Dieter rams
episode 19
Broadcast date: February 1st, 2018
The Moonshots Podcast continues it's creative journey into the world of design with Dieter Rams. Discover the timeless design wisdom from one of the worlds greatest living designers. Absorb that design practices the make design a powerful tool for product differentiation.
INTERVIEWS
A Conversation With Designer Dieter Rams at ArtCenter College of Design
Dieter Rams on The Culture Show
BOOK RECOMMENDATION
Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible
SHOW OUTLINE
DESIGN
Design as Differentiator
Design is Thinking
Engineering plus Design
10 PRINCIPLES
Good design is innovative
Good design makes a product useful
Good design is aesthetic
Good design helps us to understand a product
Good design is unobtrusive
Good design is honest
Good design is durable
Good design is consequent to the last detail
Good design is concerned with the environment
Good design is as little design as possible
CONTRARIAN IDEAS - LESS, HATE , UNNECESSARY
Unspectacular
Few Companies with Good Design
Designers Can’t Change World Alone
Hates Fashion
Less But Better
TRANSCRIPT
Hello, welcome to the moonshots podcast. It's Tuesday, January 30th, 2018. We're at a huge ginormous, a massive episode, 19. I'm your co-host Mike Parsons. And as always, I'm joined by the man with the plan, Mr. Chad Owen. Hey, Mike, I don't know about you, but I've enjoyed it. This side detour into the world of design.
Yeah, I really love it. Joe Gebbia from Airbnb and he had lots of design inspiration, but he also, he's a great team player. He's big on culture. I got a ton from him. He really, really surprised me. He over-delivered, I think, in learnings and inspiration. How did you feel about Joe? Yeah, it was fascinating to me, just how integrated his design thinking was in Airbnb and their success, you know, a big driver of their success.
Um, so it was refreshing to me to kind of hear. A founder's story from a little bit alternate perspective, uh, you know, from the world of design. And he was, he's a rather, he's a bit of a go getter, isn't he, he's a bit of an entrepreneur as well as all those other skills. Like he was full of courage. He was ready to start.
Yeah. Yeah. And this is actually really interesting in relation to the person that we're talking about today, because in, you would think, Oh, you know, this design and startup. Uh, thinking is rather new, but it's not at all. Um, and the, kind of the pioneer of bringing design to the forefront of a company and even, you know, partnering with the founders of a company to really bring design to the core of the business.
Uh, is, is the person we're speaking about today, deterred robs from Bron. And I don't know about you, Mike, but there was just so much, so many golden nuggets of knowledge from him. Yeah. I, I think what we need to set the context here here is a lifetime designer. He literally speaks about being there at the moment that design.
Was something that started to happen inside of companies? I think something that we take for granted now, he was there pioneering bringing design into the enterprise and he's literally won every design award on the planet. He, uh, he's very famous for his work at Brown. He's done furniture. He's done record players, radios, you name it shavers.
He's done everything. But I think what makes him so relevant is he came up with these amazing design principles that have become basically the go-to of the design world and our friends in Cupertino, Apple. They are literally respect him so much, so much of the great design at Apple. That they paid the biggest compliment to him and that they actually designed the calculator in iOS devices is essentially a compliment, a tip of the hat to none other than, than data rums.
In so many other Apple products are certainly drawing inspiration, like, uh, the first iPod and the, you know, the, the G five, uh, Mac tower and so many other other designs. But I think what's most interesting about Dieter. Uh, for me is how he was hired by the brothers Braun, um, in the late fifties and within a year, he had made design such a core part of that company that it, it almost transformed it overnight, uh, into a completely different kind of company that you know, was designing and making things that people actually.
Used and thought were beautiful and only did what they were supposed to do. That's so true. I think that the, at the heart of what data brought to the world was not any great products. Um, but he brought a set of thinking that has transcended any time. I, I think these design principles are timeless he's effect.
Directly in the products he created, but also those that he inspired is a lasting legacy. And anybody who's starting a company right now, anybody who's building a product right now has so much to learn from. Yeah. And without further ado, I would just like to jump right into the clips. And here's a neat little intro that we found, uh, produced by the BBC talking about the significance of and the design work that he's done for.
