Looking to understand the role of instant noodles in middle-class Chinese life, the IDEO team conducted in-home research with consumers across a range of life stages and levels of attachment to noodle culture and convenience foods. The first finding was reassuring: Everyone kept instant noodles at home. The category still had a place in middle-class kitchens. But beneath that was a more complicated, emotional story—and an unmet need for convenience and quality to coexist in a single product.

The team discovered that instant noodles are more than just a quick, on-the-go meal; they are a nostalgic comfort food that evokes fond memories. But since their heyday, their role in daily life has evolved. Once a complete meal in itself, instant noodles now often function as a versatile flavor base or culinary accent in other dishes. Because they don’t align with the healthier, higher-quality, and more novel food choices that middle-class consumers aspire to, noodle shops, delivery noodles, or fresh-cooked instant options often win out. Yet, even these alternatives come with trade-offs. Delivered noodles lose texture during transport. Sit-down noodle shops preserve quality but offer limited flavors.  Cooking from scratch meets the bar for both texture and flavor, but requires a significant time investment. As one young mother said, “If I could get the texture of fresh-cooked noodles without turning on the stove, I’d buy that instant noodle for sure.”

The research inspired the creation of a new category, which the team termed “fresh-brewed noodles.” More than just a noodle or broth upgrade, Master Kong’s fresh-brewed noodles would offer the speed of instant noodles with the quality of freshly cooked options, plus flavors not found in traditional noodle shops. The strategic positioning was clear. Executing it by making fresh-brewed noodles mass-producible, affordable, and eventually profitable presented a category-innovation challenge. To get there, IDEO designed a series of dual-track co-creation workshops with the Master Kong team and consumers.

One track focused on prototyping the core product experience: noodles, broth, and toppings. IDEO and Master Kong’s R&D team began by studying the traditional craft of Chinese noodle-making, starting in Shanxi, a region renowned for its noodles. Through successive rounds of prototyping and consumer tasting, the team identified a critical insight: for “fresh-brewed noodles” to be convincing, the innovation had to be centered on the noodles themselves.

Texture alone was not enough. Consumers needed to see a meaningful difference before they tasted the product. IDEO translated this insight into a distinctive noodle profile: irregular, dimensional shapes designed to remain springy, hold sauce and broth, and mimic the resilience of freshly cooked noodles using only hot water. Because this visible shape represented the product’s core value proposition, it became a hero feature on the packaging. The graphic design made a bold visual statement about the noodle form, turning a technical R&D breakthrough into an immediately legible consumer promise: these are not ordinary instant noodles.

A parallel track explored the broader commercial experience: trend-forward and reimagined classic flavor profiles, light yet deeply satisfying broths, carefully selected toppings, and packaging that signals a new level of quality on store shelves. One key insight was that utensils carry meaning. Conventional instant noodles are often associated with disposable plastic forks, while higher-quality noodles are eaten with chopsticks. IDEO translated this cultural cue into the design of the bowl’s lid.

Instead of treating utensils as an afterthought, the team designed a solid, rounded, heat-retaining lid that embeds a pair of small wooden chopsticks. The gesture creates a small ritual of anticipation and reframes the product—not just a convenient instant meal, but a more considered noodle experience. Once opened, the product fulfills that promise with satisfyingly bouncy noodles, a rich liquid broth pouch that replaces the traditional oil-and-powder packet, and a vegetable packet reformulated with more premium whole ingredients.

The first batch of “Te Bie Te” Fresh-Brewed Noodles—Chinese wordplay that emphasizes “special”—launched in August 2025 with three trendy and tried-and-true flavors. Within just three days, sales exceeded 100,000 bowls. Within a week, “Te Bie Te” topped the instant noodle category sales ranking on Douyin, China’s domestic counterpart to TikTok. The outcome was bigger than a product launch—it served as proof that a mature, declining category could be fundamentally reinvented to meet consumers’ real needs. For Master Kong, the project became a North Star and a model for internal category innovation in beverages, ready-to-eat foods, and beyond.

Once a popular, affordable staple, the instant noodle category in China has been declining rapidly due to shifting demographics, rising food delivery options, and increasing customer demand for healthier, more nutritious meals.

