Kent Senatore on the Turning Point Ramp

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KENT SENATORE on the Turning Point ramp somewhere in Florida where it was first built. This plexiglass and steel capsule with one end missing, and a hydraulic lift on the open end made it so the round end of the capsule could be carved upside down. Kent ruled this thing with “The Jerr”... Pretty amazing then and now. This was in early 1979. Kent Senatore was one of the early radical skaters from the San Fernando Valley, along with Jerry “the Jerr” Valdez and David “La Machine” Ferry. Kent lives in Hawaii now, great skater, thoughtful smart dude. . . #skateboarding #Valley #ValSurf #TurningPointRamp #SkateboardMadness #1979 #SkateBoarderMagazine #Traknology #ArrowSkateboards #GullWingTrucks #UpsideDown #TurningPoint #Radical #Gnarly . . . This photograph first appeared in my book FUCK YOU HEROES and now also appears in the MY RULES book.

A post shared by glen E. friedman Ⓥ (@glenefriedman) on Mar 6, 2019 at 9:01am PST

Jony Ive on the Authentic Pursuit of Excellence and Jerry Seinfeld on Coming Out as funny

from the New Yorker:

Jony Ive, Apple’s chief design officer, speaks with David Remnick about the art of focus and working with Steve Jobs.

When A 60-something Feminist Artist [Beat Down] Overgrown [Wannabe] Skaters

I make it clear over the years that the brand discussed in this article is on my shit list. In fact no one is allowed to come into one of my exhibitions if they are wearing anything with the name on their person or board. Nor will I photograph anyone no matter how talented if they are supporting this bullshit brand. They have stolen from me and other artists and friends. They are the antithesis of cool, they are SHIT.



from The CUT

I Think About This a Lot:
When a 60-Something Feminist Artist Dragged Overgrown Skaters
By Kat Stoeffel

The best insult I’ve ever heard came out of one of the most trivial news stories I’ve ever followed.

The story involves the cult skatewear line Supreme, in the years before it was fashion-relevant, back when it was just an expensive hobby for rich teens and cool dads.

Important historical context: Before Supreme partnered with Louis Vuitton, it ripped them off. In 2000, Louis Vuitton sent Supreme a cease-and-desist letter when their trademark showed up on skateboards. So did other entities whose logos Supreme used on hoodies and jackets, such as the NHL and the NCAA.

These days, Supreme doesn’t steal, it collaborates. But intellectual property theft is in its DNA. The white Futura on a red box logo is “inspired” by 72-year-old artist Barbara Kruger, who uses an identical text treatment to collage anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian maxims over 1950s advertising-style black-and-white photographs.

In May of 2013 — decades after Supreme started slinging T-shirts with a bootleg Kruger logo — Kruger made her opinion of Supreme known. The circumstances of this event involve in-group drama that is tedious to recount — an ouroboros of cringe. But the outcome was one of the sickest burns since “virgin who can’t drive,” so bear with me.

A rival clothing company run by young women was selling hypebeast parody items, beanies that said “Supreme Bitch” and the like. Supreme tolerated Supreme Bitch until they tried to trademark “Supreme Bitch,” at which point Supreme sued the makers of* Supreme Bitch for $10 million for stealing the logo Supreme stole from another woman. The whole thing made me want to look away. Thank god I didn’t, because Foster Kamer, an editor for Complex at the time, had the good sense to ask Kruger (the Ur-bitch?) for a comment.

Kruger’s response was a blank email with a Microsoft Word document attached, file name “fools.doc.” What fools.doc contained gave me the words to understand the Supreme v. Supreme Bitch feud. It also gave me the tools to analyze the many inconsequential imbroglios that would follow.

“What a ridiculous clusterfuck of totally uncool jokers,” Kruger wrote. “I make my work about this kind of sadly foolish farce. I’m waiting for all of them to sue me for copyright infringement.”

I think about fools.doc about once a week. The absence of digital niceties in Kruger’s statement sends a chill of awe down my spine. My own file names have since become tributes to its evocative brevity (bummer$$.xls, doneforever.pdf).

But mostly, I think about “what a ridiculous clusterfuck of totally uncool jokers,” because it is a perfect insult. Kruger didn’t call Supreme thieves or Supreme Bitch opportunists and, in her amusement and restraint, did more damage than the most hyperbolic flame war. Engaging with petty drama is a way of validating it. WARCOTUJ dismisses an entire situation without even bothering to differentiate the players.