Almost 50, 60 years now. Our lives are dominated by objects, disposable, practical, aspirational, all designed for a specific purpose, but the design icons of today have at their heart, the principles of one revolutionary designer. You might not know his name, but you can be sure that his work will look very familiar.
Dita, Rams designed products abroad for 40 years and his rigorous approach of less. But better pave the way for the designers of today. When Dieter Rams first joined broad, they were a small electronics company making radios and shavers. Within one year, he had revolutionized their products and his epoch defining 10 principles of good design were already taking shape.
Yeah, I, the, the design has sort of comes to life as you hear that. And I think one of the most important things is that in a lifetime of his leadership of his inspiration, we went from design being introduced to the organization, to the business, to design, becoming a common practice. And if we look at Apple design is it's unique.
Position in the marketplace. In fact, we've got a great clip now where data talks about how important design is in differentiating from your competitors. So let's now have a listen to DDA rums. Nobody knows that that design can help. Not only to make our world a little bit better,
it's going to also have it. And the company to be successful. Yeah, short and simple, but I think it could be lost on a lot of people that, you know, how different of a practice this was, especially back in the fifties and sixties, I think. And you kind of think of that post-war era as this huge boom in efficiencies in manufacturing, um, you know, a big boom in exports for the United States and.
I think what Deidre was doing in Germany at this time was kind of questioning, you know, making things for things sake and being like, how do we make the products? How do we design them in such a way that they last longer, that they're more useful, et cetera. And. And put design at the forefront of the company.
Like one of the more, most interesting things that he mentions in, in a lot of his soundbites is how interested in responsive the leadership of, of Bron was to him and his design team, which I don't think really existed at that point. And I, I would argue, Chad, I still think. There's a long way to go for design in business.
If I just anecdotally think about all of the things that I use, particularly in the digital world, how bad some of the design is, how, how little it thinks about what I'm trying to achieve and how much it interrupts me constantly. And I wanted to ask you, like, when you think of companies that have used design as a differentiator, we've talked about Apple a lot.
Right. And they clearly differentiate against Samsung in so many ways through design. Are there any other companies that come to your mind that can inspire us that we can learn from that you think also use design as a differentiator? I that's, that's a tough one because I think Dieter himself only names Apple.
He does the only company in the world that either in that field. Um, what about the, what about, what about Nike? I mean, do you feel like they've used design to kind of fend off Adidas and under armor? I mean, that's, that's kind of, I think it's, I think it's more the power of their brand. I think. The kind of mythmaking that, that they've been doing since the seventies, I think is really what's powered them.
I just, I think they're masterful storytellers and, you know, it had to, to, to their agencies that they've worked with. But I mean, I think Apple benefits from that too, but Apple leads with the design and then that can help them build this iconic brand. I think with Nike. It's kind of the brand first. And then the design is kind of after that again, this is just my opinion, a company.
This isn't a great example, but a company that I do think cares about the design first as a company like Bose, I think that the design and usability of their speakers and headphones. Is really designed to give you the best auditory experience and then kind of get out of the way, like my favorite little product from them as this little, a hundred dollar waterproof, um, Bluetooth speaker.
And, you know, it can fit in your pocket. It can go anywhere. I use it to listen to podcasts everywhere I go from the shower to my living room to, um, you know, on the road. And, you know, I think it's just one of those products that. Well, aesthetically, it might not look like something that Dieter would have designed, but it's still got the simplicity of function and just the usefulness of it.
I think that is really what a Dieter talks about. It's just, you know, it doesn't lie about what it does. It does the thing it does very well and not much else. Yeah, I agree. And I think that, um, you know, I certainly look at not only Apple, but, but I think Dyson who make all of the vacuums and products, I think they're exceptional.
I also look at products in my world and outside of our Apple products that I really love. I think that the Kindle. Is a great design. It is incredibly robust at doing one thing. It's very discreet. It's not trying to do more when every device is trying to do a million things, it's doing less. I mean, what other products in your life or things do you look at that you think stand out for you again?