‍

According to the World Instant Noodles Association, between 2020 and 2023, China’s instant noodle consumption fell by 4 billion packs.

100,000+

“Te Bie Te” bowls sold in the first 3 days on the market

#1

on Douyin’s instant noodle category ranking within one week of launch

Taylor’s legacy began in 1969 with the founding of Taylor’s College and soon expanded to include Taylor’s University, one of Southeast Asia’s top private universities, as well as many other institutions that serve 35,000 students per year. The family-owned group also operates Taylor’s International Schools, Garden International School, and Nexus International School for students ages 4 to 18. In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital city, annual tuition at premium private schools like these ranges from about $10,000 to $25,000 USD. Taylor’s wanted to do something different: provide the same level of academic rigor and immersive learning experiences at one-third the cost.

IDEO began by speaking with over three dozen students, parents, teachers, and experts across the capital to understand what was working, what wasn’t, and what was missing from such moderately priced international schools.

A few themes quickly emerged. Families, students, and teachers were worried about the stability of these new private schools, which tended to have higher-than-normal teacher turnover rates and were plagued by financial instability, negatively impacting talent attraction and retention, as well as student learning. Parents appreciated that the schools offered holistic learning experiences, such as field trips to rural areas, including jungles, but wished they were more consistently part of the curriculum. And now, the looming challenge of AI—how to use it, how to teach it, and how to teach with it—was in the background, a persistent cause for concern. The big unmet need? Reassurance that Taylor’s was thinking long-term and systematically about developing the skills, knowledge, and mindsets that would prepare students for an ever-changing world. Parents wanted a school that measured growth in academic, social, and character terms over generations, not just school semesters.

With these insights in hand, IDEO began developing a design Playbook for Taylor’s new brand—Lexel International Schools. A combination of “lexicon” and “excellence,” Lexel’s mission is “building what lasts, learning for life.”

The schools are centered around three key differentiators: 

• Always Ahead: Lexel schools commit to staying current with the topics and subject matter they teach, as well as the tools they provide to students, parents, and teachers.s.  
  ‍
• Learning That Builds for Life: The schools ensure programmatic, systemic, and consistent learning experiences from Pre-K to Year 11. Interested students can even continue their post-secondary journey in partnership with Taylor’s University and other higher education institutions within the Taylor’s ecosystem.
  
  
• Educators for the Long Run: These schools commit to ongoing investments in professional growth opportunities for teachers and stable learning environments for students.

Four Lexel Literacies—AI, Digital, Financial, and Nutrition—integrated into the Cambridge Curriculum bring the school’s vision and mission to life.

By systematically integrating AI literacy into its spiral education framework, in particular, an approach where major topics are revisited multiple times through a curriculum to build fluency over time, Lexel ensures parents that the school is thinking a decade ahead from Day One, setting the school apart. In addition to enhancing AI fluency, Lexel offers unique end-of-term experiences called Jungles & Junctions.

Combining three important strands of learning—community engagement, nature-based personal and interpersonal development, and career and university exploration—Jungles & Junctions leverages Taylor’s extended educational network and Lexel’s strategic founding campus within the Gamuda Gardens development in Selangor. Surrounded by tropical rainforests, the township’s residential neighborhoods, theme park, and various sports facilities, including an Olympic-length swimming pool, are transformed into an extended Lexel campus, with a GenAI-driven planner to help teachers streamline the organization of class outings. “The Township is Your Campus” became the tagline for this approach.

In September 2025, just months after IDEO’s collaboration ended, Taylor’s began classes at its first Lexel International School. By mid-year, the new school had achieved 115% of its year-one student enrollment target, with significant inbound demand for Year 2 already demonstrating the school’s market resonance.

The modern campus features spacious classrooms, science and technology labs, a library, a multipurpose hall, and a canteen. Annual tuition ranges from about $2,800 USD for pre-K students to about $6,100 USD for secondary students.

