Today I learned about...

They say you learn something new every day. I think it's neat to archive that one thing.

[todayilearnedabout]

Tatjana Leblanc on Design and Materials for Tomorrow’s Cities

Last week, a conference on circular economy took place within the university of Montreal where Professor Tatjana Leblanc - recent winner of The Best of The Best 2016 Red-Dot award – spoke on behalf of Design; it’s relationship with new technologies and the urban landscape. She began with a poignant allusion to the design mindset: Don’t ask a designer to build a bridge, ask him rather how to cross the river. She then described the crucial steps to a successful project. Her approach brings research driven design to the forefront with a simple but comprehensive checklist for any designer and design project:

Research Driven: how research and new methodologies inform design

Human-Centered: Start by human research for the people, for the community

Problem/Need: Research provides information on the problem and informs of a potentially deeper conflict.

Conditions: Atmospheric and Societal Considerations

Technology: Reflection of the era we live in.

 She expressed that the best way to study tomorrow’s cities is to Live it! Using Montréal as her case study and its shameful reputation as an eternal construction site, a breakdown of this sense of entrapment became clear as the problem was studied. A huge incongruence between the lifespan of their utilities (aqueduct, piping, electricity) and the systems and materials that house them meant that while the lifespan of concrete sidewalks is 40 years, the utilities buried below them last only 4. An island made up essentially of hills, moisture, and jittery soil subject to hot, humid, +45 degree temperatures in June and frigid -45 degree in the dead of winter somehow continues to make use of unsuitable materials for the job. While the adopted processes can prove efficient for some regions in the world, in Montreal, this approach produces hundreds of construction sites all over the city every year, affecting the quality of life of every citizen - driven or pedestrian, inhabitant or tourist - alike. Her research on urban landscapes and design brought her to an essential conclusion: Nature is going to happen, man-made objects are no match to the intrusive power of our flora, and there’s nothing we can do to avoid it. The question then becomes How can our human relationship with nature influence urban infrastructure. Case studies on the matter suggest reinterpretations of concrete and the way we treat is as a monolith. Instead, she suggests we accept and integrate nature into the process and engineer new materializations of concrete in the urban landscape while considering organic matter, but not only as a natural occurrence, but by truly calculating its value into the design equation. This means seeing the city as a living breathing form and adorning nature into its breath. Less poetically, it means calculating CO2 emissions and relating them back to concrete and plant absorbency, looking at existing run-off and drainage system statistics and shifting nature from an intrusive weed to a beneficial contributor to improved human health.

Tomorrow’s cities need to embrace nature, it’s been here longer than us, and will absolutely survive much longer still. It’s an essential and intrinsic part of our lives; Why not learn, as contemporary, post-industrial-revolution, eco-considerate designers how to reintroduce nature into our urban landscape.

Read More on Tatjana Leblanc and her work @ GRAD.umontreal.ca

[todayilearnedabout]

RCA: Your Gold is Chipping

To a mass public, both academic and professional prestige is associated to institutions like Harvard, Yale or Cambridge. In design, the RCA - Royal College of Art - has the longstanding reputation of towering over other graduate institutions. The Harvard of art and design, so to speak. If life were a derby, historically, RCA and their hand-picked selective, well scrutinized bets have been placed on some of the most performing horses. They’ve cashed out with Design stallions like James Dyson, Jasper Morrison or Thomas Heatherwick (links below). Consequently, their superior vetting has created a reputation that allows its students into exclusive doors otherwise closed. Today, RCA continues to rank #1 in the world, but a new reputation has formed around them in recent years. In 2014, the British government slashed funding in most all academic institutions. Later in the year and 2015, the changes adopted by the RCA provoked students and professors to perform a walk out. The school was transforming, and students sensed the quality freefalling. Research and development is now conducted under a privatized umbrella, prospective projects like introducing Ford into the African continent. Many new programs, courses and degrees have emerged. International students, and their full price, non-subsidized tuitions flooded the halls. After speaking to a few recent graduates, the shift was clear, above all else, RCA was transforming into a money-making machine. An alum recounted his mixed emotions as he stepped into his own exhibition to find a full scale sponsored Jeep taking center stage in the room.

It felt dishonest, it felt impure.

