Super D

Having been born in what was considered by most people at the time to be the mythically frozen wasteland of Alaska–which was in fact, the far northern territorial outpost of America–I grew up with a soft spot in my heart for the story of Superman and his flight from the crystalline icescapes of Krypton.

Eventually, I fell for all the superheroes … I guess most of us do. Even after I became a designer, I held the classical design heroes in high regard though I seemed separated from them by more than wrinkles in time. I never really thought of them as real people; even those like our own WDT. I never thought about what I would really talk with them about, if I ever had the chance.

But I’m re-thinking what superheroes could mean to me now, especially since I’ve had the chance to chat briefly with a group who will be leading the dialog at this year’s annual APDF Exchange Conference in Gotham City. Yes, I have some new heroes, and even Lois Lane will get a run for her money with this lot!

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Good ole fashion fun seems kinda dangerous

Yesterday while Stella (my mini-dachshund) and I were taking an evening stroll in the lovely Seattle spring weather we came across something pretty neat; two kids, about yea high, 8-years old maybe, rocking a couple o’ pogo sticks.

I’m pretty familiar with the 80’s hit, pogo ball, but I’ve actually never seen a real pogo stick. Seemed like a good opportunity to get a closer look.

I asked the kids to explain how it worked; even though it’s obvious, I like the way kids put things together—breathless they began to tell me simultaneously that “you have to boing on the stick to get it to bounce on the spring and then you lean like this to make it move up the street, or down, if you want to go down—which is faster.”  Genius! The pogo stick is functional fitness at it’s very best.

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APDF Exchange: A meeting of minds

In less than 30 minutes my new APDF pals solved every PR dilemma I currently have. Okay so the solving part might require a bit more work on my end, but the statement is generally solid, solid gold in fact.

Teague is a longtime ADPF member, but this is the first time I’ve been lucky enough to join the dialog, and may I just say, wowza!

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I’d like the Teenwolf please, with a side of fries

Right now I’m sandwiched between Teenwolf and a gal that literally makes french fries for a living. Oddly, I’m completely at ease. I’m even a little curious. What really goes into making a french fry? How many fries can you cut in an hour? What type of potato is the gold fry standard?…

But I’m not here for the fries. Today I’m in training; I’m here to learn what it takes to communicate with a lil diplomacy and a whole lot o’ tact.

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Two questions

Can a machine change the world?

In the early 1900’s Henry Ford pioneered the economies of scale and developed an assembly line to crank out millions of Model T’s.  America, and quite possibly the world, hasn’t been the same since.

The Model T not only revolutionized transportation and industry, it helped to create a new middle class that could actually afford to purchase the goods it made.

In addition to mass production and the assembly line, the Model T standardized the left hand steering wheel, enclosed engine and transmission, a solid block casting for the engine and semi-elliptic springs for the suspension.

The Model T truly changed the world.  Nice Job Henry!

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Size matters, if you let it

Right now I’m in Australia judging the Australian International Design Awards. While here I noticed one of the things we tend to lose sight of is the comparatively small size of the Australian domestic market, 21m people—compared to 300m in the US and 61m in the UK. Add to that the relative isolation of Australia (10 hours flight from Shanghai, 14 from Los Angeles, 18 from London) and you end up with a pretty small potential market size. As you know, low volume production imposes all sorts of constraints on the design process; manufacturing techniques are vastly more limited and likewise material selection is significantly reduced. Naturally you might assume these constraints result in lower quality products, and sometimes they do, but not always.

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There’s a matchmaker among us

With an impressive 100% success rate, Teague’s Wayne Yutani might just be the best matchmaker in the whole world. Take that Patti Stanger! To date, Wayne’s made at least a dozen matches for Teague designers+, all resulting in happy, long-term, committed relationships.

When you’re ready, truly ready, to get your hands on a hard body—-call Wayne Yutani.

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