design stories ::

board of designers by MA Neff

The so-called design century has arrived. Here's a look at what it could be like when designers lead major organizations — or at least your next big initiative.

Psychologist Richard Farson, founder of the nonprofit Western Behavioral Sciences Institute in La Jolla, CA, holds that it is time we become design-driven. Designers are well suited as leaders, he says: they're adept at recognizing context and historical perspectives in the arts, sciences and humanities; they appreciate working in ensembles and often are environmentally aware and are willing to stretch beyond the limits of technology; designers depend on a high level of creative thinking and appreciate esthetic dimensions of leadership. The first step, then, is for designers to begin to imagine themselves as leaders — of design firms, of communities, of cultural organizations, of corporations — and especially as board members. In Farson's thinking, "design may soon become the byword of leadership and management."

["Management by Design" and "Designers as Leaders", commentary by Dr. Richard Farson ]

chatter ::

At the 2004 Art Center Design Conference in Pasadena, CA, the Toronto-based but internationally recognized designer Bruce Mau showed two sets of four concentric circles. Yet another "napkin drawing", it became the seed for an exhibition called "Massive Change". In the first drawing, the outer ring is labeled "nature", moving inward is "culture", then "business" and finally "design". The point is that the world up until now relegates design to least important and last place, in such a way that decisions in the world are market-driven. Design is an after thought, tacked on after a solution has been decided.

On the right, Mau depicts the vision of this massive change with four more concentric circles, where the outer ring begins with "design" which encircles the smaller sphere of "nature" which in turn surrounds "culture" and at the center the smallest circle is "business". The point is that as participants in a global community in the march of time, we can no longer afford not to design our future well-being. The health of our environments, our cultures and the success of business increasingly depend on learning how to design beneficial outcomes.

[Bruce Mau's napkin drawing for Massive Change]