The sense of impurity is now what plagues their reputation: The best students are still selected, but based on national, EU and international quotas. Programs house more students and additional campus has caused a rift in the sense of community between disciplines. It’s no longer possible to run up the stairwell to a photoshoot, down a floor into pottery and down another to find 3D projections filling the room.

All the while, RCA’s motive are clear: funding has stopped and they need to continue to survive, and thrive. Though it’s important to question what this will do on the long term, it’s also very important to understand how they’re selected as #1, how will the conversation shift with private companies as a larger and larger pool of students graduate, how will the sense of exclusivity evolve and how will the design community perceive the changes. Most importantly, what effects will these new realities play as young extravagantly gifted designers prospect the idea of graduate studies? While RCA may continue to select the best and strongest students, will their new approach muddy the once pristine flow that coursed from the studios.

James Dyson: https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-Dyson

Jasper: https://www.jaspermorrison.com/

Thomas: http://www.heatherwick.com/

[todayilearnedabout]

Ageism and Design

During the past year, I’ve developed a thesis in industrial design working on integrating user identity into medical products. Through this, the topic of ageing and the stigma associated with medical devices has become a definite point of interest in my practice. While an ageing demographic continues to grow globally, healthcare seems to neglect the emotional proponents in assistive devices. While many designers share this opinion, different claims are made as to the means of addressing the incongruence between ageing, the ageing population and the products and services tailored to them.

 The work by Glen Hougan seeks to address the problem of ageism in design. Ageism, as he describes, is now associated with prejudicial attitudes towards old age, older people and the ageing process. The challenge he identifies in changing the dialogue stems from the ageist beliefs still prevalent in the design process and designers which manifests in product semiotics and the visual dialogue they project. His solution first highlights and removes ageist narratives that plague the design process and replaces them with the proposal of dignity through design.

 I agree to say there is a very prevalent ageist narrative, especially in western society. Western campaigning associates beauty to youthfulness. Sex still sells, but more specifically, young, beautiful, active, age-defying sex sells. Even the terminology associated to ageing refers not to the next step in life, but the final step (i.e. Retirement). Evidently, societal constructs have defined old age as abrupt, unattractive and survivalist. In the medical field, these attributes seem to define the looks and feel of assistive technologies (walkers, wheelchairs, orthoses, …) that address physical shortcomings brought on by ageing. In addition, these utilitarian semiotics instilled into medical products expand onto most, if not all adult demographics. From this, I believe Hougan’s hypothesis assumes that low user adoption is directly affected by an individuals ageist beliefs. All the while, I would say the root of low adoptions rates is not specifically ageist prejudice, but rather the societal perception of inability.

 To explain, I do acknowledge the correlation between ageism and assistive products, however, I would specify that ageism touches upon two very different human factors. A first, is Hougan’s point that the stigma is associated to the ageing process in oneself. Though a second encompasses the reactions provided by others onto oneself from the loss of abilities (mobility, cognitive function, …). It is this subset of ageism that I believe dissuades all potential users amongst every possible demographic from benefiting from medical assistive products and services.  To expand, interviews conducted with potential users of medically assistive devices suggests a correlation between self-confidence and ability. One subject expressed “I’m looking for a job and I’d never walk into an interview with a leg orthosis, they would never hire me”. My personal hypothesis, based on Hougan’s work and my personal research would assume that low user adoption is a consequence of an individuals self-confidence affected by society’s perception of reduced abilities.

 Later I will expand on the idea of dignity with respect to ageing in design.

[todayilearnedabout]

Graphic design, where it was thought to be.

