IDI Creative Axis - Institute of Designers in Ireland

RICHARDSEYMOUR17do’. To demonstrate he shows a clip of an olderman hopelessly fumbling with the stairlift he’dclaimed a moment ago was ‘brilliant’. Theanimal in us does one thing, the mind another.This attentive scrutiny has paid off in manyof Seymour Powell’s most successful projects.Take the Baby G watch. Ten years ago a groupof Japanese executives from Casio came to seethe consultants, saying they couldn’t sell theirwatches to women, and didn’t know why.Seymour Powell set forth with a camera tophotograph young women out and about inclubs and bars. What they found was youngwomen wearing big, fat, male watches. Theysuggested Casio make big fat watches in nicecolours, but take the technology out of them -too geeky - and remove the Casio branding,since brand values were at a low ebb. Theseideas naturally gave Casio the vapours, but theconsultants prevailed and the rest is history.Today, nearly a third of young Japanese peopleown at least one Baby G. Seymour still workson watches – the next ones will be sold inpairs: one for yourself, one for your beloved:stroke the face of your own watch, and theother watch, wherever it is in the world, willreact. (Explaining this, Seymour mimes rollingup his sleeve and stroking the ten watchesdown his arm – ‘Morning ladies’. )Unstinting powers of observation againcame into play when Seymour Powell wasasked to look at the design of toilets, a subjectSeymour tackles fearlessly. ‘When addressingthe porcelain, 82 per cent of men aim at theback of the bowl just above the water level.Why?’ - puts on whiny child voice - ‘Because itmakes a noise if we don’t, and mummy told usnot to. And what happens when a stream ofliquid hits a surface at that angle? It comesout again. Up to 25% of it comes out again.The reason toilets don’t develop is that nobodyhas that embarrassing conversation, they justfart about at the edges’. He offers similarexactitude about why you get ‘streaks downthe back of the bowl – oh yes, we are going togo there…’His observations formed the basis of aproposed new kind of toilet, featuring a ‘targetarea’ three times the typical size (anddifferently angled), plus a photocatalytic selfcleaningcoating. Yet despite its being cheaperto make than standard models, the clientcompany backed off, its marketing directormysteriously alleging that ‘nobody will paymore for a toilet that cleans itself’. Turned outthe company saw it as such a departure fromthe norm that it didn’t want to be first into themarket – though happy enough to followsomeone else’s lead, and ‘knock it off for5 per cent less’: not in itself a bad businessmodel, but not one that finds much sympathyamong product designers, and certainlynot with Seymour, who smoulders withreforming energy.His summation of the product designer’s jobis blunt. ‘What I really do is, I look at stuff andgo, “it’s shit”. Why don’t bras fit? Why areATMs rubbish? Why do men miss when they goto the toilet - and you too, ladies, by the way?Why are arthritis pills in childproof bottles?’These rubbishy designs have come about, hereckons, because people don’t have the fulland frank discussions they ought (‘nobodyaddresses the truth’), they put too much faithin focus groups, and they wait around forothers to take risks. People just faff about.Meanwhile he’s furious, he says, that some ofthe great names in design spend their timeredesigning salt and pepper pots.The bold critiquing role of the productdesigner is one thing; piloting a forwardthinkingdesign to completion is another.Seymour deploys a full arsenal of techniquesin edging his clients along the right path. He’lltake them out to the pub to tease out the realreasons for any resistance, he’ll ‘humiliatethem in public’ if necessary, and he advocates‘poisoning the waterhole’ – if a client putsfaith in the Financial Times, wangle apersuasive article into that paper. ‘I’ve bulliedsome of the iron-arses of the boardroom’, heconcedes. ‘It’s all about couching theargument in terms they understand.’The buccaneering attitude may be hard fornovices to emulate, but Seymour is adamantthat where a good solution is staring everyonein the face, then ‘I don’t give a toss whetherthe client asked for it or not, it is yourresponsibility as designers to push it through.You are the tip of the spear. You may be theonly person bright enough to make sure theydo it the right way’.This, then, is optimistic futurism – steppinginto the future with a positive frame of mind,standing on that point, turning around andlooking back at the stepping stones. As far astechnology goes, a lot is predictable, such asprocessor speed and the size of components –an upcoming Nokia phone for instance willincorporate elements designed using ‘inprinciple’ assumptions made by SeymourPowell nine years ago. And the future ‘sort offorms itself’ if you work out what competitorsare doing and how you can contribute.Seymour was sounding a little Zen at thispoint. But there’s no arguing with the successof his approach. ‘If you build it they willcome’, he asserts. ‘They really will.’Marion Hancock was editor of Design magazine andauthor of How to Buy Design, both published by theDesign Council in Britain. She is now a freelancewriter/editor based in Dublin, writing about designand working with designers on branding projects.Sustainable Innovation through Design –An Unprecedented OpportunityBy Adam De Eyto“The problems of the world cannot besolved by sceptics or cynics whosehorizons are limited by the obviousrealities. We need people who candream of things that never were”John F. KennedyDesign has always attempted to merge thepracticalities of engineering technology andbusiness with the subtle elements ofinterface, social concerns and aestheticdesire. This is currently achievable in mostproducts, but without sustainable thinkingand practice at its core, neither design norengineering nor technology have the abilityto do much more than continue to add tothe sociological and environmental difficultiesof the 21st century. The current and nextgeneration of designers and business decisionmakers need to develop a range of skills tohelp them deal with the broad and variedissues around sustainable development,materials and energy usage, environmentalconcerns and social responsibility. They musttake on the mantle of deciding what keydecisions to make regarding the sustainablemanufacture and design of consumer productsthat the world continues to use.The SME (Small & Medium Enterprise)sector makes up the bulk of industry withinthe EU varying in some countries from80-95% of the total numbers of companies.These industries by their nature find itdifficult to dedicate expertise solely tosustainable development issues and sodesigners in their capacity as consultants havea unique opportunity to influence and changethe thinking at an SME level and to capitalizeon this expertieze. At a multinational level it isapparent that many of the big global and localbrands are looking at sustainability as both arisk and as a business opportunity today andinto the future.In terms of local brands, Ireland is in aunique position as we have a strong economythat is looking to innovation as a tool forcompetitive advantage to allow us to continueour recent economic success. However, we area small economy in the global sense andtherefore we should also have the abilityto change our design and business practicesrapidly.It would appear from recent research in thefield of sustainable design that there is anunprecedented appetite and desire fromconsumers, manufacturers and legislators,both locally and globally, for sustainablesystems and products that at very leastconsider environmental impact. At a deeperlevel there are signs that “Green Washing” isnot sufficient in terms of its effectiveness orits ability to change consumer habbits.Designers need to consider varying theirstrategies to include Product Life CycleAnalysis, Design for Disposability (not justobsolescence), Upgradeability / Servicing,Extended Product Life, Design for End of Life andDesign for Local Manufacture and Distribution.Continued overleaf >