It's like, I can count on one hand with those devices and we've already kind of talked about it and it's like my favorite pair of Bose headphones and Bose speaker, you know, my Mac book pro. Um, and I phone, um, my Kindle, uh, yeah, you've already kind of, I don't know. I, you know, I think the only other thing I can think of for me is, um, this company called peak designs.
They design and manufacturer. Kind of photography and video carry gear and their latest backpack, I think is just brilliant. From a usability perspective, you can access it from the top and both sides. You can slot your cameras in and out, and you don't even have to take it off your back really in order to pull your camera out.
So you can just sling it down. Unzip it, grab your camera and just a few seconds instead of having to put the backpack down and unzip it and then open a flap and then grab your camera. It's just makes it really easy to have access to all of your, your gear altogether. And it, and it looks great too, which is another thing it's not like your typical black.
Yeah. Ugly camera backpack. Yeah. I must say what comes to my mind when I think about design great design that would, you know, data could be proud of. I think Google search that famous home page with just the search bar. Remember that? That was pretty crazy in its day because it pushed off against the portal strategies of Yahoo and AOL.
And again, that's that, that, that less is more that data talks about and what it, what it really does is it starts to challenge us and say, well, how do you approach design? And it's more than just pixels and. You know, paper and pencils, it's something much more than that. And then this next clip data really starts to elevate what design really is.
So let's have a listen now to drams, talking about design is thinking you're sick or have some idea about, so see you make your first covers on it. Yeah. And sinking. As a designer means making targets. This is the first sinking gold says stats in your head, but then on the drawing board, Evan, and then Mary passed, I always to go into the slightly demand, sleep dementia, even like handmade models.
This clip was fascinating to me to understand how Dieter I think is almost talking about rapid prototyping. Yeah, he is. He is. I know, I know, but you really get a sense of how design unfolds in his head, don't you? Yeah. I, for him, this idea that design is thinking is. Again today, it doesn't really seem that revolutionary, but I think certainly at the time, That, that that's not really how things were working.
Yeah. And I think you got a great sense of his intentionality. He's very present in the design. He's asking why at all these steps, it's not just a pretty picture. It's so much more than that. And I think that. The thoughtfulness is what we can take out right now. If we're building products and services, whether they're analog or digital experiences.
I think we have to think about the intention behind the design, uh, to challenge ourselves, why are we doing this? Are we doing it to like ran more features or ran more steps into a process? Or are we truly taking the customer on a journey and helping them get a job done? I think also design is the doing as well.
No, I can hear in his voice kind of maybe how frustrated he was in talking about how to design something or how to make something and what he did instead was go straight to the drawing board. And that, that really is the heart of the design process. Is. It's doing the design, doing the drawings, making the models.
I mean, it's still to this day, he has a model shop that he works in it, you know, and he's in his eighties. Yeah. That's, that's, that's super inspiring. Uh, the craftsmanship that goes into it, but he does, he does understand where design fits in the world. Don't you think? Yeah. And I think what he really pioneered at Braun back in the fifties and sixties was literally putting the design team w next to the engineering and manufacturing teams so that he and his design team were working at drawing boards next to the CNC machinery that would then turn out.
These designs. And here's a clip, just talking about how he was able to marry the design and engineering practices inside of Braun. Back in the fifties and sixties, the parcels one was very fast. Okay. We need in-house that stoner combination between engineering and designer. And I kept the first, I was, eh, this time alone.
Yeah. But it was necessary to work closer together with the engineers to involve the technology and that for me, great job. So of course, and then step by step, I could have, uh, As well, uh, uh, colleagues, uh, helped me until the mid sixties working only with three designers. Yeah. Step by step. So the beginning also inform us.
Yeah, we had the Twittering machine next to the drawing boards. Yeah. So will be developed because it was necessary to have to make sure it's clear, but we need decision only by models. You can't get decision, uh, for, to go process on the by discussions. Needs a model. You're never forget. Your professional gives you the chance to, uh, to make clear what you want to do by CDM and certain models.
He's he is like the godfather of rapid prototyping right there. It's so, uh, it's so inspiring to hear him talking about, it's not just discussing it's about the doing, uh, it's very powerful that he's talking about design and engineering together. It's literally, I live that in all of the different work that I do.
