Archive for 2010

A friend of mine sent me the following interesting article on an effort to take a more scientific/analytical approach to the design and fabrication of wood baseball bats. Weirdly enough, one of the strangest elements of this article for me wasn’t the attempt to bring science and technology to bear on this problem. I actually think that’s inevitable. Rather it was the contention in this article that bats should be struck on the flat-grain instead of the end grain. WHAT???  When I was a kid we would regularly taunt kids who hit a bat held this way. Everyone knew that the bat would most likely shatter killing everyone within miles. Is nothing sacred? But I digress. Back to the wooden bat versus technology smack-down.

In general I find this sort of thing really fascinating – it speaks to the uneasy intersection that occasionally occurs between long-held traditions and emerging technical understanding. And it’s another example when technology is only one of many considerations in the specification of a product.

These intersections can really grate on the engineers. In the instance of Baseball’s major leagues alone – as those of you who are fans know – there is the delicious bedevilment that the bats must be made of wood. It’s a decision made with almost complete deference to the aesthetics, and tradition of the game (not withstanding some concern that composite bats used at the lower levels would actually be dangerous in the hands of free swinging MLBers). In a head-to-head comparison including ease of manufacture, durability, performance, cost and general safety wood would lose (say that three times quick).

Given their choice and absent rules and tradition to the contrary I suspect few if any few modern day engineers would elect to use wood in this application- a notoriously quirky and fundamentally unpredictable material.

In point of fact, with a few exceptions engineers have generally been successful in eradicating wood from most non-building related designs (tennis rackets, car bodies, golf clubs, airplanes – even pencils are increasingly hedging towards composites). It’s not that wood is necessarily a BAD material. Quite the converse – wood’s strength to weight ratio is superb and when cost is factored in you often can’t beat wood. It’s fairly plentiful – if responsibly managed it’s fully sustainable and wood offers a plethora of ancillary technical benefits. Oh by the way – in general wood can be beautiful as well. The problem – from an engineer’s point of view – is that wood is not particularly repeatable, predicable or homogenous. A fancy way for saying that the way in which wood performs under stress depends on a whole bunch of factors not always easy to understand or anticipate. And engineers tend to really hate unpredictability.

Of course wood has a host of other aesthetic and evocative benefits – as any of you who’ve ever heard the sound a baseball makes off an aluminum bat can attest. And in my opinion, in the right application, these should weigh as importantly as the purely technical considerations. I offer up wooden boats, roller coasters and even the MLB baseball bat as products where I’m happy to let tradition trump technology. I guess it just gives the engineers a slightly different canvas to paint on. Game on.

The much anticipated iphone4 went on sale Thursday, June 24 after much anticipation from the techno-savvy. But as shoppers rush to be the first to discard their seemingly ancient iphone predecessors, buyers and reviewers are pointing to a persistent problem.

It seems reception for the iphone4 can be impaired depending on how you hold the phone. The problem is perhaps due to an internal antenna that is embedded along the edge of the phone, directly under a user’s grip. Apple, the quintessential hallmark of innovation, responded, “Just avoid holding it in that way.” “That way” being the intuitive, fairly standard way to hold a cell phone. And, in an upsell worthy of any telemarketer working today, they recommend buying the iphone4 cover to reduce the interference, among other ideas.

It may be the ultimate karmic twist that in addition to CNN’s report
on the matter, Gizmodo (who found the iphone4 prototype) and Engadget (who posted the prototype photo) are sharing what looks to be the original email from Apple CEO Steve Jobs offering the advice, as well as Apple’s follow up clarifications.

Based on Jobs initial response, there appears to be a fine line between reinventing the user experience and vaudeville. His advice bears a striking resemblance to the tired classic: A guy goes into a Dr.’s office saying, “It hurts when I do this.” To which the Dr. replies, “So don’t do that.” Perhaps Apple has an amazing sense of humor with regard to their products and this is all a misunderstanding. Surely they are joking if they believe there’s no problem with the design, just the user’s hand.

As for advice regarding iterations of other Apple products, maybe Jobs will continue in this vein and fall back on comedy staple, “a man, a parrot and donkey all set off in a boat …” Forget the Worldwide Developers Conference, Jobs should be at the Bellagio. No doubt seats would sell out early.

This isn’t a very designerly post but I wanted to take a second comment on the sad passing of Manute Bol.

For those of you who are not familiar with semi-obscure former NBA athletes, Manute Bol was a freakishly tall Sudanese-born basketball player who played for a laundry list of NBA teams in the Mid ’80s. I love basketball and I’ve always had an affinity for Manute. At 6’4″ I’m sort of tall compared to many people. At 7’7″ Manute was in another zip code. He was coincidentally born a few weeks after me and I found myself watching his basketball career blossom as my own rec-league level game was fading to an inglorious close.

Manute Bol careened dramatically and unexpectedly onto the US basketball scene with more of a sense of bemusement than fanfair. It would be easy to characterize his career as a freak show / circus-like curiosity and many did. He was clearly not of our culture. Manute Bol loved to relay the story of how he once killed a lion with a spear while working as a cowhearder. Probably not going to hear that one from Lebron or Kobe. I’m just guessing.

Initially his complete lack of English combined with his skeletal frame, terrible scoring ability and incredible cultural differences made him the butt of jokes. Later the US warmed to him and at the end of his career he was a fan favorite. At one point the Bullets (Wizards now) paired him with 5’3″ Muggys Bogues making them the tallest and shortest players on the court. He was, by all accounts, a gentle giant – a quick wit and sly prankster.

