I wrote a very popular piece a while back called Hey CEO: Do you know how to dress? In the last few years, Design has become a critical and celebrated element of business success. Business leaders have started paying attention. Nerds have started getting intrigued by right-brained creativity, even though they don’t quite understand the Science of Art.
Meanwhile, you have read my very personal story, As India Builds, lamenting India’s relentless architectural destruction. In this story, for the first time, I have talked about my own history, which perhaps explains some of my extreme and unapologetic sensitivity to design and style.
And, you have been reading Dominique’s writings on how design commands premium pricing:
Teaching Design in Business
Tasteful Design = Premium Pricing
Crisp Design Enjoys Premium Pricing
Apple: End-to-End Design
Airline Experience: End-to-End Design
Design can carry a Brand
I have pointed you to a few brilliant pieces of architecture, as designs that have moved me: I.M. Pei’s Miho Museum, Louis Kahn’s Dhaka Assembly, Three of Luis Barragan’s Designs, Frank Gehry’s new IAC HQ, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Xanadu Gallery.
I have also cited as examples an Alessi vacuum cleaner, a Noguchi lamp and table, a Terence Conran chair, Bang & Olufsen Speakers, a Sydney Lynch necklace,
a Deborah Krupenia pendant, a Reiko Ishiyama brooch, the Chanel No. 5 box, an Issey Miyake watch and an unknown fabric designer.
More recently, Charles W. Bush and Kathy Hwang of 3Strand Innovation have written about the interface between design and business and offered examples of notable design in everything from the iPod to campaign posters. You can read their review of the Online Personal Finance sites, or the Motorola RAZR and many more.
In their Designs of the Week series, Charley and Kathy have also reviewed Organic Furnitures, the Wine Experience, Car sites, The Movie Theater Experience, etc.
I am sure we will continue exploring the topic of Design in the future. Meanwhile, I want to leave you with a quote from Albert Einstein:
“Formal symbolic representation of qualitative entities is doomed to its rightful place of minor significance in a world where flowers and beautiful women abound.”