I'm forever. Ensuring that, you know, technology and design thinking marry together, that developers and UX guys are working together, that the ideas are integrating and I cannot emphasize enough. The timely reminder that this is, is to test, to learn, to build continuously throughout the process and do it with cross-functional teams.
That's I mean, that's what he's really talking about. And I think that is so powerful for anyone looking to build a product right now. Yeah. I think that's why the list of. Of companies that are taking the, you know, keeping the flame, the design flame of Dieter ons alive. It why there's so few of them, because I don't know how many companies have truly integrated into the design and engineering teams.
And not only that, but just the design team and the leadership of the company that was very clear with Steve jobs at Apple. Like without a doubt, You know, Johnny Ivan, Steve jobs, and the whole design philosophy at Apple, like, yeah, it's a direct kind of descendant of what detour was doing at Bron. I don't know enough about any other companies that have it so integrated, you know, today.
Got it in one there. I mean, I think it's safe to say Google is more engineering led. Apples are a little bit more design led, few companies, perhaps BMW, perhaps Dyson, uh, have somewhat of a similar balance of engineering and design, but I can't tell you how hard it is. Uh, and you you've seen it as well. I mean, the fact is that many engineers think in very black and white.
Logical paths of thinking and designers are often expansive diverging, exploratory thinkers, and driven by intuition rather than system. And that's, that's the tension that you have to bring together. Right? Yeah, I think it's the efficiencies of large corporations drive out the innovation. It's like, it's almost like you can't have both.
You either have lots of risk-taking and experimentation and innovation, or you have, you know, efficiencies of production. And scale. I don't think that's true, but I think that's what most corporations believe. And that's kind of how they are structured. You know, that's how the corporate structure just works.
But I think the Dieter and Apple, and maybe a few others can show that it doesn't have to necessarily be such a stark choice. So here's, here's one thing I was trying to think of like, okay, what can we share with the listeners that. Would be a, like a practical takeaway on how to bring these two together.
And I'm thinking here and I, and I'd invite you to think about it too. Chad, the pattern that I see in, you know, over 20 years of working in product design and advertising and technology, What comes to my mind is when engineering and design get together and do great things. It's usually because a, they have a common language and a common goal.
And in particular, I think setting a goal around meeting the needs of users, trying to unlock. And experience a feature, a function. This is often the common language that two different worlds can then get behind. They can rally behind trying to do something amazing for, for the user. Uh, so I would always encourage folks, like if, you know, to be a little bit cliched about it, if the developers are doing one thing and the designers are doing a completely different thing, and you're wondering.
What do I have to do here? I think bringing them back to what does the user need, um, do you, do you have any thoughts? Do you have any thoughts on, I see it as creating user delight, the designers kind of imagine that delightful experience and the engineers make it real. And if you can come together, like you're saying around that, how do we create that user delight?
Um, That's I think that's how I have seen it, you know, in a few teams inside companies that are doing it well is not just what does the customer want, because sometimes I can't tell you that's true directly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's like finding that and you see it in the user's face. I mean, that's how, you know, I'm sure you've seen it in, in your, in your workshops and rapid prototyping sessions with users is it's when you put the thing in front of them and it could be.
You know, a paper prototype or it could be a 3d printed model and anywhere in between, but when you show it to them and then their face lights up, it's like, okay, that's the moment of the light. I think we're onto something. And we can further explore that. That's so true that that's, that's a great way of putting it.
Yeah. The aha moment and, and, and getting, and that's so contagious. I mean, when you see that. Whether you're an engineer designer, whether you're an executive, it doesn't matter. I mean, that just gets you going dang. And I mean, that's why I'm here on this planet. That's why I do this job is to create those moments.
I was thinking to myself, Chad, you know, we could do a classic shadow and book review, but I think we can get, do one better. I think we can bring the book. I think we can bring the content. Into the show. Um, so I thought it might be nice if we, we run through the 10 principles that we've been talking about, the data created.
And, um, if you just we'll have a link to these in the show notes@moonshots.io and these 10 principles are both. At sometimes simple yet very provocative and you can make of them what you will, but, um, I thought we should share a few of them and, and talk about them. And so I wanted to ask you, Chad, when you, when you look at the list of these 10 design principles, have you got any jumping out of the page at you?