Today, Graphic design is seen in many ways. For the public, a graphic designer is more often than not brought into a project in complement to an advertiser, or publicist. They generate an image that’s efficient and symbolic to the target audience. As an industrial designer, often times, we perceive graphic designers in the same way. Recently, I’ve questioned where they stand in the world and how they see themselves. The book Looking Closer, a collection of essays by some of the most influential graphic designers has definitely redefined the way I perceive the field. Written in the nineties, it essentially explains the teenage years of the domain. Young, naïve, angry, rebellious; it shows how graphic design and designers alike have many opinions of themselves and question what it was all really about. Many fought to have others understand that graphic designers are more ‘Specialized fine artists’. That graphic design, in the eyes of modernists, should never be influenced by drawing, and collage is the only acceptable form of expression. Earlier, the birth of typographic variations pushed designers to review, reinvent and explore typography. I say this as though they found it a vocation, though most designers at the time were actually insulted by the notion that 26 letters and a select amount of visual identities (typefaces) could express visual ideas as the industry of print progressed. For example, many of Hoffman’s works were magnificently reviewed and reframed type that powerfully expresses curiosity: Often having nothing to do at all with the subject matter other than the first letter of the advertisement.  Graphic design today is seen as corporate, the challenge now is to try and evaluate what they were, where they came from and see if graphic design today is a unanimous transition, or simply an era of repeating what worked, playing on nostalgia and waiting for another wave of Beirut’s, Hoffman’s and Vignelli’s.

us av�3۫�,5

[todayilearnedabout]

The 4 consumer profiles

Every brand, like most cakes, has the same main ingrendients. The most important is getting the fractions right on how much of everything you need. Otherwise, you may find yourself with a rock hard pancake, or with a brand similar to Jimmy Choo, trying to push your 700$ product like Wal-Mart on black Friday. The ratios just aren’t right. And though people are individuals with autonomous thought, consumer group trends can be clearly identified and categorized into four main families.

Group 1: the connoisseur

This profile is passionate about the product, they’re often better versed in the brand and lifestyle than most staff in the company. They do more than follow it like a trend, they live the culture wholeheartedly. They focus on the quality of the essence of the brand and live by it’s exact, or very similar values.

Group 2: the individualist

What your company or brand projects coincides perfectly with their lifestyle. It isn’t about how they grow with you, but how you reflect their beliefs at that time in their lives. They may not know your backstory or values, but know what you mean to them.

Group 3: the recognized

They sport your look similarly to group 2, though may still find themselves represented in select parts of your values. Your brand, along with others this profile associates with, is deemed superior to other brands. This does not however mean that yours is better quality or more expensive, simply that yours is what they believe others find better fom their point of view and scope of values. Most importantly, they do not necessarily reflect your values or know anything about you, but are especially aware of what you mean to others.

Group 4: the ostentatious

This profile is strongly associated with hyper-consumerism. They find a value (monetary, cultural, trending) and consume as much of it as possible. Often, they reflect one part of your values and want to acquire as much of it as possible.

Image source: http://www.mobilephones.com/articles/stereotypical-iphone-shoppers/

[todayilearnedabout]

Questioning Everything and Seeing Into The Future

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN COMPANIES TAP INTO YOUR UNCONSCIOUS/AUTOMATIC SELF TO INFLUENCE THE DECISIONS A CONSCIOUS YOU MAKES.

Often, you should ask yourself why; but not simply Why is this like this but more Why am I doing this. Everyone considers they make their own decisions and it is true, but those are choices we make consciously. Otherwise, through a series of intuitive, repeated or primal instincts, our body makes unconscious decisions, especially to do our brain a favor and leave place for the conscious ones. In designing a new product, it can be extremely beneficial to capitalize on instincts to create a more positive, captivating or memorable experience.

Let’s take a look at Starbucks and some of their approaches. First is entry into the space. As you walk in, you’ll know the line begins in the back of the store, but how is that instinctive? In most cases, there isn’t a clear sign that explicitly points in the right direction. They make use of lighting and object curiosity. Their lines always begin to form beside a very well-lit display of products:  High quality mugs, peculiar foods and various promo products for around the home or on-the-go.­ This touches upon two things; the light at the end of the tunnel or human photosynthesis and the consumer driven curiosity of seeing, learning and touching things (the one thing our body craved so much as a child that our parents can’t stop us from doing anymore). Additionally, setting the line up to begin at the back of the store traces a line through Starbucks customers already enjoying drinks, eating snacks and taking in the experience; a human approach to unveiling the products and removing the stigmas of the unknown. As you approach the counters, you’ll notice an additional ledge along the entire counter; this creates continuity of the whole experience and invites you to maintain a connection with the baristas and their space (think about the satisfaction and ease of mind as you walk into a restaurant with an exposed kitchen: it creates honesty and builds a relationship). Additionally, look at the espresso machines next time you go in, you’ll notice that eye contact is maintained because of the height of the machines. In fact, Howard Shultz (ceo of Starbucks) recalls how they actually replaced their new, taller machines and reconfigured new stores to assure the visual connection between the consumer and barista. Finally, after you’ve gotten your super yummy (480 calories, but I digress) venti, no foam, lactose-free matcha green tea latte, you’ll still see advertisements on your way out. After all, Starbucks is a repeat based business, they NEED you to come back to thrive as a company. It’s in their best interest to inspire you with more delicious images of other products. Consciously, you won’t feel attacked or harassed by them because you feel like you’re a part of the whole experience, at least, until your drink is done.

