming one in the Chicago winter.

Tell us quickly about a project that you're working on now that you're really excited about.

Trying to learn the market here.  I'm not used to having such a variety of companies that work in this field.  I'm also not used to having so many conferences available to choose from.  I feel like a little kid in a candy shop.

What are the websites you could not live without?

• Gmail - I am a bit obsessive about checking my mail.
• Pandora - Can't live or think without music, and I like being able to type in a song I like and find new bands that are similar.
• Jajah - Because it enables me to speak on the phone for free with my friends and family overseas, and they give me a lot of strength.

What kinds of activities are you planning to do in your free time (in case you have any) while at ID?

Catch up on my reading list.  Sleep.  Spend more time catching up with friends and talking with Eitan.  I haven't done any pottery since I started my undergraduate, and
I miss it deeply. I'm here to learn, from students as much as from classes.  I'm always open to hear criticism.  So if you think of something I should know or change please tell me.

Past IDer: Joyce Chen

Please introduce yourself in a sentence or two.

This California baby grew up outside D.C. (in Silver Spring, MD) but returned to the West coast for college and post-graduate employment. I moved to San Francisco after getting my MDes in Planning in May, 2007 and now live with two fellow ID grads (Mario Ruiz and Enric Gili Fort), working as an interaction designer and strategist at MetaDesign.

Married? Nope
Children? Someday, I hope.
Politics? Shamefully not on top of current events, but generally left-leaning.
Religion?  Curious about all of them intellectually, but don't prescribe to any.

In which ways and dimensions do you think ID changed your career?

It gave me a set of tools and frameworks that have helped me become a better problem-solver and planner. Having had more experience in the user research phases of design before going back to school, ID helped me develop the skills to analyze and synthesize qualitative research findings in structured processes that can then be easily communicated to others. Moreover, I've found that all of the strategy and planning projects have given me a leg up on other designers in that I am able to contribute to projects that involve more strategic and business-oriented thinking.

What are the skills learned at ID that you use the most in your current practice?

• Telling a good/convincing story: In pursuing client projects, I've been pretty involved in helping MetaDesign pitch proposals in creative and convincing ways, and ID gave me a lot of good practice and instruction (particularly Chris Conley) in developing this skill.
• Working in teams: lots of people complained, while I was a student, that we didn't get enough instruction on how to work on teams. It's true that we didn't get a lot of formal education on teamwork (though I'm glad that things are changing), but the very experience of managing so many team projects was incredibly valuable. I got pretty good at working with a variety of people, scheduling, and tackling complicated problems in both collaborative sessions and divide-and-conquer individual work.
• Analyzing and visualizing data: I have Keeley's frameworks set and Chuck's Structured Planning book sitting on my shelf at work, and have referred to them often when thinking about how to organize and analyze large amounts of complex data.

What hard times did you have at ID while a student, and what got you through them?

I think everyone generally suffers from this feeling of being overwhelmed by the amount of work that we have as ID students, which is partially a consequence of our own ambitions to tackle the really big, hairy problems. Having great teammates who are good at communicating helped a ton, as well as forcing myself to maintain some modicum of balance in my life on the whole. Many students felt that it was impossible to find time to exercise, cook meals, etc., but I found those activities to be the critical ones for staying sane. That, and partying with fellow classmates on weekends to release any built-up tensions from the week.

If you could have changed one thing about your time at ID, what would it have been?

Too difficult a question. I feel like designers want to change everything around them all the time by nature. Everything could be improved and there are endless new ideas to explore. I trust that those who are currently involved in IDSAB are still giving--and will continue to give--a lot of their precious time to reshaping and redefining ID so that it may continue to fulfill students' needs and remain relevant in the world.

What other advice do you have for current and/or future ID students?

The more you invest yourself in school and in your classmates, the more you will be rewarded by the experience! Get involved in making ID better in whatever way you can. Employers like designers who care as much about making their company better as making their clients happy.

Past IDer: Bruce Lund

Bruce Lund is toy-inventor and designer, originally from Lewiston NY, just North of Buffalo and Niagara Falls, NY. He spent 6 years in Durham, NC to attend Duke for Botany + Zoology, and then he began a business in leatherwork there and relocated the business in San Antonio.  He moved to Chicago in 1977 and has been here ever since.

When did you graduate from ID and which program? MS  Product Design,   1981
Married?  Yes
Children? 2
Politics? no
Religion? Occasionally, Lutheran

In which ways and dimensions do you think ID changed your career?

