In October, four designers from Tétro Design in Winnipeg had the opportunity to attend the 2007 Design Thinkers conference in Toronto. Paul and Andrea Tétrault, Fiona Lamont, and Jessie Turner filled their heads with ideas and inspiration for two solid days, while desperately trying to find a good plate of nachos to share.


As if being beautiful isn’t hard enough, design is supposed to be smart too. Design Thinkers is an annual conference held in Toronto that explores, challenges, celebrates, fondles and kicks about design’s less-talked-about sensible side. The side that carries a slide rule, worries about things like web analytics, cultural anthropology and economics. Don’t get me wrong, there was a whole lot of the usual show and tell, but it was to illustrate larger points, for larger purpose.

The two day conference was jam packed with eight keynote speakers, and three smaller sessions which were divided into four streams: inspiration, trends, strategies and interactions, the latter of which involving panel discussions on various topics. All attempted in some way to address what really matters to designers (besides trying to find a spot for lunch in busy downtown Toronto).

Things got underway early with design wunderkind Stephan Sagmeister. (One has to wonder how on earth he manages to speak at every single design conference held across the entire planet…he must have a jet). Sagmeister described how his firm recently decided to balance the content of work they do into four equal parts: one quarter music related, one quarter socially responsible (he’s currently soliciting donations towards the purchase of an 8 million dollar blimp), one quarter corporate and the final quarter personal. The last quarter is somewhat comprised of the fruits of his now infamous year off, where he developed a list of 20 things he has learned in his life. These things are not haughty, academic maxims that are carved into marble. Quite the contrary. For example, one of the things he learned was “Complaining is silly. Either act or forget.” I must admit I had my mind made up to not like him. I had chalked him up to be another design rock star full of his own importance and unable to relate to the 99% of us who’s life is nothing like his. But instead I found myself charmed by his sincerity and honesty, and his wonderfully simple way of telling the whole world to fuck off.

Patrick Whitney was up next, with no doubt enough little letters behind his name to fill a soup bowl. Whitney’s presentation explored the power shift from producers to consumers, ie. the push to pull economy, which has created the incredible glut of choices we both adore and despise. The world has moved from “give them any colour they want, as long as it’s black”, to a global market where manufacturers can make anything, but have no idea what to make. He attributes this malfunction to the fact that our patterns are harder to track, making it more difficult to know what people want. He suggests the first two questions companies need to ask themselves are “where are we going to play” and “how are we going to win”. He noted that design isn’t enough to win. You must also make good business decisions. So how are companies going to know what to put into the marketplace? How do they know what to make? Through understanding user experience (physical, cognitive, social, cultural, emotional) and creating relevant business strategies. A chewy session to be sure… speaking of which, when’s lunch?

On a lighter note, the jaunty Brit Garrick Hamm (Williams Murray Hamm) complained about design karaoke, ie. the all too common practice of bad impersonations of someone else’s original idea. He talked about the importance of originality in our work, which is easy when you work honestly with your client. So many briefs are the same, with companies using the same adjectives to describe themselves. In order to differentiate your client, they must be forced to identify and distill what it is about them that is different from their competitors. Certainly not rocket science here, but much more difficult in practice than in theory. Hamm also (to the delight of every designer in the room) encouraged us to not let go of the details. The last 5% of most projects is the most important part. It’s sometimes the difference between good work and great work. He gave the example of a product package they designed for a client that referenced a domino. The client wanted to make it blue instead of black. A small change when you think of it, but it would have destroyed the fundamental idea behind the package. They stood their ground and now the package isn’t just good, it’s great.
 
I thoroughly enjoyed the next session with Alexander White, an extremely charismatic speaker, who also happens to be the president of the Type Directors club in New York, as well as a teacher at Parsons and managing director of his own consultancy firm. He stressed the importance of not only doing great work, but also having the ability to sell it to our clients. Great work must be relevant, it must be interesting, it must have stopping power. White compared the way we work today, all of us with the same computer programs and stock photos and fonts, with cooking with frozen food. We’re all using the same ingredients and ending up with the same results. He argued that selecting a font is not an act of creativity and urged, no, more like insisted, that we get off our butts, and off our computers, and do something interesting and excellent. Then get agreement on its excellence from your client. This is much more easily done by defining the problem at the outset of the project, and making sure every design decision you’ve made is not only defendable, but inevitable. Let them know that design is not a random process. I spent the rest of the conference trying to confront Mr. White to challenge some of his ideas. Alas it wasn’t meant to be, but I bet it would have been a good fight.

Abbott Miller has the distinction of being a Partner in the New York office at Pentagram. I had very high hopes for this presentation, and came away with a head full of wonderful images, but no notes of particular interest. He talked about the Eames bent plywood chair, fruit bowls (from the sublime to the ridiculous), and Sigmund Freud. Perhaps I was dozing at the beginning and failed to understand the focus or point, but despite being a bit lost, appreciated the witty delivery and interesting subject matter. The highlight was his fascinating exhibit work for the Freud museum in Vienna, which led the audience through the apartment above where Freud grew up. Miller and his team used a raised platform floor throughout the apartment with items exhibited in recesses in the platform, creating the reverse effect of a traditional exhibit where items are raised.

Ending the first day was anthropologist Grant McCracken, who discussed the relevance of culture to designers. Now this was a very thick way to end the day, and felt very much like a university lecture (not surprising given the fact that McCracken has lectured at Harvard, among many other notable scholarly endeavors). He observed the decentralization of culture, and the practice of commerce of “pirating” culture by employing “cool hunters”. He noted the power of imperfection and pourousness as a design signature in a world where everyone is a producer. One can see example of this with the new exterior of the Royal Ontario Museum, which used to look like a shoe box, and now looks like a space ship. This astonished McCracken, who as past director of the ROM noted the previous “culture of no” that not so long ago would never had let this happen. This animated speaker was so excited by his topic, it was hard not to be pulled in. He was desperate for questions at the end of his talk, but I’m afraid he may have intimidated the crowd to the point of dumbness. I for one searched my overloaded brain for something to ask him, anything with some semblance of intelligence, but had to suffice instead with the wonderful endorphin high one usually gets from intense physical activity.