As you read, some of those things may have seemed clear to you when recounted explicitely, but next time you enter a space – and especially retail ones- try to look at everything critically and curiously: Why this music, that lighting, those colors even things like that many cashiers, floor staff, their age, gender, everything! Once you begin to do that and master it, you’ll begin to notice trends, philosophies, rebrands and soon… may be able to start telling the future.

�

[todayilearnedabout]

Good Advice

SHORT POST-BUT THIS SPEAKS NOVELS ABOUT THE WORLD OF DESIGN AND PRESENTATIONS.

Taken from the CreativeMornings archive- I’m sadly not a fan of most their podcasts, but absolutely adore their archive posts:

[todayilearnedabout]

Capitalist ecoconception

HOW TO MAKE THESE SEEMINGLY DISCONNECTED NOTIONS COMBINE

Ecoconception is a rapidly growing market that requires a lot of thought behind each concept – or at least should. The idea of ecoconception is difficult to pair with capitalist consumerism. An innovative product could cause smaller environmental impacts, reuse materials in a circular production cycle, last longer or try to reduce the profit gap between each party (producers, distributors, shareholders).  It’s cut from the very same, popular Durable Development cloth. In my last post, I talked about the 3 rules to follow to have a product succeed, however a good product doesn’t always reduce the global impacts or really make for a better product. Someone might say they’re using 1.5 times more paper towels but each towel uses 3 times less paper. On one front they are reducing the amount of trees used, but globally, the carbon impact of transporting 1.5 times more paper outweighs the benefits of saving on trees. This, as we saw is a form of greenwashing and neglecting the life cycle analysis of the products impacts. It’s a prime example of the biggest challenge; user behaviors. And this problem is found at every point in a truly eco product: engineers can’t validate the new materials with the same criterias, designers don’t (read won’t) understand how to innovate outside of their framework, suppliers don’t want to buy the material because of profit margins, producers don’t have the molds, stores can’t train their staff on the importance of the details of the product, the product gets lost in a sea of greenwashing labels and worst, the consumer’s behaviors around the product castrate the ecological qualities.

Sounds like an uphill battle… and it has been.

The biggest problem today is not the products. We have the technology and even financial interest to create sustainable items; however the consumer and the way they’ve been taught to consume doesn’t coincide. An ecological consumer has the capability to reduce his impacts tenfold without even making use of ecological products.  I for example, reuse my milk bags as plastic baggies. I live in a part of the world with an essentially endless amount of clean water, powered by more water (hydroelectric energy). The environmental impacts of rinsing my bag are minimal. All signs point to reusing them, though, there’s the stigma of using milk bags. People don’t do that. They think it’s cheap, poor and unsanitary even though Ziploc bags are NOT sanitized nor are they really clean. My milk bag is stronger, more durable (as it had to withstand transporting valuable milk) and much more resistant to heat and molecular transfer between the container and the contained yet very few people make use of them. By reusing my milk bags, I’ve avoided buying new bags and whether Ziploc develops 100% sustainable bags (whatever that means…), my impact only accounts for the water between each rinse while the Ziploc bag still has to calculate cost and impacts for transport, packaging, dyes, ink used for marketing the box as well as all the impacts associated to running commercials and ads to promote the new product.

The challenge is therefore not to simply follow the 3 rules, but to create a financially sound system that supports employment. The most important next step would be to change the way GDP is evaluated and add social and environmental responsibility into the equation. From there, consumerism would change drastically, and hopefully, for the better.