Uh, is there any grabbing your eye? I dunno, there are, they're also great. None. I feel like you could spend years just trying to get one of them, uh, right. And I'm sure many of the designers have, I think the most unexpected is, and Dieter talks about this a lot. Good design is honest. What does that, what does that mean?
Uh, I know what, what comes to your mind? Tell me. But it's a fascinating idea. The fact that a thing an object could lie to you even just that thought experiment is really interesting. Um, but to me, it's the embodiment of the thing tells you exactly what it does. And like no more, no less, like it's not deceiving you in it's either, you know, use or function or capabilities, because I think you can, over-design something into, into, you know, something that thinks that it can do all of these things, but when in reality it can't.
And so I think Dieter would say that that product is lying to you because it seems like it can be doing all of these things for you, but it actually fails at, at all of them. I think that's a really good one that catches your a little bit. Um, you know, to me, just, um, I think not where he's going with this kind of building on what you were saying is, is not misleading people, um, suggesting that it is more than it really is.
And I think, um, I think that's really important, particularly when you come to, I mean, what comes to my mind is the way people do up cars to make them look like they can go fast. But they actually don't. I mean, that, that, that, that gives a poor old data, heart palpitations. I tell you another one that I really like.
I mean, he's got the classics, right? It's innovative. It's useful and all that kind of stuff, but I like this. Okay, good design is unobtrusive. This just makes me go. Oh, you know, it's unobtrusive because often people. When they, when they think of design, they think of somewhat flashy, uh, an alluring, but he's talking about unobtrusiveness as being, you know, products are not there for decoration, right?
They're uh, they kind of intention is to be neutral and restraint, and that gives the space for the, the owner, the user, the person to fill the. The room with their own self-expression and it's not the role of the product to take that. And I think that's a very interesting, uh, it's almost a, kind of a humble way to think about design that it kind of fades into the background and when it's not being used.
Right. It's part of it's part of the tapestry. Don't try and be the star of the show. Right. Don't try and be it. Are there any others that really kind of caught your eye? I think good design is concerned with the environment was also refreshing to see. Someone like himself, you know, so deep in an industry, um, before I kind of environmental concerns and sustainability was a big thing.
Um, and I think that his perspective on it, I think is the correct way. It's, it's not about, you know, finding the optimal, you know, carbon footprint and sustainable materials or whatnot. That's part of it, but for him, It's good design in such that you're making a product that lasts for your whole entire life so that you're no longer buying multiple, multiple things, you know, over the course of your lifetime.
And I think the quintessential example of this for me is his six Oh six shelving, um, that he designed with veto. I I'm coveting and have been for a very long time, because it is designed to be modular so that you can start off, you know, paying just, you know, a couple of hundred dollars for the first, you know, set of shelves.
And then over the course of your lifetime, as you move between homes and apartments, you just keep adding and building to this over time. And it's. Built in such a way that it's so durable that you can Mount it in unmounted and it's expandable in a way. It just flies in the face of a company like Ikea, where the stuff is like designed to fall apart on the first moving truck it gets onto.
Yeah, he, this speaks to his time. Timelessness, not only in the work he does, but the thinking behind it. He, you could see him sitting down in a bar having a good time with Tim O'Reilly, who talks about, you know, building companies for a lifetime and beyond. Do you remember when he was talking about that in the, in the show we did on him?
I really, I really liked this because it forces us to get a little bit out of our hyper-speed world. Doesn't it? Yeah. How might we design a product that someone only buys once and can use for the rest of your life? That's mind blowing to me and I don't think many companies are doing. Yeah. I think Patagonia is a brand that's, that's really going in that direction.
So, yeah. Yeah. So it is, um, a select few and I just, I just want to remind you that how much we've learned already that design is a differentiator. Design begins with thinking in the practice and you really need to, to bring design and engineering together. And my goodness, we've got a ton of these, these great principles to work with.
I mean, it's already, like you have to like pause and digest so much of this because whilst he doesn't say very much when he says something or when he makes a product, I think data really, really has an effect. He. It's full of meaning and intent. And I'm really excited to get into the second half of the show.