ID was my avenue to become an inventor.  Probably would not be doing today and for last 28 years, had I not gotten design background which taught me prototyping, thinking and design skills that allowed me to get a job at Marvin Glass and Assoc, in Sept 1979.  Marvin Glass was the legendary, now defunct, first, largest, and greatest toy invention studio in history, Operation, Mouse trap, Toss Across, Chatty Cathy, Simon, SSP, Rock em Sockem Robots, rubber vomit, yakety yak teeth, Mr. Machine, Lite Brite, and countless other great toys of the 60's through 80's to their credit.

I think to have come from being a biologist, to a leather craftsman to IIT to study industrial design was an unlikely career path.  From there to being an inventor of toys and games has left me with the sense of few or no limits.  What can be imagined, may well be done, either as a new product category or technology, or creating an impossible mechanism.  The unlikely is not necessarily so. We have just received a DoD [Department of Defense] grant to do research, have won NASA technology competitions, worked wtih the Chicago Park District (with IIT collaborators) on H2 powered lawnmowers, created hit toys like TMX Elmo that raise the bar for what a simple toy motor mechanism can accomplish in one product. One needed be too narrowly defined in the scope of one's endeavors.

What are the skills learned at ID that you use the most in your current practice?   

Today:  Thinking in a critical and organized manner.  The idea of being methodical. Exploring solutions to problems  in your head, on paper and in 3d. In years past, sketching, prototyping skills, experience with plastic and shop equipment were skills used day to day.

You've obviously had a very rich background and seen changes in our industry over the years.   Based on that, what kinds of shifts do you see now and into the future?

Electronics is a part of almost any product, and creates new dimensions and richness, and allows us to create much more sophisticated mechanical actions as a result. The competition with youth and adult electronics and video games has made us create better products to compete.

Toys can have a profound effect on a child, and on the adult they become.  The toy industry will begin to promote how toys influence and change society and the world.  There will be a realization of the power of playing a game with other people and the benefit of face to face interaction in the context of play, as opposed to solo video game play.  There is even now a movement to create products that make kids more physically active.  Toys and games are physical machines through which we experience and explore the very real, physical world, and interpersonal world we live in all of our lives.

 

What hard times did you have at ID while a student, and what got you through them?

Ran out of money.  Had to quit work on thesis to find work.  Was not a good industrial designer.  Jay Doblin told me "Lund,  you can't draw a stick"  (actually not true, he didn't say that, but might have, as I couldn't draw much more than a stick"  I was a great fan of his.  A great thinker, and teacher.  And I think he admired my thinking, if not my drawing ability.  He was an inspiration. 

Went everywhere, couldn't get work, didn't have the drawing/rendering skills critical to an entry level designer, and out of desperation, took a job at a toy design studio.  I was broke, $200 to my name, in the midst of a divorce. I didn't know what was to become of me.  Couldn't even get unemployment, as I had always been self employed.  They hired me after several interviews.  God and Fate took over, and after a couple weeks I realized this is just what I was looking for.  The toy industry has constant need for invention and new products. Whew, I was saved.  Mr. Harry Disko of Marvin Glass, and the toy industry saved my metaphorical life. 

If you could have changed one thing about your time at ID, what would it have been?

It was perfect.  Worked long and hard, because it was what I wanted to do.  Loved it.  Perhaps I could have spent more time and tried to learn more from my teachers’ lives and their career experiences.

What other advice do you have for current and/or future ID students?

Go out and use your gifts to touch the lives of others, and make the world a better place for your efforts.  Perseverance and hard work overcomes all things.  Success is the product of hard work over a long period of time, many years. Exactly as it should be, I suspect.  Lov to think it might be otherwise, by why would/should it be?   Working hard is like buying lottery tickets.  More you work, the luckier you get.  You shift the odds in your favor.  And don't believe in the impossible.  If one believes something to be impossible, it most certain is.  Once that belief can be set aside, many things become possible that were not thought to be.

New IDer: Ruth Schmidt

Please quickly introduce yourself in a quick sentence. 

Hi, I'm Ruth... everyone thinks I'm MDM because I'm 38 and I guess I look the part, but I'm am MDes graduating in Spring '09; I came in officially as Communication Design, but now that the tracks are disappearing I'm thinking of having a fling with Design Planning.

Married?  Yes - Dan's an Endocrinology Fellow at Northwestern Memorial Hospital; we've been together since college and got married 4+ years ago.