[todayilearnedabout]

3 rules in Ecoconception

Guidelines to help optimize and reduce environmental impacts

Our market today is controlled by consumerism, and that’s okay. I mean, it’s not great, but it does keep the lights on (for a portion of us). Ecoconceptualized products were once impossible to integrate into the consumerist system. 15 years ago, sustainable fair trade coffee was rarely, if ever, brought to the table. Today, a shop can’t open, let alone sustain itself in most metropoles without a Fairtrade label. The consumer has changed, while the products have slowly and begrudgingly progressed to follow consumer demands. Though the reality companies face today, such as dwindling resources and important repercussions from global warming, are pushing them to create more sustainable and innovative products that reduce the impacts caused. With the heat coming from both sides (production and sales) there are three steps to follow to develop truly interesting products.

Step 1: You need to know how to measure: that is to say, read, redact and comprehend exactly what kind of impacts you want to address. Before innovating, a development team needs to find the most critical points of design to address. This is done through environmental impact analyses, identifying key indicators, measuring impact and completing Life cycle analyses from a variety of P.O.V.’s. For example, reducing the amount of material used, when in reality most of the product uses recycled aluminum which uses 90% less resources and energy to manufacture.

Step 2: You need to know how to Ecoconceptualize. This goes without saying; before you start a project, you need to know which labels, criterias, regulations and possibilities are at your disposal. Like any expert, you need to know the rules before you play with, and outside of them. A good starting point can be the 12 TYPE 2 ISO 14021 labels.

Step 3: You need to how how to create market value for you product. This job especially concerns marketing and publications teams. The new qualities of your product need to be pushed forward. You need a high frequency and high audience (PEB) to reach your target audience and sell the product for its new qualities.

These 3 steps are extremely codependent – a product will fail without all three elements. Neglecting the first and lacking to evaluate the impact of the changes could just lead to greenwashing – useless changes that do nothing systemically to the product but look good to the consumer. Not working with the second one will lack innovation and halt the market. Finally, rejecting the third will make all your efforts useless if no one knows about or wants to buy your product, or worst yet, costs more without enough new benefits.  

When you do decide to develop a product, keep these three in mind. As a designer my point of interest is step 2, though I absolutely need to consult and take from steps 1 and 3. These three steps actually work together and not chronologically. It’s really important to work together and review as you go to stay on an innovative path.

K�/)����׭(

[todayilearnedabout]

SNASK rules of conduct

THE SEVEN SHORTCOMINGS SNASK BELIEVES YOU SHOULD AVOID AT ALL COSTS:

Acting Precocious

Stuck Up

Boring

Bureaucreatic

Lack of self distance

Suppression of emotion

Fear of opinions

Good (don’t settle for it)

[todayilearnedabout]

The 7 rules for a successful logo

AS EXPRESSED BY THE ENTREPRENEUR’S HANDBOOK

The principal role of a logo is to identify, and simplicity is its means… Its effectiveness depends on distinctiveness, visibility, adaptability, memorability, universality, and timelessness.

The 7-Step-Paul-Rand-Logo-Test uses the descriptors above to assess a logo. The steps flow like this:

Is it distinctive?

Is it visible?

Is it adaptable?

Is it memorable?

Is it universal?

Is it timeless?

Then, when you have said “yes” to everything above, ask this final question: is it simple?

For each step except for the last one, rate on a scale from 1 to 10. For the last step of simplicity, rate on a scale from 1 to 15. This mathematically gives weight to what is most important in a logo. A score of 75 is perfect, and anything below a 60 is discardable.

[todayilearnedabout]

Snask- Make Enemies and Gain Fans- Notable quotes from the second half of the book

p84_’’Looking back, the interesting thing about our early years is that we worked TOO MUCH. We can all be guilty of this be we found ourselves losing our personality and interests. […] We decided to slow things down, drastically.  Our working hours went from 80 hours a week to the traditional 35 hours. Instead of working too much, we now worked too little. Wise? Not really. […] The problem wasn’t that we worked too much, but we wasted our time on unnecessary tasks. We couldn’t manage our time, Snask wasn’t efficient enough.