Most importantly, by combining Taylor’s deep academic expertise, Gamuda Land’s development prowess, and IDEO’s innovative design Playbook, Lexel brings quality, affordable international education closer to home for Malaysian families. According to one parent, “My daughter looks forward to going to school every day … and has a lot of opportunities to express herself. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give [Lexel] an 11.” Based on the IDEO Playbook, a second flagship campus in the Southern Klang Valley, which is scheduled to open in September 2026, has already exceeded its year-one target enrollment expectations, with plans to continue extending the Lexel network to other parts of Malaysia and the wider Southeast Asian region in the near future.

Malaysia’s private international school sector has grown significantly as parents seek quality English-language education. However, high tuition fees and limited access to reputable schools are continual challenges for those in the emerging middle class.

115%

of Lexel’s student enrollment target reached during the launch year of its first campus
‍

Year 1 enrollment target exceeded

at Lexel's second campus several months ahead of classes commencing

‍

The American news industry has long been a competitive and saturated market. This has only intensified with the emergence of social media outlets and AI-generated news. Even so, SAN’s rigorously unbiased, fact-based reporting style and rich video storytelling had enabled the ambitious startup to rise above the media fray in just three short years.

With a strong foundation to build on, IDEO sought to further differentiate SAN’s cutting-edge news product and build deeper engagement with a wider audience through a new user experience.

‍Collaborating closely, IDEO and SAN began by delving deeply into media consumption habits. They met with early SAN superfans, news consumers who spent hours a day absorbing content from traditional outlets like Fox and USA Today, and those who looked to their Ring doorbell app or Reddit for news. The takeaways? People were tired of clickbait and clunky interfaces. They sought clear, factual news that was easily accessible, with additional context to help them interpret events and understand their significance. They craved more than one perspective on important topics, so stories felt balanced rather than polarized. They also valued having control over how they consumed news, so making it easy to switch between text, video, and audio formats was crucial.

Together, IDEO and SAN created features across SAN’s website and app that put facts, trust, and transparency at the core of the product experience. Fact Cards distill key data points into clear, shareable units, while the Sources feature allows readers to trace information directly back to its original source. To make complex stories easier to grasp, Big Picture insights drill down into why events matter, surfacing underlying themes, historical parallels, differences in reporting, and common ground. The Why This Story Matters section provides readers with clear framing and sets the story within a broader context, while the Timeline illustrates how events unfold over days, months, or even years. An antidote to news polarization, See All Sides presents left, right, and center narratives for key topics side-by-side, and Media Landscape visualizations reveal how coverage varies across outlets. Finally, to ensure SAN fits seamlessly into readers’ daily lives, the redesigned Today Page is organized into three highly scannable sections: Latest News, Top Stories, and SAN Originals. The combined features create a balanced, clear, and non-polarizing news experience, making it easy for readers to delve deeper into the sources of their news.

SAN now delivers a news experience as modern, dynamic, and trustworthy as its journalism. A month after its debut, the SAN app’s page views increased 1,170 percent year over year compared to June 2024, while active users rose 700 percent. Readers also give the updated mobile experience a 4.8 rating on the Apple App Store. “Our team is delivering reporting that’s both deeply factual and accessible,” said Derek Mead, SAN’s Chief Content Officer. “This redesign is pivotal to the direction journalism needs to take and the leadership role Straight Arrow News is taking on as we help guide the news industry into a brighter future.”

SAN built a loyal readership and gained recognition for its unbiased reporting. To expand and stand out from legacy media, SAN  wanted a redesigned user experience that reflected its commitment to fact-based journalism.

1,170%

increase in app page views YoY 

700%

increase in active users

4.8 rating

on the Apple App Store

Sanofi was the first company to supply the polio vaccine worldwide. Because of the global fight against the disease, endemic wild poliovirus transmission is now limited to just two countries. However, attitudes toward vaccines and immunizations have shifted significantly. To ensure a smooth launch of Beyfortus in a time of increased vaccine hesitancy, Sanofi asked IDEO to conduct research across four important and very different healthcare markets: Germany, Spain, China, and the US.

IDEO worked with parents, caregivers, healthcare professionals, and healthcare administrators to identify potential barriers to vaccine adoption and understand the emotional needs of all stakeholders involved in the immunization process. Navigating cultural differences and diverse healthcare environments, the team uncovered a set of insights.