Children?  No, just two cats. Love 'em dearly.

Politics?  Ideologically I'm a lefty, but I'm kind of horrified at the state of US politics in general right now. It's a fascinating design problem, actually. Fun facts: one of my first clear memories is of Gerald Ford being sworn into office. I'm also kind of obsessed with Watergate, which seems oddly quaint now.

Religion? Raised culturally Jewish, but basically agnostic.

How did you end up at ID?  What were your motivations for coming? Where were you before?

I've worked in the e-learning field for 13 years doing interface and instructional design in Chicago, most recently as Design Director at a place called NogginLabs and as an independent consultant. It's a weirdly incestuous industry - every professional contact I have can be traced back in one way or another to the first place I worked when I moved here.

I came to ID because I felt like I was solving the same kinds of problems again and again , and when I  looked down the road 30 years in the future I couldn't imagine myself doing the same thing. I took a experimental detour into Interior Architecture last year, and realized I missed the communicative user-focused nature of design; the more I learned about this program the better a fit it sounded. Now, naturally, I'm wishing I had come here years ago.

What are your first impressions about ID?

Most of the design folks I've known professionally seemed more interested in cool than usability, so
right now I'm reveling in being surrounded by so many like-minded designers. I am also finding that there seem to be lots of "hidden functionality" here, so to speak - processes that seem somewhat
mysterious and information that requires stumbling upon - but who knows, maybe that's just part of learning a new place.

What do you think you could bring to the people here at ID? (culturally, socially, etc.)

• appreciation and knowledge of films, music and books - recommendations abound! 
• a background in semiotics, which can be a useful filter through which to view design problems
• I'm cool under pressure, which will come in handy for team-mates come end of term
• knowledge of Chicago - geesh, it's hard for me to believe I've been a midwesterner for 13 years

Is there anything from your home that you think people should not miss?

I still kind of consider myself an east-coaster, so if you go to Boston qua home check out the DeCordova Musuem and Sculpture Park; Fenway Park (yeah, good luck getting tickets); Harvard Square (though it's not as cool as it used to be)

in Chicago: that small park along the Chicago River at Kingsbury and Ontario - I forget the name -
especially in the summertime; the LaSalle theatre (kind of a hike at Cicero and Irving Park); Sullivan's Auditorium Theatre on Congress just west of Michigan.

in my home: I'm a good cook, so don't miss dinner.

Which designers/thinkers have impressed you the most lately or you are following now?

• Martin Felsen and Sarah Dunn at Urbanlab are doing really cool sustainability-related urban design and architecture
• Hans Rosling - visualizations that are visually compelling and crazy-informative
• Malcolm Gladwell - one of the most design-thinking non-designers I've come across
• Errol Morris - an old fave; non-fiction film-maker who just completed a series in the NYTimes about truth and narrative in photography

Tell us quickly about a project that you're working on now that you're really excited about.

Through a combination of brute force and coincidence most of my current projects are focusing on urban design, specifically transportation. I've always been fascinated by urban studies - how humans shape the environment and how the environment in turn shapes them - so I'm thinking about how to leverage this all into more of a meta-project that I can continue through my time here.

What are the websites you could not live without?

• I'm kind of addicted to email, I guess that counts
• the online New York Times
• imdb.com for when you just gotta know if 'Escape from the Planet of the Apes' comes before or after 'Beneath the Planet of the Apes' (answer: after)
• Salon
• google for the obvious reasons
• and I have a variety of links to information design sites that I turn to pretty regularly

What kinds of activities are you planning to do in your free time (in case you have any) while at ID?

Nothing too out of the ordinary - socializing, catching up on movies, cooking, sleeping, traveling. I do enjoy a good roller derby match now and again, though.

This blank space is for you to tell people whatever you want about you. Thanks!

• I can write backwards
• I have a twin brother, but i only have one "spooky coincidence" twin story
• I have a kind of phobia about balled up straw wrappers. Stupid, I know, but please be kind.

New IDer: Shin Sano

If you're sitting in class and suddenly you hear an extremely knowledgeable anecdote about the car industry, it's probably from Shin Sano, this week's featured new IDer. He's a full-time MDM student from Tokyo, by way of New York City. I caught up with Shin in between laptop traumas and team meetings so he could tell me more about his time as a car designer and how he landed at ID.