His NBA career spanned 10 years and his numbers – aside from his shot blocking – were wholly unspectacular. 2.6 PPG, 4.2 rebounds. 19 minutes per game.

What made Manute truly special, however happened outside of the 94′ fantasy world we call a basketball court. Manute is reported to have spent virtually every penny he ever made on charitable causes related to his war-torn homeland. He tirelessly campaigned for human rights and peace in the Sudan trying to bring some stability to this sad place. He would do anything, anywhere at any time to raise money or awareness… he boxed William the Refrigerator Perry in exchange for an agreement from Fox to broadcast the telephone number to charity he established for refuges. Even though he couldn’t skate, he signed a one-day contract to play Hockey to raise money for Children of the Sudan.

He was a man that reached across a huge cultural divide into my heart and made me value the common threads of humanity that bind us all. I’ve often wondered if I found myself in his size 16 shoes – lifted from a place of tremendous poverty, strife and tragedy – and given unimaginable riches in new world playing a game I love – if I would never look back. Yet Manute Bol is a man who never looked forward. Never forgot and never gave up. For this I deeply admire him.

Manute Bol passed away last week at the age of 47 from a disease he most likely contracted while on a humanitarian mission in Africa. Basketball may have given Manute Bol to us – but Manute gave us so much more. The world has lost a fine human being and I am saddened.

Each year, Design Concepts hosts internship opportunities for students interested in the field of design. This year, we’re welcoming four talented individuals (some current students, some recent graduates) with skills in strategy & research, industrial design and graphic design. They’ll work on every aspect of client projects as well as projects internal to the firm.

In addition to project work, this year’s interns will complete a research project for Design Concepts’ exploring the decision making process. Their completed project will articulate the motivation and process behind the choices we make and will guide the company’s thinking on future projects and client work.

We feel fortuante to have them here, and just had to ask: How did we get so lucky? Why did you choose an internship at Design Concepts?

Pictured (from left to right)

Jarod Beukelman
BFA, Savannah College of Art and Design, Industrial Design
Design Concepts was not just another industrial design firm ornamenting useless objects with plastic. Rather they seemed to really value the holistic design process to solve problems that better people’s lives.

Vivian Lin
Current candidate for AAS in Mechanical Design Technology at Madison Area Technical College (MATC)

PhD, Linguistics (MIT)
MA, Linguistics (SOAS, University of London)
BA, Linguistics (Harvard)
I loved the energy of the people I’d met, and I was drawn by the company’s philosophy and culture. I also felt that the people at Design Concepts were offering me a tremendous opportunity to learn, as well as contribute. I want to help design cool stuff, too!

Jake Ruesch
Herzing University, Graphic Design
I loved the atmosphere, people, projects and the potential for personal growth.

Nick Remis
Savannah College of Art and Design, Industrial and Service Design
I chose an internship with Design Concepts because they use a wide variety of methodologies and disciplines to create innovative strategies, concepts and products for a wide range of clients and fields.

It has been gut-wrenching watching the BP oil spill tragedy unfold in the gulf and my heart goes out to the residents of this area who are facing the prospect of their lives and livelihood being forever changed.

From a purely technical perspective I’ve tried my best to reserve judgment and dispassionately ponder the appropriate allocation of fate and blame. Clearly there are some disturbing revelations and allegations concerning corner cutting and risk taking. At the same time, I fully understand deep water undersea drilling is undoubtedly an incredibly complex undertaking which exists in some part to support our societies’ lifestyle – not to mention the jobs of countless workers in the chain leading from the gulf sea floor directly to my car’s gas cap.

I am reminded of Henry Petroki’s brilliant book - “to engineer is human”. In it, Petroski – a civil engineer by training – speaks of the roll of failure in successful design and eloquently reminds us that all technical human progress involves risk. And while risk begets failure – often spectacularly or tragically – these failures provide a unique opportunity to advance our understanding, knowledge, and practice in a way not easily duplicated through success.

Through all of recorded history – and undoubtedly before, there have been a litany of terrible tragedies – the Tacoma Narrows Bridge , the sinking of the Titanic, the explosion of the space Shuttle Endeavor, the sinking of the Valdez, Hurricane Katrina, Hyatt Regency Tragedy and now sadly the BP gulf spill.

Predictably, and perhaps appropriately, certain individuals will rise up to offer castigation, place blame and seek retribution. Conversely – there are others that will claim fate, misfortune, inevitability or just plain bad luck provide allowances and shrug these occurrences off as “just one of those things”.

Meanwhile, time has shown that though each of these tragedies, yet a third group of individuals will thoughtfully seek deep understanding through careful study, analysis, reflection and use this understanding to refine designs, policies and regulations. Ultimately I believe it is this response – far more than denial, excuses or witch hunts and political posturing – that leads to true benefit and progress.

The Tacoma Narrows gave us safer bridges. The Titanic gave us lifeboat regulations, the Valdez gave us double-hulled tankers and the oil spill prevention act, Katrina may rebuild the levies. It’s possible the BP Gulf tragedy – as painful as it is – will undoubtedly give us safer undersea drilling and may yet be a catalyst to a more sustainable energy policy based on renewable and environmentally responsible technologies.