For healthcare professionals, the team discovered there was no one-size-fits-all approach to immunization training across Sanofi’s 20-plus global markets. While consistency of key information was important, trainings needed to be flexible and customizable. This way, regardless of whether the vaccine was administered by midwives, OB-GYNs, nurses, or doctors, they could  confidently discuss the pros and cons across cultural contexts and administer the drug correctly.
‍
For new parents, receiving information about a new immunization immediately after giving birth could be too stressful. But simply leaving pamphlets about Beyfortus in waiting rooms didn't address their real concerns, either. Caregivers needed to engage in conversations earlier in their pregnancies and continue them after leaving the hospital, when they might have additional questions.

IDEO translated these research insights into a highly accessible global communication toolkit that uses simple, straightforward language, metaphors, and illustrations to support informed conversations between healthcare providers and parents before, during, and after a child is born. IDEO then conducted a series of market-fit co-design workshops with representatives of Sanofi’s global immunization business to iterate on the print and digital tools, make them more resonant with regional customers, and ensure compliance with local regulations. IDEO handed the toolkits over for development to support the launch of Beyfortus in January 2024, just in time for RSV season.

Beyfortus saw enormous demand in its first year, demonstrating strong efficacy in real-world applications and achieving blockbuster status as a $1.8 billion therapy. Sanofi’s global launch team credits the patient-centric toolkit with increased requests for communication materials from its regional markets as well as from healthcare and government organizations that have typically been hard to reach, key goals of its global-local launch strategy.

Since its development, Beyfortus has received swift regulatory approval from the US, EU, China, and Japan, with patient demand causing Sanofi to triple its worldwide manufacturing capacity to meet the needs of the 2024-25 RSV season. Ahead of the larger global distribution of Beyfortus, IDEO and Sanofi partnered with equity expert consultants, Fearless Futures, to conduct a DEI review and worked with doctors and nurses who participated in the initial drug launch to make the materials even more accessible, relevant, and successful for 2025 and beyond. To date, six million babies—and counting—have been immunized with Beyfortus.

Worldwide, childhood vaccination hesitancy among parents fluctuates between 25-45%, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), a trend it considers one of the biggest global threats to public health.

85.9%

‍reduction in hospitalizations for infants who received Beyfortus compared to those who did not (2023–24 RSV season)

$1.8B

in first-year sales of Beyfortus

‍

From flexible working conditions to the coexistence of both physical and digital experiences, COVID-19 has accelerated the trends and behaviors that have been rearing their heads for some time, and pushed them to the forefront of our everyday lives.

Indeed, the future is already here. How might we fully step into it with creativity and resilience?

Recently, a group of IDEO designers in Tokyo convened a creative project to brainstorm and design for the implications of the pandemic on the future of Japan. Called “Emergent Futures,” the goal of the work—accessible below—was not to predict the future, but to prepare for the possibilities it may bring.

To envision these “emergent futures,” we started where we always do: with people, and by observing ourselves, our families, and communities. For each future, we describe what it looks like and what behaviors prevail, the evidence we see for this future already emerging, and what design opportunities exist for Japan-focused businesses.

For example, the first emergent future we explore is Leftover Spaces—the idea that physical spaces will become more dynamic due to public health concerns around occupancy. With this, business opportunities related to rent, consumer preferences, space design, and co-ownership emerge. We explore and ground this emergent future through Kei, an IDEO designer and blossoming curry chef, whose needs inspired us to prototype a pop-up system concept—the Kei Truck. Our research reveals how some businesses are already prototyping this future, including restaurants operating as corner stores and Hoshino Resorts, who is leveraging data tracking to keep guests safe. These examples provoke key takeaways for leaders, from the need to develop a more entrepreneurial, adaptable workforce to using data in a human-centered way.

Though Emergent Futures is a collection of provocations about the state of Japan post-pandemic, the value of this futuring exercise and framework is universal, especially now. For Japan and other parts of the world to meet the challenges and opportunities we face post-COVID—from how to safely utilize physical spaces to how to remain competitive in a changing job market—our response must be human-centered, innovative, and imaginative.