Shin had just turned 39 the day before, and he mentioned a saying from his past. Unfortunately, there isn't a clean translation from Japanese, but the essence of the proverb is this: once a man reaches the age of 40, he has "determined his way in the world." When I asked him if he subscribed to it, he recalled former colleagues who worked really hard through their late 30's, let the inertia take over upon turning 40, and then everything became easy. "But not if you're changing careers," said Shin, who started the program here after 15 years with Toyota.

Moving through the ranks

After graduating with a BFA from the Musashino Art University in Tokyo in 1992, he joined Toyota's exterior styling group, where he worked on a second model of a Lexus sedan. Using excited hand gestures, he explained that great technical design skill is required for this, but there are inherent frustrations in working around the limitations of a common frame or platform. Even different manufacturers have the same exact dimensions for wheel base and they share similar exterior profiles within product classes, so true creativity is fairly constrained.

He eventually moved into Toyota's Color and Trim design group, where he was responsible for the interior and exterior color and material palettes for various car lines. Working with external suppliers, he developed strategies to streamline directions for Toyota's brands without sacrificing marketability.  While his colleagues were sent abroad to Art Center or CCS, Toyota sponsored Shin for a year at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City to get a different perspective and earn his associate's degree in Textile Surface Design.

After returning to Japan and working for a few more years, Shin devised a plan to allow him to work for Calty, which is Toyota's US design arm out in Newport Beach, CA. However, he longed to return to NYC, so he proposed to work out of a small shared area of Toyota North America's Manhattan office that was usually used for contract trend researchers. In 2002, Shin moved back to New   York with his wife, (his son was later born in NYC) to head up Calty research projects, working with Smart Design to create Gen Y strategies for the Scion XB and share them with the California studio.

The ID experience

Shin learned about ID's methods through collaborating with ID alum Melody Roberts while she was his client contact at Smart. He was exposed to her processes for analysis and synthesis, and he joined the program to further develop his skills in this area.

Upon arriving, he was surprised at the lack of infrastructure. Coming from an elaborate design studio, it's quite a change to see the environment of a knowledge-based school. But once he took a closer look at all the whiteboards and the diagrams and the Post-its, he was sold. He knew this was where he needed to be.

When I asked him what he felt he could bring to the school, he mentioned the Toyota way of identifying and prioritizing problems and their approach to solving them in the Kaizen heritage. Toyota employees are all required to internalize this process (they even have to work on an assembly line for 2 months!)  He drew a fishbone diagram to demonstrate how this structured way of thinking works. Look for Shin's future framework that adapts this to the design process!

Past IDer: Wally Hanna

Wally Hanna came to ID+IIT as an undergrad in the fall of 1963 from a Pennsylvania village of 500 to a sprawling metropolis of 4 + million. His design career has taken him to all major US cities and some of Europe. After calling New York and Chicago home several times, he now resides in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.

His daughter was born while at ID, and his son 4 years later in Chicago. He is happily married for the third and last time to the Manager of New Product Development Marketing for the Consumer Experience Lab of Kohler Company.

In which ways and dimensions do you think ID changed your career?

ID created my career. I was a C- prep school student, admitted to IIT on academic probation. I had a good but under-developed sense of form and aesthetics, an ability to visualize and translate ideas to paper, a strong head for natural mechanics and how things worked, but was weak in math beyond algebra. A career in the physical sciences was out of the question. I had a short attention span. Once I learned how to do something, I lost interest in doing it over and over again. Hanging drywall was not a career option.

I spent the summer of my junior prep school year visiting design schools across the country. All but ID were still teaching intuitive creativity and how to make the outcomes just look pretty.  Architecture intrigued me during my tour of ID and Crown Hall, but watching students draw acres of perfect bricks with a ruling pen bored me to tears. One ink glitch and you’re out, no whiteout allowed. I quickly saw that Product Design as espoused by the ID was the only path that could blend my talents into a useful avocation, if not career.

What are the skills learned at ID that you use the most in your current practice?

I learned new ways of thinking, methods, tools, and how to define a “problem” in ways that clearly led to its solution. Jay Doblin had recently been appointed Director and was expanding ID’s educational philosophy and curriculum with a new foundation underlying the Bauhaus intuitive, crafts-based approach by teaching “and here’s why” methods demanded by the business world.   Jay brought Charles Owen and others on board to teach and develop processes that supported that vision. My class was the first to graduate with the benefit of this program under our belts and in our minds.

My ID education has given me the freedom to re-invent myself multiple times.