P.94_’’There is no such thing as luck when it comes to success. Have an extremely high ambition and work hard for your dreams and goals. ‘’By trying the impossible one should reach the highest grade of possible’’. (August Stringberg, 1945) ‘’

P.94_ ‘’We will always think that knowledge is greater than money but money helps us focus on getting more time and knowledge and so on. Our view on knowledge is that it is best shared. That’s why we are writing this book even though our knowledge might be shallow, horrible or even ground-shatteringly impressive.’’

P.105_ ‘’Being nice is something people in general are bad at. Yet it’s the simplest was to have social skills. The more you smile the cheaper things cost and in the end it’s totally effortless. There are people who manage to combine being nice and lacking self-distance. These people are awful to talk to for more than 10 minutes. Everything is great and funny and no one is allowed to be mean.’’

P.105_ ‘’Since we’re talking about the importance of social skills we may as well talk about generosity. Generosity always pays itself back. Buy people a round of beer even though you know you won’t get it back. Give people a hug when they offer you their hand. Share your ideas, don’t keep them to yourself. You will notice how the seemingly perfect idea will become even more refined when shared.

P.124_’’People think we take risks when we book meetings with new clients on Friday nights and serve wine and champagne. For us this is not a risk at all. It’s fun. […] Popping a bottle of Cava is always okay and you should always drink straight from the bottle.

p.134_ ‘’Another great example of a pink lie ((A Snask white lie)) is our fictional staff member George Micheal. We created George Micheal, who has been ‘working’ for us as a recruitment officer since 1983. He takes care of internship applications and recruitment and sometimes even our PR. || They explain how they made use of George Micheal to represent them over e-mail on their way to Los Angeles to get invites to events and parties. The message was sent to the coolest agencies in California. The answering rate was a staggering 82%!

[todayilearnedabout]

Snask- Make Enemies and Gain Fans - Notable quotes from the first half of the book

NOTIONS ABOUT THE WORLD OF DESIGN THAT I REMEMBERED, AND NEW ONES I SOON WON’T FORGET

P55_ Creative Mornings blogs

P.55_ ‘’Lecturing as a company is by the way a fantastic opportunity to boost your business and build your brand. There’s a couple of reasons why, 01) Free trips and accommodation around the world 02) The narcissistic but incredible feeling of meeting people who think you are awesome 03) The credibility you gain and that whatever you say magically becomes important and a truth. ‘’

P.61_ ‘’Almost all our enemies are from an old world and hate everything about us. So if we are naïve, have energy and a burning passion but lack wisdom and experience, how do we solve it? We cook, host fancy dinners and invite old experienced people! Yep, people who have done lots and people who have done less but all have wisdom and life experience. […] We learn a lot and every person’s store gives us so much to us in terms of wisdom and inspiration. We can definitely recommend people to hang out with older kids. They know some great tricks!’’

P.62_ ‘’When building our brad (Steal our advice, it’s better than all of Kotlers) we sometimes think: ‘’If you and two of your friends were to invite ten people each to dinner party, who would you choose?’’ Would we invite Kim who doesn’t have any opinions, no special taste in anything and who would surely not make one single blunder during our fabulous event? No. We would probably rather invite the other Kim who had strong opinions and beliefs about most things in life and who is a real character and very often a laugh. Would the stiff Kim be more preferable as a lawyer? Well,  that is a question of professionalism and not about personality. However the more character you are to end up as someone people want to meet or book meetings with rather than being hidden away in your apartment or in the back room of the office.’’

p.71_’’Say yes, it’s more fun: Every time a friend calls you and suggests doing something are you’re tired, you should try to say yes and do it. When was the last time you regretted meeting your friends and wished that you’d stayed at home?’’

[todayilearnedabout]

Get organized-Make ennemies & gain fans

A DESIGN GROUP OF ECCENTRICS AT SNASK TEACHING MORE THAN I COULD IMAGINE.

I’ve been on hiatus. Between work, school, contests and portfolio applications, it’s been busy. I found myself losing touch with my daily entries on every online platform. BUT ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. It’s incredible how someone can motivate you into getting your work done by simply relating to you. I’ve been upset about not getting enough done for myself these days and essentially giving my time to others (netflix included). Tonight, I got the chance to chat with my roommate for a few minutes. She’s wicked productive and always upbeat (and ultra absent these last few weeks). After we spoke, I decided to start reading a book I’ve been holding on to for a week or so from the library called Make enemies and gain fans. In it, they talk about their experiences and, aside from their brash interests in their super model neighbors, I could really see eye to eye with them. 

