The Deans of Design
U.S. News & World Report
“From the computer mouse to the newest Swiffer, IDEO is the firm behind the scenes.”
“When you’re the chief executive officer of one of the planet’s most influential design firms, you can’t help but notice compelling design-such as the object in which IDEO’s Tim Brown and a visitor are sitting this summer morning. Right inside the front door of the two-story lobby at IDEO’s Palo Alto, Calif., headquarters is a 5-foot-high, open-roofed, Corian-shelled, cylindrical micro-conference room. It’s sort of a 21st-century version of a yurt, the sturdy, all-weather tent of the Mongolian nomads. The yurt is not an IDEO design, though. Brown spotted the Steelcase-created prototype at a design show last year and just had to have it. Yet the technoyurt represents a core IDEO design principle: creating something tangible as a launching pad for further exploration and innovation. “It’s not talking about what may be; it’s actually creating and building it,” Brown says. “Something you can walk into. It’s that ability to make new ideas tangible that makes design useful.”
Read the article by James M. Pethokoukis here.