But Chad, I just wanted to kind of have a bit of a laugh with you. It was hilarious when, when you and I were researching such an immense person in business and in design. Yeah. It was kind of funny how hard it was to source good interviews. Do you find it like, kind of like really tough to try and actually source some material?
Yeah. I don't know if this is like a generational thing or a German thing or a Dieter thing, or maybe a combination of all three. He certainly didn't, uh, come, you know, it didn't rise to a. To fame, you know, in the YouTube age, like so many of our other, uh, subjects. Yeah. You, you, um, you came across a clipper.
If I remember right where he was giving his heartfelt opinion about being interviewed, but was it again, how did that go? Well, he, he said that he doesn't give any interviews. Cause he feels that he's already said everything that's important to say. So he doesn't need to say anything more. He wasn't thinking about us.
Was it? He wasn't like, I need to produce enough clips for Mike and Chad. No. Well, and when he was asked about if he would change any of his 10 principles or edit them and he said, Nope. They're good as they are. They have, they haven't, haven't changed in 30, 40 years. Brilliant. Brilliant. That just brings us to a whole set of new ideas that we can learn from, from data rums.
And if, if all of our listeners, if you're listening there and you're thinking, Whoa, this is a lot of stuff. I need these principles. I need some of these. Clips to deep dive on, just go to moonshots.io and you'll find everything there. Uh, we do a pretty good job of getting all the stuff there and there's like 1,000,001 social media channels for you to connect to us on.
Not sure if data would approve, but nonetheless, we're going forward. Now we're going to kind of jump into the weld of some of his contrarian ideas. I mean, the first half of the show, we've heard a lot of his in phatic. Uh, principles and beliefs, but let's actually now get into the world where he pushes off a couple of the things that he sees in the world that he's not too fond of.
And there's really some great lessons here. So let's start with. One of his real pet peeves. He hates the shiny, the glossy, the flamboyant, the interactive products and services of the world. Let's now have a listen to Dieter Rams talking about the world and importance of the spectacular. We have enough saying we can improve some sings, but there's not spectacular, you know, to improve a television.
Oh, a computer to make it more self-explanatory to make it more usable. It's always a very important thing, but it's not a spectacular thing. And the mania, I have to learn a little bit sad, not the spectacular things as the important thing is that, um, spectacular things out of the important things, especially in the future.
I don't know if Apple, the, the example that kind of comes to mind for me is like the iPhone 10 and that maybe they were shooting a little more for the spectacular, as opposed to the actually meaningful, useful. And again, this is just my personal opinion, but I think they. They kind of overreached and had to make some, some design compromises, you know, to kind of make a splash for the 10th anniversary of the iPhone and try and make this, you know, in Dieter's word, spectacular, uh, kind of product or, well, I am, uh, uh, you know, I do have the iPhone X and.
Beyond the fact that it's better battery life and it's a nice screen and a bit more screen real estate. If you challenge me for the innovation, the face ID is not. There's a couple of big usability things. Every time I close the phone, I'm often taking a screenshot by mistake, um, because of the way the new button controls the set up.
Look, it is once again, for me, an example of how powerful their brand and how powerful their overall design approaches that it affords them. The luxury of having a thousand dollar phone. That's probably not worth a thousand dollars. Um, you know, the iPhone eight was just. Why not enough. So they needed to come out with something.
I still enjoy the device. Is it, is it a thousand dollars? Is it the best design that could have been? I think you really ought to think. I think they, your, they indulged in a bit of spectacular and I think we've seen many companies go for spectacular, um, to create a tension when failing to realize if they just followed DDAs principles.
As humble and as earnest as they are, that true success lays lays there. And you know, we'll just talking about the Kindle. The Kindle is not nearly as flashy, flashy as the iPhone, but if you challenged me, my Paperwhite Kindle is a better product. It is better design than that, of the iPhone X, for sure.
Because of the, the focus of that product line over, over its lifetime. Yeah. And I th I think that this is Dieter was afforded this, uh, opportunity in kind of perspective because he was the leader. You know, he was the leader of the design team at Brown for over 40 years. So at least until, uh, Bron was acquired by Gillette.