Husband’s tribute to curvy wife sparks backlash?

Animal shelter slams Lena Dunham’s abused dog farewell post?

Ted Cruz staffer faves porn tweet?

You don’t need an opinion, all you need are eight words: “What a ridiculous clusterfuck of totally uncool jokers.” Repeat and keep scrolling.

WARCOTUJ is equally useful in one’s personal life. I think of it when a minor workplace conflict devolves into reply-all hell (“just jumping in here … ”) or when a party I wasn’t invited to turns into an Instagram photo shoot. I thought it of myself one recent Saturday morning, when I waited in line (in 90-degree heat with no cover) for an indie, luxury-candle sample sale.

On a deeper level, I love WARCOTUJ because it’s a feminist critique of Supreme. Supreme’s use of logos isn’t an earnest, Adbusters-style commentary or a clever fashion world send-up à la Comme des Fuckdown. Call it a ripoff, an homage, or a collaboration, Supreme’s style of straight-up appropriation is evasive. It’s a way of signifying something without actually coming out and saying anything.

Supreme relies on obscurity to retain an aura of cool — sending hypebeasts racing to prove they “get” its references. Kruger’s popularity, meanwhile, is a function of her legibility. Lines like “I shop therefore I am” and “Your body is a battleground” transform the appropriation of familiar images from a commentary for the benefit of other art-world insiders into something accessibly meaningful and politically powerful.

Kruger’s quotability feels inextricable from her being a woman artist. At least, it doesn’t strike me as a coincidence that so many prominent female artists — Kruger, Jenny Holzer, Tracey Emin — use text in their art. Or that after a female celebrity turns 50, she becomes a beacon of DGAF candor. If you can’t count on being heard, you can’t risk being misunderstood.

I don’t want to jinx it, but it does suddenly feel like they’re being heard. Holzer’s “Abuse of power comes as no surprise” has become a rallying cry in the art world’s reckoning with its own Weinsteins. Kruger, meanwhile, is headlining the performance-art fair Performa 17, and her pieces all seem designed to mimic Supreme. In addition to a Kruger “takeover” of a Lower East Side skatepark and a Kruger Soho pop-up shop (billed as a performance) with around-the-block lines and strict item limits, the MTA is releasing a limited-edition line of MetroCards printed with her provocative questions — a better version of a stunt Supreme pulled earlier this year.

So you can find me at one of the four subway stops said to have Kruger cards, waiting in line with all the other fangirls, trying all the machines, messing up your commute. You know what to do. Say to yourself — what a ridiculous clusterfuck of totally uncool jokers — and walk on by.

SUPREME: WE FOLD SHIRTS WELL

THIEVES OF CULTURE, MAKING SUCKERS OUT OF ANYONE WHO WEARS THEIR PRODUCT OR COVETS THE BRAND: SUCKERS



also from ARTSY : I Went to Barbara Kruger’s First-Ever Performance—and Left with a Skateboard

LOVE & HATE Automobiles the future

if there is one thing I have learned in my life from the concept drawings that i saw in the magazines as a kid that seemed unimaginable at the time, they eventually come true!

These few, similarly to the Mercedes clip i posted last year, are even more insane than the dream cars of my child hood, but they will probably happen sooner than we expect . . .









That said I have not owned a car for over 20 years, thankfully.

Living in NYC allows me the luxury of walking everywhere or using a pretty good MTA.

GEF

"School of Life" Monday's Watch and Listen This Week: Why Design Matters

Far from being some sort of luxury or add-on, good design is central to a good society. It changes how we feel and interact.

Photos: Auto sketches from Detroit’s golden era you were never meant to see

from PBS NewsHour:

The upcoming documentary “American Dreaming,” features the designers who worked in the styling houses of Detroit’s automakers from 1946 to 1973. Watch the trailer for the film, which does not have a release date, above. Video by Jim Toscano and Danny Gianino of Freeage Productions.

Norbert Ostrowski began designing cars during the golden age of the American automobile. For 30 years, he worked in the styling departments of Detroit’s iconic brands: Chrysler, General Motors, AMC. But his sketches no longer exist. Like most of the early-stage artwork created by America’s auto designers, they’ve been destroyed.

Enter art collector Robert Edwards. The lifelong car enthusiast has curated the most comprehensive showing of those designs, spanning from 1946 to 1973. The exhibit, “American Dreaming: Detroit’s Golden Age of Automotive Design,” opened last week at Lawrence Technological University in suburban Detroit.