          One of their stories really resonated. They talked about working 80 hour weeks in their new company. And at one point, they felt they were losing themselves as well as the things they loved. And so, they dropped down to working only 35 hour weeks. Surely, they found themselves without enough money to buy food or pay rent, but in reality, they can to find that the biggest problem was that their time was extremely mismanaged! In my case, I need to re-evaluate how I spend my time. From this point on, I’ve decided to treat Industrial design as my full-time job: from 9 to 4 monday to friday I work on projects and empty my workload. Afterwards, I’m commited to myself. If it’s learning more about typeface so be it, wanting to oil paint a self-portrait of me hitting myself with a hammer in the head then someone open a window to get the fumes out!. Work is saturday and sunday as always and the chance to sleep, relax and catch up and get my week ready again. Hopefully this standard works out.

[todayilearnedabout]

‘’Teach A Man to Fish’’ Isn’t Quite Right Anymore.

HOW ASSET ALLOCATION IS CHANGING STRUCTURE IN SOCIETY

The world is big; it always has been, but it’s never been this accessible. The perfect duck a l’orange recipe is a google search and three positive reviews away. The same goes for skills: before, distance and communication made it valuable to pass on all our knowledge to our offspring. Things have changed: companies today optimize their resources and skillsets with anything from time management, to geography as a pivotal point of reference. We no longer survive day by day. The expression ‘’Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, but teach a man a fish and he’ll eat for life’’ still applies in micro-contexts, but nothing as big as gastronomic sustenance. Today, if a man is hungry, teach him how to do anything, really, really well. Look at it this way: Charles is hungry, teach Charles how to count and he’ll eat for life. Why?

Teach Charles how to count and he’ll do so for a man taught to manage.

With the money he makes, he’ll go to the store and buy fish from the man taught to cut meat

Who in turn works for a man taught to handle inventory

Who bases his decisions on the work of the man taught to count.

And the fish… given to the meat cutter by a man taught to transport and handle food

Who takes his orders from a man taught to distribute

Who gets his fish from a man taught to package fish

Who works for a man taught to manage people

Who hires a man taught to fish.

All this is to say that really, if you’re hungry, order take-out. You can pay it with the money you make doing something you’re good at and you think is worthwhile.

[todayilearnedabout]

Things that stimulate consumption

CONSUMERISM IN A RETAIL SETTING

As part of a mandate, I researched consumer behavior from an anthropological perspective. Though it seemed like a waste, it was amazingly far from that; I learned more in the first thirty minutes than I would have in front of a computer all day! After organizing the raw information, categorizing, and categorizing, 3 main lines were drawn out on the promotion of consumer behavior – or what makes people buy more. These were unbiased consumer behavior, – things that occur without any brand or store influence – Environmental  influence, - what the company does to influence your experience – and Socially controlled influence – what others are doing in the controlled environment and how that affects you. As we’ve already addressed, the main weapons in any successful brand’s arsenal are curiosity, exclusivity and emotion but the following points really seemed to augment consumption.

·         Take your coat off: Most surprising was the difference between consumers who did or did not leave their coat on. I think it could have to do with irritability or temperature discomfort, but none of them stayed longer than their breezy-shouldered counterparts.

·         Young people and pricing: it was highlighted that younger generations (below 35) never asked for counsel based on a specific price range. What’s more is their obsession with subtlety; they would always try to snap a peak at the article and from there either look at it for a few more moments almost to make it seem like it was a second guess on the product rather than the price that stopped them.

·         Money isn’t real: with the shift from Christmas clubs and short-term savings accounts to credit cards and easily approved lines of credit, money no longer has the same influence as it did before. Buying something, in some case, is only seen as it’s the amount of interest you’ll have to pay. Before, you would only spend what you had whereas today, The money will come, for now it’ll go on the credit card.