Please share the work far and wide. We hope to spark the global collaboration required to ensure the future is evenly distributed, so we can step into it with confidence and creativity, together.

Download and share Emergent Futures here.

“The future is already here—it’s just not very evenly distributed.” Though attributed to essayist William Gibson nearly 20 years ago, the quote could not be more relevant today.

It was a result of her own tenaciousness, her creativity, and the support of RepresentED, a small organization with a big mission to prepare students for careers in industries where they are underrepresented. The organization uses a human-centered approach to diversify the next generation of leaders through training, mentorship, and internships. RepresentED’s founder, Rashida Hanif, met Cisneros when she was a transfer student at UC Berkeley. Hanif notes that transfer students—particularly Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) young adults—are missing out on what she calls the “hidden curriculum of life.”

Cisneros immediately saw the opportunity to help other Black and Brown transfer students like herself attain university education and gain visibility into concealed opportunities for their futures. Cisneros first learned about RepresentED in 2017, when she applied to join the first cohort of fellows. As part of the fellowship, she participated in a design thinking workshop led by former IDEO designer Scott Shigeoka. Later, she and her team competed in OpenIDEO's Future of Higher Education Challenge and designed an app that connected transfer students with much-needed community and resources. The experience and process introduced Cisneros to an industry she had never considered before. “Learning about design was absolutely pivotal for me,” she says.

Making change from within

After the competition, Cisneros was encouraged to apply to IDEO, and was hired as a recruiting coordinator before being promoted to her current role. Today, she leads Color by Design (CxD), which she helped launch in the wake of the rise in activism for social justice last year. She also helps facilitate internal programs at IDEO like business and inclusive leadership trainings, which seek to support IDEO’s senior leaders (and eventually all employees) to better understand how to create a culture of belonging. “In these trainings, we’re going to provide tangible leadership skills which help build awareness of where people are in their own personal journey,” she explains.

Shifting the power dynamic

This month RepresentED and IDEO are opening application submissions for the fall session of CxD. The program is open to all BIPOC students from backgrounds that have been historically underrepresented in design.

“It was important to shift away from the typical ‘company-intern’ power dynamic,” said Hanif. “It’s about an equal exchange of value that shifts the long-held power dynamics between the company and the fellow.” Following a bootcamp in design thinking, the cohort will receive placement on a six-month full-time IDEO project and have the opportunity to pursue a career at IDEO. Whether they decide to continue a design career or not, fellows will leave the program with a deeper understanding of design that they can apply to nearly any line of work.

Fellows will also be trained holistically for entry into culturally white-dominated industries, preparing them for challenges that are likely to come up, like imposter syndrome. “Having the ability to name things like imposter syndrome enabled me to step into my own authenticity,” explains Cisneros, “while understanding that institutions need to do their own work in order truly create a culture of belonging.”

A signal to the industry

Looking forward, there’s a lot of potential for programs like CxD to drive lasting change within other companies and industries. “This isn’t just a pipeline program, it’s a signal to the industry,” Hanif notes. Companies that have more diversity in their staff will have a greater competitive edge, and the design skills fellows bring to the table can be applied to more than just traditional design work—they can be used anywhere.

“It's not about checking DE&I boxes,” she adds, “When you build products and services, you want the people who buy those products to be represented in the design process—there’s a real business case for that.”

The first cohort has been invited into IDEO in January 2022 for a 6-month period, and an iteration of the program will launch by the end of 2023. We will share more updates as we get closer to the recruitment season. If you have any questions, please contact cxdinfo@ideo.com.

For Jordan Cisneros, a Senior Specialist on IDEO’s Global Learning and Development Team, access to a career in design was not a given.

Many people share these same questions but are afraid to ask. They don’t want to be rude or make a misstep—which can generate more missteps and even cause harm simply due to being uninformed.