He could kind of do what he wanted and make those incremental designs that he knew would be, was the thing that actually needed to be done. And then if you kind of listened to some of his other interviews and read about the history of, of Bron and, you know, being acquired by Gillette and then in the early aughts being acquired by Procter and gamble, you know, uh, a president might only be president of that company for just a couple of years.
And there was this tension. Of what we need, we need to make a splash and, you know, so let's just do something completely out of the box or spectacular as he would say. Um, and for him, it actually wasn't as, as great of an innovation. Yeah. Yeah. And, and this is where you start to see his wider perspective of how design fits within the organization.
And whilst. The 10 principles are almost, um, so simple and almost they almost appear easy, but if they were easy, then surely more companies would be doing so now let's actually hear DDAs point of view on companies trying to achieve good design. You can tell the companies who are taking design brutally honest.
On your 10 fingers and no change today, it's still on the few companies, Apple, this one, a lot of chunk between. I liked that dig at the end, a lot of junk it's so, so true. And where this kind of gets my mind going is a question for you, Chad, where do you think is the moment when companies. Commit the act of rejecting design and go for, I dunno, for the flashy, for the quake, for the easy what's the moment that everyone makes the mistake at.
I think it's probably from some kind of external force or pressure that could either be the sudden ascendancy of a competitor that comes out of nowhere. I think, especially in the last 10 or 15 years, so many companies have been blindsided by smaller, more nimble, maybe design-focused competitors that all of a sudden they feel like.
You know, they're being disrupted, so they, they have to do something about it. Right. It seems like just the overbearing pressure of meeting quarterly shareholder expectations and just the, the, Oh, you know, the guys down the road, they're doing this thing. We don't have a thing. They could be this, like the, the sort of hand to hand daily combat of business distracts them from bit.
Yeah. Yeah. And, and that tone is set at the top of the company and. And it's not, uh, you know, design or human centered focus culture that's created. And I think that's, uh, so additionally it's, you know, it's what tone is. I don't want cultures created from the top of the company, you know, do the founders and the CEO and the board value the time and effort that it takes to.
To invest in design or not. Yeah, I think, I think you're onto something there. And I think part of this, that part of what you're explaining is I think companies too often have very generic vision of what they're trying to do. They're like, like try this. We are going to have an amazing service. We're going to drive co uh, growth.
We're going to be customer. Centric we're going to achieve profits through high quality products. Like there, all these sort of very blend concepts. Right. And I think design is a much more, uh, sophisticated. Point of view. In fact, it's just having a well-thought point of view, which I think a lot of companies just don't take the time to think about and to believe in.
So they're easily swayed from distraction to distraction. And I mean, this is when you see Amazon spent 10 years telling the stock market, we will spend as much of our profits as possible and reinvest them in the company. We're going to make as little profit as we can on the products we sell. In order to achieve massive market share and the stock market for a long time, hated them.
And they kept going because they knew it was right. And then all of a sudden, everybody woke up and went, Oh my God, Amazon is amazing. I think that's an example. And Amazon is eating the world. Yeah. And so, so don't you think like it takes time to digest what Deidre is saying to manifest it. And I think companies are just so distracted and, you know, Busy in that, what, that, that sort of hand to hand combat of quarterly results.
And what's interesting though, this has makes it even worse is when you see companies saying stop the press, we've hired some groovy designer. He or she is going to create. You know, just the most amazing product. What comes to mind is JC penny. They hired, uh, the guy at Apple who had done all the Apple stores.
He's going to be a CEO. I think one guy, one designer is going to change the world and you know, it's so funny how let's just throw one person at something like this, how they just. Full so far short, doesn't it? Yeah. Again, because how, how can one person set the tone and culture of the company to do that?
The answer is they can't like, he may have been the right person for that job, but he couldn't deliver the results in a timeframe that, you know, he was mandated to him. Yeah. Because it's more than just a throw away. Yeah. I mean, it's a belief system, isn't it? Yeah. And kind of going back to what you were saying before, like design forces, you to have a pointed opinion and it took to get away from the, you know, we will, we will create customer focused products.