Featured in the collection is one of Ostrowski’s early sketches of an AMC Matador that Edwards found for sale in Ann Arbor. Ostrowski, now 77, recognized it immediately, Edwards said.

“His exact words were, ‘how the heck did that get out?’”

The designs were never meant to leave the studios. Automakers routinely destroyed early sketches for fear they would fall into the wrong hands.

But some of them made their way out of Ford, GM and Chrysler, as well as now defunct Studebaker, Packard and AMC. According to one designer, they were smuggled out in boxes with false bottoms. One employee famously hid his sketches inside the liner of his trench coat. “As an artist, you would hate to see your artwork destroyed,” Edwards said.

(click to enlarge all images)



Now they exist in attics and garages in the homes of the artists and their relatives. That’s where Edwards finds them. He’s been collecting these “bootleg” sketches for years, buying them from estate sales all over Michigan.

He calls the artwork the story of mid-century modern design in America.

“The car is such a part of the American psyche,” Edwards said. “It’s possibly the most important industrial object ever created. It has touched everyone’s life.”



Exhibit co-producer Greg Salustro said the designs harken back to a time when America thought anything was possible.

“This is the age that America thought they could overcome racism, land a man on the moon, win the Cold War,” he said. “This exhibit reflects this unbridled exuberance that took place at the time.”

Aside from the exhibit, the two auto enthusiasts are also co-producing a documentary called “American Dreaming.” It features interviews with the men and women who influenced mid-century American design and shaped the way we remember the golden era of the automobile.

It’s also a love letter to Detroit.

“This is a Detroit story,” said Salustro. “It’s about how Detroit inspired a nation.”

Just as the automakers jumped back into production in 1946 after its years supporting the Allied forces, today Detroit is determined to rebound after decades of decline and an unprecedented municipal bankruptcy, he said. “We want Detroit to be proud of its artistic heritage.”

See more photos of the innovative artwork that escaped the shredder:



CLICK TO ENLARGE ALL ABOVE IMAGES w/ Captions too!

Captions by Robert Edwards. Learn more about the upcoming documentary “American Dreaming”: Americandreamingfilm.com. Here you can also find out how to support the film, which is not yet complete and does not have a release date.

Enjoy the Design Genius of Saul Bass

from Dangerous Minds





Over five decades Saul Bass designed opening title sequences that were sometimes better than the movies they introduced. His ambition he once said was to “make beautiful things even if nobody cares.”



Bass started out as a graphic designer and was asked by film director Otto Preminger to put together a poster for his movie Carmen Jones. Preminger was so impressed by the result that he asked Bass to design the opening titles. So began his 40-year career in movies. Bass went on to work with Preminger again on The Man with the Golden Arm and Anatomy of a Murder, he also designed titles for Alfred Hitchcock (Vertigo, Psycho), and Martin Scorsese (Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence and Casino).



Additionally, Bass designed the logos for a whole range of corporations and products and even had time to direct the cult science fiction movie Phase IV. As a designer he set a standard for other to follow, which is evident from this hour-long selection of his title work from 1955-1995.

Jonathan Ive in Conversation

He's the man.

The Internet of Things (video from NYTimes)

very interesting thoughts on simple uses of complicated technology.

271 Years Before Pantone, an Artist Mixed and Described Every Color Imaginable in an 800-Page Book

from ThisIsColossal.com by Christopher Jobson

In 1692 an artist known only as “A. Boogert” sat down to write a book in Dutch about mixing watercolors. Not only would he begin the book with a bit about the use of color in painting, but would go on to explain how to create certain hues and change the tone by adding one, two, or three parts of water. The premise sounds simple enough, but the final product is almost unfathomable in its detail and scope.

Spanning nearly 800 completely handwritten (and painted) pages, Traité des couleurs servant à la peinture à l’eau, was probably the most comprehensive guide to paint and color of its time. According to Medieval book historian Erik Kwakkel who translated part of the introduction, the color book was intended as an educational guide. The irony being there was only a single copy that was probably seen by very few eyes.

It’s hard not to compare the hundreds of pages of color to its contemporary equivalent, the Pantone Color Guide, which wouldn’t be published for the first time until 1963.

The entire book is viewable in high resolution here, and you can read a description of it here (it appears E-Corpus might have crashed for the moment). The book is currently kept at the Bibliothèque Méjanes in Aix-en-Provence, France. (via Erik Kwakkel)

The first non-leather glove ever used in major league baseball

from Carpenter Trade (the people who made my own incredible custom and cruelty free 100% vegan glove - see above and bottom).