Solving this issue is exactly what IDEOer Stuart Getty set out to do with their new book, How to They/Them. Stuart, who uses they/them pronouns, wanted to create a guide that answered a lot of the questions they commonly get asked, and find a way to educate people in a friendly way. Far from being a niche topic, gender is an important part of the human experience and its landscape is ever-expanding as we learn new ways to describe our most innate identities. It’s important to realize that everyone has a gender identity—not just those whose identity diverges from traditional norms. In Stuart’s brilliant words, “Gender is for everyone and we all get to decide who we want to be in this world.”

We sat down (virtually) with Stuart and Brooke Thyng, a former IDEOer who helped bring Stuart’s story to life through illustration, to talk about the book—the role of humor in the story, the pair’s collaboration process, and why the timing of the book was so important. Read on for a peek behind their creative process.

This book approaches talking about gender from both an educational perspective, as well as through humor. Why was that balance so important?

Stuart Getty: There's a hidden audience with this book and for me, it's my mom who's in her 70s and lives in Kentucky. I think that jokes are what get her to be like, “Oh, okay! I'll keep reading.”

Stuart Getty: I think that people get really uptight when these kinds of subjects around gender are being talked about. People are worried they’re going to mess up and use the wrong words like “transgendering,” for example. What I'm saying is, I like to add a little levity, because it makes people relax into the learning process. It’s about access to the information.

Brooke Thyng: I wanted to follow Stu’s lead and make sure that everything that I created was in service of their message. So as much as I wanted to make myself laugh, as a cis-person, it was important for me to come to this project very humbly and with the utmost respect.

The whole time, we’d ask, “Is this pushing people, but in a way that's authentic and respectful, and not just doing it to be a jerk?” There's a time and place for joking around. And I think it was clear that Stuart’s message wasn't a joke, but that it needed to come across with some levity, or just some openness.

I was really conscious of finding that nice balance of, yeah, it’s not a joke and we're fighting for rights and we're fighting for exposure and visibility, but at the same time, when we take ourselves so seriously I think we block out people from coming into the message. And so I really wanted to use humor as access, and use the visuals as access.

How does this book connect to what’s going on in our society right now?

Stuart Getty: If you look at the stats for Gen Z, 35 percent of them know someone who uses they/them pronouns, and something like 20 percent of them also identify as gender neutral, even if they don't use they/them. People are stepping into these places of breaking binaries, and I think the binaries of sexuality have been crumbling over the last couple years. People are now asking, “Why do we have to be only gay or straight?”

What I also love about this book is it means cis-people get to look at their gender and the way that they've been told to be a man, a woman, an American, a human, whatever—and decide what they actually believe and what they actually want to be. And I think that is the thesis statement of the whole book. “They” is for me, and I want to explain it to you, but also, gender freedom should be for all of us.

Tell us more about what your collaborative process was like.

Stuart Getty: I came to Brooke with pages that looked like this, and then we would sit down and go page by page. I do think that I had a really good idea of the story, but it was on a level seven or eight when I turned it to Brooke, and then she kicked it up to the, “It's a 10, everyone!” She just made it such a better story.

Brooke Thyng: Stuart came with all of these pages printed out, and I would meet up with them at IDEO. We’d sit in the communal area and we'd go through the pages, and they'd be like, “Oh, I was thinking about this here. And this is sort of what I meant here.” I would just take notes and try to take it in.

I'm always so taken aback when Stuart asks me to be a part of things like this. I really felt like I was helping make the vision come to life, like I was Stuart's visual hands for this project. I just wanted to amplify the text that was written. As I read through their draft, it was an immediate, “Oh, this is what it's making me think of.” Either I am slightly out there and can just see weird images come to life, or Stuart is really good at crafting their words. I think maybe it's both.

Want to read How to They/Them and learn more about gender identity? Get your hands on a copy here, or wherever books are sold!

Animations by Louisa Liu and Devin Peek

Ever wondered what “nonbinary” and “gender nonconforming” really mean? Or if it's grammatically correct to use “they” as a singular pronoun? You’re far from alone.

A founding member of the alt-rock band Garbage, Steve Marker had generously agreed to an interview on one condition: that he could read an advance copy of my book, Two Beats Ahead, before we talked. This made me sweat, not because he was a rock star—my co-author and I had spoken to many of them while writing—but because he was the first rock star reading the book about the inventive mindsets of musicians. It was like waiting on Julia Child for feedback about the omelet you just served her.