• I joined a full service design consultancy from school, then joined a commercial interior architecture firm and did facility needs requirements programming and space planning.
• As an independent consultant, I designed a modular system of school furniture manufactured for 30 new Chicago Public Schools.
• I became a specialist in the design of trading floors and technical support facilities for stock, options and commodity exchanges, and for securities trading firms and banks. I founded an architecture firm to do this work.
• Recognizing a need for built facilities management and maintenance services, I directed the process re-engineering and software systems design and installation for multiple City of Chicago, such as O’Hare and Midway airports, the CTA, the CHA, Chicago Public Schools.
• I co-managed the consultant services relationship responsible for construction documents preparation for rehab and improvements to 300+ school buildings for the Chicago Public Schools.
• I was business development director for Illinois’ largest African-American construction and consulting services firm.
• I am VP of Client Services for a start-up financial transaction processing company. Our self-service kiosks allow anyone to pay utility bills, transfer money, purchase gift cards, make municipal infraction payments, and do ATM banking transactions.
• I am independently developing several consumer products and their production, sales and delivery channels. I also consult to the personal property insurance industry, and provide architectural consulting for multiple clients.

 

You've obviously had a very rich background and seen changes in our industry over the past 40 years. Based on that, what kinds of shifts do you see now and into the future?

People blog, build animations and design their homes on the internet. Green design is now expected as part of everything. Every bit of information you want to know is available at an internet button click.

The works of design, like technology, is a window moving through time. The left side sees established process where the late adopters are comfortable using design to produce evolutionary product. The right side sees the risk takers who depend on aggressive design innovation to achieve cutting edge market penetration, if not early dominance. 

Companies that have espoused design to maintain their edge are coming to recognize that innovation management is a discipline of its own. Companies are open-sourcing ideation and are partnering to share creative resources.  Witness the revolution at Big Pharma.

What hard times did you have at ID while a student, and what got you through them?

Adapting to being transplanted overnight from bucolic mountainous south-central Pennsylvania by AMTRAK to Chicago and IIT was challenging. My insertion into, at that time, a very cold campus of concrete, mini-trees, harsh yellow brick buildings, an expressway and EL, and the surrounding Chicago desolation, I was numbed for my first ½ year. Depression was not yet an accepted medical condition.

Getting mugged and hospitalized, and discovering a body on the 31st St. beach rocks did nothing to improve my outlook those first months. Nothing in common and my inability to communicate or share anything with my South Korean Chemistry Major dorm roommate was further isolating. While learning to silver solder in Ray Pearson’s shop studio, the news that JFK had been assassinated was painful.
 
The required calculus course taught by a grad thesis student overwhelmed me. After failing it twice I negotiated a D grade by swearing to hire a consultant if I ever faced a calculus problem in my career.

This space is for anything else you'd like to tell us about yourself.

After ID I have lived in several lofts in Chicago’s Printer’s Row neighborhood for over 25 years. When I first moved to the neighborhood, every building was either abandoned or a storage warehouse. Dearborn, Federal and Plymouth Streets were still brick with trolley tracks. I parked my motorcycle in my loft using the freight elevator. Living there then was cheap. Lofts there now considerably exceed the housing price range of anyone I know.
 
I now live in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, on Lake Michigan. This community of 55,000 provides me with every cultural, services and retail convenience I need. Milwaukee is 45 minutes south, Chicago is 2 hrs south.  Many major industries are here and all support the City’s culture.  I work from home electronically and am as productive as I wish to be. I wish this for you as well.

I am proud that my daughter is a farrier and breeds horses on 250 acres in Pennsylvania, and that my son is a professional fly fishing guide in Montana.

We all live in a world of immense opportunity.  Design your future and your career choices accordingly.

New IDer: Matt Gardner

Please quickly introduce yourself in a quick sentence.  Major, age, etc.

I, Matthew Gardner, have entered intent on mastering design planning at ID and mastering business administration at Stuart. I am 27 for the next few days. 

Married? 

Happily…to my wife, Alissa.

Children? 

Hopefully some day.

Politics?

Apolitical, but I know I should be more engaged.

Religion? 

Mormon. I belong to the Church of  Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I love it. I try to take steps every day to strengthen my relationship with God. If you have questions, I am open.

How did you end up at ID?    What were your motivations for coming?   Where were you before?