Brian Gordon is the first player ever to use a non-leather glove in major league baseball. Ever since Doug Allison first wore a glove in 1870 all major league baseball gloves have been made with leather. Until now.

Gordon used this groundbreaking glove on June 16, 2011 as the starting pitcher for the New York Yankees against the Texas Rangers. Gordon converted to pitching after spending his first ten years as an outfielder. Now, in his 15th year of professional baseball, he has been brought up by the Yankees, having led AAA baseball with the lowest ERA of 1.14. His long journey gave him several years’ experience with gloves, and Gordon chose Carpenter as the best. He says of his Carpenter glove, “For the first time in my career I felt comfort and control on the field. I love it.” Gordon was born in West Point, NY and he is the only NY player using a glove made in NY.

The idea of a non-leather baseball gloves defies expectations of the traditional smell and feel of glove leather. However, synthetic materials have already been a growing trend for several years. Star players such as Roy Halladay and Alex Rodriguez have already been using gloves that have some synthetic parts. Synthetics offer greater strength than leather while also being remarkably lighter. Carpenter synthetic gloves average 10 ounces lighter than comparable leather gloves, giving players a considerable performance advantage where speed is essential. Carpenter gloves are the lightest gloves used in professional baseball today.

(photo © Rob Tringali)

"This is probably the first real innovation since the Wilson A2000 in 1957. The baseball glove has never seen a re-engineering like this before. Not only are the materials better and more practical, but never before has a glove been built specifically for one hand,” says Jason Friedman, a writer and moderator of the popular Glove-Works baseball glove forum.

This glove was made for Gordon by Scott Carpenter of Carpenter Trade Company in Cooperstown, NY. Carpenter’s alternative approach to his business is as unique as his innovative baseball gloves. The market is dominated by large corporate brands who have a tight grip on players who are paid to wear their logos. It is telling of the quality and performance of Carpenter gloves that so many professional players are refusing money from larger established brands to wear Carpenter gloves. Scott Carpenter has never paid players and has never done any advertising or marketing beyond his website: CarpenterTrade.com. He makes all Carpenter gloves himself. The baseball glove is an American icon; Carpenter is proud to be the only glove brand used in major-league baseball that has never imported, never outsourced, and has always produced their own gloves in the USA.

Scott Carpenter began his glove business in Cooperstown in 2001. Cooperstown is known for its history and for preserving the rich traditions of baseball. However, this is an account of a Cooperstown local breaking with tradition and pioneering a trend that will shape how baseball is played in the future.

Here's a great AP story about the big day, with additional pic's.

By the way... You want to inquire about buying one of these? Well you can't! This year Scott has changed his policy, and just as I acquired my latest personal glove, you can too by TRADE only no cash exchange for 2011, you make your offer and they will see how it works for them, and remember these gloves take a lot of time and are a labor of love, so be ready to give for what you get.

They Are Trying to Build A Pool In the River, and They Need Your Help.

Looks pretty cool to me...

"+ Pool is our initiative to build a floating pool for everyone in the rivers of New York City, and we need your help. With your support, we can make it possible to swim in clean, natural river water here in the city."

Here's the main web presence + POOL

And here on KickStarter

Old Telephone Books

Imagine a time when even phone books had interesting design to them, when it wasn't just about selling, but there was an aesthetic involved, that a designer or even a corporation actually tried contributing to culture with more than an Helvetica font (Not to take away from the incredible great cleanliness of helvetica and those designs built around it, but... ) These were cool even then.







I got this via Tara McGinley at DangerousMinds She says "It’s not like I’m some phone book enthusiast or anything, but these vintage designs over at Old Telephone Books are pretty great. The site touts being, “Possibly the world’s largest online collection of phone books.” I believe them. "

I Didn't Get This For Christmas

But i really wanted it!


Glass globe doorknob is a whole-room fisheye for the other side of the door.

Hideyuki Nakayama's glass globe doorknob refracts the scene on the other side of the door in its depths, giving you a preview of what's going on in the next room before you turn the knob.

here's the original story (via BoingBoing)

Future Currency: Redesigning The American Dollar

(Click on images to see full details)

Duncan Dowling has come up with some stylish concepts for redesigning American dollars. The vertical layout makes the money easier to handle because that’s the way paper currency is exchanged between people and machines.