“I’m enjoying your book so far,” Steve said. My shoulders relaxed.

I first heard Garbage on college radio in the mid 90s. The band had an unmistakable sound—a combination of shoegaze, hiphop, and electronic dance, with the pouty attitude of the Cure reinvented by a feminist fatale. It was an unexpected direction for the band given that Butch Vig, another founding member, had rocketed to fame as the producer of Nirvana’s major label debut, Nevermind. Grunge—as that Seattle sound was called—was nowhere to be found on Garbage’s debut. And it turns out, that was by design, or as Steve implied, maybe an un-design.

“You know, it was interesting reading about the intention that so many artists have had in making their music,” Steve told me. “It wasn’t like that for us. We didn't have a written-out plan or even something we really talked about that much. It was just a combination of everything that we loved.” He shared a story about Butch seeing My Bloody Valentine in New York and being blown away by their white noise and pop melodies. He mentioned Public Enemy and their gritty noise loop samples. He talked about 60s rock.

“Garbage could have turned into a totally pop thing. Or it could have turned into a noise experiment that would have been an interesting album to listen to once or twice. Luckily, we found a combination that worked for us. A lot of that had to do with Shirley [Manson], as she brought this whole other thing into the mix that we couldn't have planned. The combination of all our different influences is what the band became.”

Well, maybe there wasn’t a plan, but there was definitely a principle of designing the conditions for creativity and letting the outcome emerge from that. Steve and the band had figured out how to bring together all the things they loved, and at the same time, reject all the things that were popular in the mainstream. They chose a new path, which became their own path to mainstream success. Their debut sold 4 million copies in its first 12 months.

As I reflected upon how this happened, I was thinking about the numerous client teams that I’ve worked with under rapid deadlines and inflated expectations.“We want to be the next iPod of banking!” they say. The bygone days of Bell Labs open briefs feel like business mythology now. And yet, that was exactly the situation Garbage had. “We were lucky enough to have somebody say, ‘Okay, go make a record,’ mainly because Butch had a great reputation. We had the luxury to take as much time as we wanted to figure out what we were going to be.”

In Two Beats Ahead, Panos Panay and I interviewed Imogen Heap and Steve Vai about music and product breakthroughs they had in their own careers. We also spoke with folks at Amazon’s PillPack about launching their startup idea. What ties these stories together are mindsets of curiosity and learning. Experimentation wasn’t confined to any single part of a workflow or to particular roles. It was more like a cultural attribute, the water they swam in. For Garbage, that culture looked like persistent play. Steve illustrated this with a story about making Garbage's first record.

At the time, they were often just sampling other people’s songs to find elements they liked. During one session, he grabbed a handful of CDs looking for a beat and happened to play “Train in Vain” by the Clash. “Right there, we had a good four-bar loop to use as a click track...I put down a bass line and that was the foundation of the song right there.”

The next day, Butch came up with the lyrics:

you stupid girl
pretend you’re high
pretend you’re bored

“It can take minutes or months to make a song,” Steve continued, “and you’ve just got to stay open to letting it make its own path.”

I can imagine someone reading this and thinking to themselves, “So that’s it? The secret to innovation is to try a bunch of random stuff until it works?” But remember, this wasn’t just any band coming up with songs. This was Garbage. And this led Steve and I to an interesting discussion about team dynamics and experience.

“I guess we were lucky that we all worked with bands for 10-15 years before Garbage. We were in dozens of bands that hated each other. You learn by doing that.” He went on to talk about fluidity, respect, and vulnerability—the essential chemistry of the band.

It would be misleading to suggest that musicians somehow have a more natural ability to collaborate than others. It's not about an inherent gift. We all know the stories of a band breaking up over creative differences, sometimes with incredible public meltdowns. The reason musicians have so much to teach us is that the conditions in which they work are the ideal classroom for these mindsets.