August 2006 I attended UXWeek, hosted by Adaptive Path. There I learned two things: I learned that there was more to design besides the finish, and that there were schools out there that taught this kind of design. I was currently working as a graphic designer and I had previously concluded that some of my most interesting assignments were creating forms. I loved considering how the form would be used and engaging with the many constraints involved. Dorky, I know.

I heard a lot of good about ID, namely from Brandon Schauer at Adaptive Path, and of course Business Week. I believe that user-centered design thinking can lead to not only viable business opportunities and growth, but also to solving some of the deepest rooted problems humanity faces. I loved sharing the article by Patrick Whitney and Anjali Kelkar “Designing for the Bottom of the Pyramid” with the people I was trying to explain the ID program to. Not only did it illustrate the design process taught here, but it also suggested the great good design can bring to the table in world problems.

What are your first impressions about ID?

I developed my first impressions when I attended the Open house in February:

• Jacqui is really nice to leave the building and walk into the February cold just to point me in the right direction to get lunch.
• Rachel seems so young to be Director of Admissions.
• Jeremy Alexis seems too young and jovial to be a professor.
• The students are engaged, interesting and very helpful. A shout out to David McGaw, Ido   Mor, David Ofori-Amoah, Lise Lynam, and John Elkholm, each of whom spent a few minutes helping me to understand a little of what the school is about.
• These metal triangles on the floor (of the Steelcase Room) are odd but cool, I guess.
• This place looks very industrial.

What do you think you could bring to the people here at ID? (culturally, socially, etc.)

In my first few weeks of classes I didn’t think that I would really be able to add anything. All the other students seemed to have so much better experience than I have and are so much smarter. While I continue to be impressed I have learned that I do have a place here. My job is to ask questions.

Is there anything from your home that you think people should not miss?

• If home is the Logan Square apartment: Alissa’s fresh corn enchiladas and apple cake with butter sauce.
• If home is Northern Virginia, where we lived last: the Renwick Gallery, the Smithsonian Art Gallery for Arts and Crafts. It displays the epitome of furniture making and craft sculpture, and recently hosted a Grant Wood (American Gothic) exhibit that was so fabulous. Also, don’t miss the Dairy Godmother, a mom and pop frozen custard place that sells three flavors of custard per day (chocolate, vanilla, and the flavor of the day),  several versions of custom made sherbet, and fabulous baked goods. It operates on the “third place” philosophy and thus has scrabble and   puzzles out on the tables to play while eating your custard.
• If home is Utah, where my parents live: Zion National Park, the mountains to the east   of Salt Lake City. Whatever you do, go out of your way to miss I-15   through southern Utah. It is the most unattractive part of the state and the predominant reason non-Utahns think Utah is unattractive. I   recommend Highway 89 as a much more beautiful route. And go for the clam chowder at the Market Street Grill in Salt Lake City. It’s the   best I have had, despite being hundreds of miles away from the ocean.

Which designers/thinkers have impressed you the most lately or you are following now?

I was very impressed, fascinated, and engaged by Steve Knox’s presentation at DRC. For those who were not there, he presented on Tremor’s word of mouth advertising and the theories on which it is built. One of the theories was how disruptive innovation occurs: through slightly shifting schemas. I would like to investigate more on how those schemas are developed and how they can be purposefully manipulated in design.

What are the websites you could not live without?

Big fan of Gmail and Google Docs. I also really like my online banking website. I don’t really know how to balance a checkbook and my wife has no interest in keeping track of spending, so it is really helpful to be able to just check online. I guess I identify with work and productivity. Each of these sites enable me to work more efficiently.

What kinds of activities are you planning to do in your free time (in case you have any) while at ID?

Reading. I have just realized (but I am not surprised) that with grad school comes exposure to a whole field of very interesting books. On the reading list: A Whole New Mind, Emotional Design, Brand Jam, Discovery of Grounded Theory and The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces. I have also considered getting a book on Chicago architecture and learning about all the buildings between ID and Stuart.

This blank space is for you to tell people whatever you want about you. Thanks!

I have a sweet tooth. I could probably eat a batch of cookies by myself if there were no one around to scold me. I really have to hold back when Pip brings in one of his wife’s stellar cakes to Large Systems Design. I love crock pot cooking and I have a bread maker, which I also love. I have made my own bread for years. I like to look at handmade furniture and hope to have a woodshop when I grow up so I can make furniture. I don’t watch a lot of TV, so I don’t catch references to Seinfeld, Friends, ER, or whatever.