You can read more about the project at Dowling’s website.

We have submitted a design concept to a competition being run by New York designer Richard Smith. The Dollar ReDe$ign Project hopes to bring about change for everyone. We want to rebrand the US Dollar, rebuild financial confidence and revive our failing economy.

Thanks, DangerousMinds

The Land Of Giants

The Land of Giants is a project by Choi + Shine Architects. The project transforms mundane electrical pylons into statues on the Icelandic landscape by making only small alterations to existing pylon design.

The pylon-figures can be configured to respond to their environment with appropriate gestures. As the carried electrical lines ascend a hill, the pylon-figures change posture, imitating a climbing person. Over long spans, the pylon-figure stretches to gain increased height, crouches for increased strength or strains under the weight of the wires.


Learn more about the project here.



thanks, Presurfer

Bamboo "Flow Lights" are Powered by the Wind!

from inhabitat.com

How do you create effective lighting when there’s no way to get to the grid? Leave it to a couple of ingenious designers to come up with a beautiful and self-sufficient bamboo lighting system! Designed by Ingendesign, the ‘Flow’ light is powered by constant prevailing coastal winds and is built to be almost completely biodegradable.

Expansive, dazzling and bustling during the day, the Colombian seaside quickly becomes a desolate and dangerous destination at night. The inability to channel electricity to the shore has created serious problems keeping beaches well-lit and safe past sun down.

Ingendesign’s ‘Flow’ light offers a self-sustaining public lighting solution that is based on the principle of vertical wind power plants. Taking the shape of a spiral, not only does the form make for a compelling aesthetic, but it is able to capture wind from any direction. Each of the blades’ tips have been incised angularly in order to project light downwards to passerbys and so that the motion can be seen at a distance. With light sources positioned at the ends of each of the wind blades, depending on the force of the wind, the play of light is abundant, ranging from continuous lighting to more deliberate waving movements.


In a simple construction made from bamboo and recyclable electronic components – LEDs, wires and dynamo – the lamp is relieved from any major eco-impact. Bamboo itself is one of the most ample and cheapest materials found in Colombia, and by using this as the base material, the lamps are almost completely biodegradable (sans the electronics) and can be locally sourced, making for easy manufacturability by the native population.

This spring, Ingendesign will start building 1:1 prototypes to be placed along Lake Balaton in Hungary, where wind-conditions are comparable to those along Colombian shores. If the tests are deemed successful, the team plans to install the lamps next summer.

New Biomass Plant for the UK Looks Like a Giant Green Volcano

The United Kingdom is splattered with fossil fuel based power plants and concrete cooling towers which are major carbon producers as well as eyesores. Luckily, plans for a new biomass power plant covered in native grasses in the UK have just been released and they will complement the surrounding ecology as well as decrease carbon emissions by 80% compared to coal or gas fired power stations. Designed by Thomas Heatherwick, a London-based firm, the 49.3 MW power plant located on the banks of the River Tees will be a man-made mountain covered in plants and will certainly be a welcome replacement to the older, pollution-spewing plants around the country.

Powered by palm kernel shells, which are the byproducts of palm oil plantations, the plant will reduce carbon emissions by 80% compared to traditional coal or gas fired stations. The palm kernel shells, considered a renewable fuel, will be delivered directly by boat, eliminating the need to haul the fuel by truck. The 49 MW plant will provide enough power for 50,000 homes, providing cleaner, lower carbon baseload power for the region. Inside, the power plant will also contain offices, a visitors’ center and an education resource center for renewable energy.

Built on a brownfield site next to the river, the BEI-Teeside plant will bring much needed investment to the area, as well as renew a currently barren plot of land. While similar plants are certainly not free of carbon emissions, this biomass plant is a step in the right direction and is one of the best looking power plants we’ve ever seen.

+ Heatherwick Studio

(from inhabit Via Dezeen)

One Laptop Per One Child - the next generation

Yves Béhar of San Francisco design studio fuseproject has unveiled plans for the third generation of the One Laptop Per Child project.

The latest version of the affordable computer – which will retail for an estimated $75 and which is called XO-3 – is a table-format device with a semi-flexible plastic screen.

The XO-3 is expected to ship in 2012.