Great creative talent is in every company, but the structures and social norms of the organizations often dictate who is permitted to collaborate. I’ve been in situations where clients have asked me not to talk to their colleagues because they didn’t trust them. I’ve seen departments make competitors of one another because they were incentivized to do so. I’ve been in buildings that have rooms dedicated to innovation rather than cultures committed to it. To get the best teams, it's often left to the creativity of the project leader to work around these organizational constructs and find the ideal contributors, no matter where they are in the organization.

Garbage set themselves up without defined roles—except for Shirley, who always sings. Otherwise, roles and contributions are left up to the person with the best ideas. “Being in a band is the most fun thing I can imagine doing. It's a dream come true from when you were a kid. And I've done it as a job, as my livelihood for a long time. It's amazing,” Steve shared with a smile.

Those words, “I’ve done it as my job,” have stuck with me because they really are the premise of Two Beats Ahead. We often don’t see the musician’s life as a job. And yet the mindsets that Steve and Garbage bring to work are the mindsets that we are regularly striving for in the corporate world. We’ve categorized the rock star life as something else. But on my best days, I’m working just like those legendary musicians, pursuing curiosity, building on new ideas with my teammates, and trying to get the video lighting just right.

Two Beats Ahead: What Musical Minds Teach Us About Innovation, by IDEO partner R. Michael Hendrix and Berklee College of Music Senior Vice President for Global Strategy and Innovation, Panos A. Pany, will be available worldwide in April.

Preorder in the U.S. here and the UK here.

Steve was supposed to be in bright colored lights on stages across the U.S. along with Liz Phair and Alanis Morrisette. Instead, he was on a video call with me, trying to find a camera angle that didn't make him look like he was in witness protection.

I help organizations cut through complexity by shaping how they show up, through brand strategy, identity, and storytelling.

Working at the intersection of brand and business, I bring an editorial eye and a bias toward making—turning ideas into tangible experiences that people can understand, trust, and believe in.

My work spans government, healthcare, financial services, media, and consumer goods, from launching Gen Z-focused ventures to building innovation labs and reimagining legacy brands. I relish moments of ambiguity and enjoy translating across teams, perspectives, and priorities to move ideas forward.

I started my career in editorial and digital design, shaping cross-platform experiences and identity systems in publishing and agency environments. That foundation still shapes how I work today: I’m detail-oriented, collaborative, and overreliant on the Oxford comma. I hold a BFA in Visual Communication from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

For 25 years, I've asked the same question: Who does this design exclude—and what are we going to do about it?

My work spans human-centered strategy, inclusive design, and qualitative research, with clients ranging from Microsoft, Google, and Verizon to the National Science Foundation, and San Francisco Unified School District.

Before IDEO, I taught elementary school in East Palo Alto and spent a decade doing design work with social service organizations—where I learned firsthand what it costs people when systems are built without them in mind.

I am currently writing User Error, a nonfiction book about digital access and the design decisions behind it. I live in Oakland, California.

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My expertise spans brand, communication, and product design across tech, education, the arts, and social impact.

I believe great work demands both high-level vision and obsessive attention to detail, and only happens through collaboration.

I bring an inclusive, hands-on approach and a deep understanding of business, which enables me to consistently deliver excellence while always asking why.

Before joining IDEO, I worked at the brand firms Pentagram and VSA Partners. I began my career as a designer, leading teams at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Milwaukee Art Museum. I hold an MFA in graphic design from Maryland Institute College of Art and a BFA in communication design from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, and have taught at some of the best design schools in the US.

I am responsible for IDEO’s long-term success in China and working with clients to use design as a tool to enable growth. Specifically, I have helped Chinese companies design holistic brand solutions through the development of their products, communication, services, and innovation teams, and I have helped multinationals expand their presence and influence in China.

I advise global leaders on developing China-led innovation and capabilities.

In over 15 years in IDEO Shanghai, I have worked on projects that use design to elevate the quality of the experience of healthcare products and services, streamline processes that increase productivity, create spaces and programs that promote and enable inclusive communities, and build next generation mobility solutions that are planet-positive.

Before joining IDEO, I worked at Philips Electronics and the Electrolux Group in Italy, the Netherlands, and Singapore on a number of breakthrough commercial products. I am a member of the Young President Organization in Shanghai.