·         Shopping in a group: Most people, and this is especially true in footwear stores, wouldn’t buy alone. Those who did usually only purchased one or two smaller items while those in groups seemed to have more on their arm. This may have to do with the idea of destination. You wouldn’t be disappointed if you didn’t find anything on your own, but as a group with the intention of shopping, it’s almost a failure to come back empty handed. This notion correlates perfectly with the overeating notion discussed in a previous post (the more people you are, the more you consume).

·         Making a list, checking it never: If you do make a retail shopping list, congrats! You’ve succeeded at being frugal! Otherwise, don’t feel left out as not a single person had a list, though most people make one for their groceries.

·         In retail, there is no maximum: To touch back on the groceries, you’ll only put milk on the list when you run out of milk. There’s no standard limit or maximum for clothing. Everything is unique or different so there are rarely repeat purchases. In the end, everyone consumes too much clothing since the only minimum is one of everything (unless your commando, in which case go buy an extra shirt).

·         Confuse, confuse, confuse: The most important point to promote consumption is to confuse the consumer. Not so much that they’re frustrated, just disorient without them realizing. Some powerful practices are splitting the sales products around the store, combining them with non-sales items that would go really well together, posting every currency or country on the ticket price as well as creating subtle urgencies: moderate length line-ups to make the product worth it and last chance promotions help create value in the brand.  

[todayilearnedabout]

H&M Case Study

This one takes quite a bit of analysis. Don’t be fooled by the PR wording. In fact, I’ll mirror my analysis to with excerpts from their annual report. It’s hilarious how many words can mean absolutely nothing. It’s like a 6 foot braided rope made of small 1 inch strands. When you unravel it all, it’s just a pile of tiny pieces, not a collection of 6 foot strings. Anyway, let’s start with their mission Statement:

H&M makes sustainable, good-quality fashion accessible to people all over the world. With a passion for design, a focus on quality and targeted sustainability work, H&M constantly strives to have the best customer offering in each individual market – which includes giving customers the best price.

Income: Already, they evaluate their profits in SEK and each table is either in Millions, thousands, sometimes even per 150000… It’s pretty cryptic. From what I understood, they say 12,07 SEK per share at 1655072* (the asterisk, when you look in the back of the report for that specific page says 1:1000) So, after all too much math, their share total comes to 2,35B with an annual income of 1,99B for a total of 54067 per store. However, the Board of Directors and CEO take 1.12 profit per share held into their pockets. Essentially, they withdraw 79% of all profits generated that year.  

Human Impact: H&M takes pride in working towards sustainable initiatives in order to better the quality of life of every employee. They created the HIP program that they claim is accessible to anyone, however…

H&M’s employees are the key to its success. To show appreciation for H&M employees, in 2011 the Stefan Persson family took the initiative to establish a unique incentive programme by donating just over 4 million H&M shares, valued at approximately SEK 1 billion (or 117M). Known as HIP (H&M Incentive Program), the programme acknowledges employees’ daily commitment and long-term participation. HIP works the same way for everyone in the H&M group – regardless of salary or role, which country they work in, or whether they work full-time or part-time. HIP allows employees who have worked within the H&M group for at least five years to share in any increase in company profits. HIP is given a contribution from the H&M group based on 10 percent of the increase in profit after tax between two consecutive.

And that’s 5 years of seniority, the company legislates how many hours are accountable to have worked the equivalent of 1 year.

Then they created the Roadmap to fair living wages where they are discussing with government officials on raising and creating fair wages…If H&M did do that, the prices would no longer correlate and their profits would tank. The money has to come from somewhere. Perhaps the 1,8B pocketed by the board of directors and CEO? Who knows.

Environmental Impact:                

H&M is working with companies and public decision-makers to achieve more sustainable water management in these areas. In China, H&M and WWF have developed special water management methods for industrial areas, in a project that will be tested at selected industrial parks on Lake Tai.

Essentially, no launch or implementation date, not even a testing date. This and many more buzz words can be found spread amongst their environmental changes. Sadly, they do not divulge their waste management systems.

They also started an initiative to implement (started to want to want to…) closed loop production in textiles. Of their 600 million garments, 0,2% of them are from recycled clothing (and most are only in-part recycled)

They’re fast fashion, they produce in mass, transport in mass and build tons of stores, their environmental impacts are incredibly high. It’s unsustainable to say the least.

Image source: http://shopblackfriday.ca/canada/hm-canada/