The organizers had planned a little “Think n’ Drink” for the evening at the appropriately named “Shmooze” club nearby. Unfortunately, it wasn’t much of a shmoozy crowd, with most folks clustered around tables in shy little groups. We did have the opportunity to hobnob with illustrator Alana Cavanaugh, whose delightful work has appeared in Real Simple magazine, The New York Times, and campaigns for VISA and The Four Seasons Hotel. We bonded over a common love of handbags, shoes and New York, while sipping our expensive cocktails and nibbling Samosas. I also had the opportunity to briefly meet the maker of “Helvetica”, Gary Hustwit, to whom I was able to complain that we had missed the film’s only showing in Winnipeg, as well as the simultaneous showing in Toronto, as we had been in an airplane somewhere over Wawa en route to the conference. He seemed unmoved, but did offer a promotional postcard as consolation.

The next day started with another designer cum rockstar, Karim Rashid, who stood out from the black clad crowd in a stunning iridescent pink suit. I was thrilled! Rashid has designed for Prada, Umbra, Miyake and Method, bringing his unique vision of the material world to the masses. He boasts an impressive portfolio of more than 2,000 objects, and has designed everything from garbage cans to luxury hotels. Contrary to what you may think about a man who looks more like a European socialite than prolific industrial designer, Rashid does not see design as a styling exercise, but rather a way of freeing ourselves from the archetypes of the past and shaping a future that keeps up with today’s alarming rate of heightened human experience. He urged us to liberate ourselves from other’s work, and find our own unique fingerprint in order to make real change. This is something that has obviously worked very well for Rashid himself, who is now exploring the possibilities of the virtual world. And I bet it’s going to be a pretty cool place if he has anything to do with it.

Designer and filmmaker Hillman Curtis has designed websites for Yahoo, Paramount, and Adobe. But apparently dream jobs like those weren’t quite enough to keep this creative’s juices flowing, so he decided to push himself by pushing things out of the way. Once those “things” were moved, he began dabbling in video portraits, which are exactly what they say: portraits of people captured on video. They are disarming, as the subjects are silent and still, and you feel you are looking at a photograph until you detect the slightest movement, then, unexpectedly, a blink. Next he created a lovely piece entitled “Rapture”, which documents various dancers in sequences of movement that speak of longing, and… well… rapture. Curtis stressed the importance of having a plan, and setting boundaries for oneself when pursuing artistic endeavors. Fellinni once said that “left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all". One of his video subjects, filmmaker Mark Romanek, suggested the notion of leaving your audience with an unanswered question. After all, a broken chair is more interesting than a not-broken one. Something I think holds true in design, and perhaps life in general.

Marc Gobé is President, CEO and Executive Creative Director of international branding firm Desgrippes Gobé. He brought the company from Paris to New York in 1985, and since then the firm has exploded with offices around the world and a client list that reads like the “who’s who” of dream clients: L’Oreal, Motorola, Peugeot and Montblanc to name a few. For a big wig designer from a mucky muck international firm, Gobé spoke plainly and passionately about his work. He’s really into “Brandjamming” these days, which is, like the name suggests, a fluid and creative “coming together” of thoughts, ideas, and culture into a groovy mixing pot, resulting in an exciting and relevant brand experience. He suggests that effective brands provide a 360 degree emotional experience, and move from the realm of commodity to sensory. He also suggests that people do not believe in advertising anymore, and that design is the new advertising (something, as a designer, I was enormously pleased to hear). Other random bits of wisdom I will share willy nilly. “People need to feel and believe your conviction in the design you create” (Christopher Bangle from BMW said that). And you must fight for what you believe. Celebrate the power of collaboration by bringing out the inner designer in management (I’m not so sure about that one, but what do I know). And finally, talk to brick. Architect Louis Kahn once said “I asked brick what it wanted to be, and it said arch.” I’m not sure what that means really, but it sure sounded good.

Finally, the conference ended with a rousing presentation by Greg Hoffman, Vice President of Global Brand Design at NIKE. As a runner, I was very enthusiastic about this presentation. He spoke about the 10 maxims that the NIKE design team (which is 600 strong, give or take) uses to keep themselves focused. These maxims range from inspirational “make it personal” to nostalgic “leverage the legacy” to pragmatic “obsess function”, showing examples the whole while in product design, advertising, packaging and store environments. Sounded and looked great, I was in! But at the end of the presentation, we all realized we had been a captive yet willing audience to a full hour NIKE commercial. I admit I felt a bit duped, so to make myself feel better, I went out the next day and bought myself a shiny new pair of Asics.

Overall the conference was well attended, well organized, and represented a broad and interesting range of topics, of which I’ve only touched upon. Never underestimate the power of recharging your battery by standing up and looking around. Not only will you see and learn and experience, but you will take note of the things you might be doing wrong, could be doing better, or are doing pretty well thank you very much. We had the opportunity to hear from some of the best brains in the business, and more importantly got the chance to hang out together in one of the biggest cities in the world. But damned if we could find a decent plate of nachos.

Andrea Tétrault, MGDC is a past president of the Manitoba Chapter and a partner in graphic design and strategic branding firm Tétro Design located in Winnipeg.

Designthinkers is an annual conference produced by RGD Ontario. For more information on the conference visit designthinkers.com.