See previous stories about the One Laptop Per Child project on Dezeen:
XOXO laptop (May 2008)
Yves Béhar wins Design of the Year award for One Laptop Per Child Project (March 2008)
One Laptop Per Child Charity Auction (December 2007)


Here’s some info from fuseproject:

Two years ago, around this time of year the One Laptop Per Child XO laptop was launched with Nicholas Negroponte. Now more than one million laptops have been distributed to children around the world to help further the mission of providing education and access to information for all… like in Uruguay where every public school child between 6 and 12 years old has one.

While the distribution of OLPC XO continues, today we and OLPC are presenting the XO-3 (http://www.fuseproject.com/#blogEntry79). Our new design features an all plastic tablet screen which is semi-flexible and extremely durable (compared to current glass screens which crack upon impact), and just like the original XO, the display can be optimized in both transmissive and reflective modes for indoor and outdoor lighting conditions. The XO-3 supports many use scenarios to fulfill kids’ learning needs: from horizontal book mode to portrait reading mode, to multi-touch, so many hands can play and learn together on the same screen, to a full-touch keyboard and a back facing camera.

from DeZeen design magazine

(Design genius) Jonathan Ive on The Key to Apple's Success...

from Business Week:

Jonathan Ive isn’t prone to making wild proclamations about design, his boss, Steve Jobs, or Apple, the company at which he’s led the design team since 1996. Indeed, he’s not really one for speaking in public much at all. So it was with a sense of keen anticipation that a group of 700 or so Londoners descended on the Royal Geographical Society in posh South Kensington to hear Ive in conversation with Sir Christopher Frayling, rector of the Royal College of Art.

During the hour-long chat, Ive touched on many themes and topics. The main takeaway for executives looking to try and copy Apple’s success? Don’t. Instead, Ive said forcefully and repeatedly, companies need to define their own clear, high-minded raison d’être. That should drive the actions and decisions of every employee, from the C-suite down.
For Apple, he outlined, the end game isn't commercial success. "Apple's goal isn't to make money. Our goal is to design and develop and bring to market good products," he explained. "We trust as a consequence of that, people will like them, and as another consequence we'll make some money. But we're really clear about what our goals are." This focus, he continued, has driven Apple to produce only a small number of high quality products. "We try not to bring out another product that's just different," he said. "'Different' and 'new' is relatively easy. Doing something that's genuinely better is very hard."

And while Ive was clearly careful not to point fingers or name names, he was critical of companies that continue to lay emphasis on "new" rather than "better," churning out products simply in order to survive, with no thought of the impact of such rampant production. "It never ceases to amaze me what it takes to develop and bring to mass production a product," he said. "If you don't care, it's just wrong to drag so many resources and so much of people's time through that process."

Ive also had bad news for anyone looking to foster a design or innovation-driven culture within an enterprise that doesn't at heart "get" it. Unless the disciplines are acknowledged and embraced as core values by every employee, they won't gain traction. "We don't have identity manuals reminding us of points of philosophy for why our company exists," he said of Apple's internal culture. "I'm sure those things are very well meaning, but if you have to institutionalize stuff, you end up chasing your tail." In other words, unless the commitment to innovation or design is authentic and heartfelt, rather than this month's short-term strategy to cater to a hot trend, it will be nigh on impossible to build a true, innovation-led culture (and emulate Apple's success.)

So what does Ive look for when interviewing would-be Apple designers? Belief, passion and a commitment to strive for perfection. "When I'm interviewing people to join the team, the discussions go like this: 'this was my idea, this is how it turned out in manufacturing, and it's rubbish, isn't it? But it isn't my fault'," he recounted wryly, before becoming serious. "There's a list of excuses and reasons why it was somebody else's fault other than the designer's. Now I understand that, I've been there, I've been frustrated beyond words with other companies when I was working independently. But when you've gone through a whole portfolio like that, at some point you have to say: 'if you really do care about the quality of what ends up getting made, wouldn't you find an answer, some sort of alternative, and somehow figure out a way to take your idea and do something with it?'" It was a great reminder that design is about much more than the studio and the drawing board. Designers need to be fully engaged in a company's overarching mission, and should be resolved to oversee every stage of a product's life cycle, from concept to shop shelf and beyond.

Ive's own commitment to the design process is precisely why, he said, if you don't like Apple products, then you and he have a problem. Well, he didn't put it exactly like that. In delicate Ive speak, this was, "We maybe would have a difference of opinion, but I can say it's that way because that's the way we wanted it to be. There's not an excuse." Now, I know Apple is too often touted as the poster child for successful design-led innovation, but really, how many other corporate design chiefs can make the same claim?