There's, you know, it's too bland and generic. So I think as a designer in India has kind of said this in the clips before, like you're forced to take a position, you know, you have to put pen to paper, you have to create the model, you have to do the thing. And that is. Um, moving from the realm of just talking about ideas and talking about things to actually, you know, he says that's kind of the best part of design is that, you know, you get to actually see these things and talk about these things and react to these things.
It is a manifestation of that point of view and that opinion, which I think is so important. To kind of drive that innovation forward. Yeah. And, and, and if you think about what he was doing as a designer within the organization, he was reaching out to engineering and he's very much like Joe, Gavia, they're very similar.
Like you can see Joe is finding and always recruiting great people around him. In fact, Joe's like, I just want to put geniuses around me so I can learn from them. And I think this is something that our listeners can really take away. It really matters. Design really makes a difference. And at the heart of it, it, it is hard work, but it's worth doing, because we can just look at Apple and Nike and Dyson and many other companies and see that when they get it right, it is spectacular.
But the key thing is data has got something to teach us. And that is you can't do this as a one Mo one man show. It's not a band-aid, it's not just hire a guy or a gal and it's. Done it's much more than that. So let's now have a listen to data rooms, talking about designers and changing the world. What we need are more political speed, sinking design minded, what we need, uh, intrepreneurs like, uh, Steve jobs.
Yeah. It depends which part. We our own as designers, we can have this with this. What we have learned is on bottles with ideas, but we are not able to change it. Hmm. I love that. He led that quote, you know, saying we need more politicians that are designed. Minded. I don't know. I don't know that anyone else has really thought about that or said that.
I mean, he just, he sees design as much more than artwork. He sees design as a practice, as a philosophy of, I mean, he is a, he's like, you know, substitute design is. The word design is like, it could be a humanity philosophy. It is Buddhism, you know, like he he's really sees it on such an L and on a very high mission, but in a very pragmatic turn of voice.
Right. And I think earlier in this interview, he was asked kind of about his teaching experience and he doesn't, he didn't feel like he needed to teach more designers. He wanted to teach everyone else about design and the politicians and entrepreneurs and, and everything else, because I think he attributes much of the success of himself at Bron to the Bryan brothers, the founders, because they got it.
And. And fostered that culture of design thinking, which then just spread to the entire company. Yes. And he often calls out the fact that they were very employee centric in caring and nurturing the employees to create wellbeing, which they saw would, would in the end, give them this great performance from them.
Executives in the, in, uh, you know, staff in the company, which would help them be successful. And, um, once again, it's, it shows you just how, how he's challenging us to rethink design on a much higher, a much more powerful platform than, than just artwork. I think the other thing that's interesting is he really is the enemy of now.
And what I mean by that, he's the enemy of trying to be the latest, shiny thing. Cause things come and things go and there's a lot to learn here, uh, from data. So let's have a listen to him. This is quite a funny clip. Let's have a listen to him talking about his point of view on fashion. I hate ever see what is different, but fashion from the beginning was hating in the sixties.
The American way of styling, especially cars. They changed their styling sings every two years to sell new ones, which has nothing to do with school design.
It has nothing to do with good design. Yeah. I mean, every auto exactly. We'll listen to that and kind of nod their head. I think we all know what he was saying. Those very verbose over the top, uh, flamboyant American cars that were just off, off the charts. And I did you didn't, you love that bit where he goes, like, why would you change the design every year?
Like, why would you keep changing? If you got a good design, you kind of keep it. Well for him, it, it, if you're changing it, it just shows that it's bad design. His whole point is that incremental ism is the good design. And not only that, but kind of the durability and longevity of that design is kind of, uh, evidence.
To to him that it's good design. Yeah. I have to recant here this funny story. So, so when we bought our, our car, we're really excited and, and it's just a, it's a lovely SUV. And the funny thing is, um, the year after the new model came out, And I'm looking at it. And I can see in the design that the, the, the manufacturer and the design team must've been sitting there saying, and this is the, the automotive trap that they have to do something new every year to kind of convince you, you need to get the newest, latest, greatest thing, which is totally contradictory to what David is talking about.
And I often would look at the new 2017 model and I'm like, They've hardly done anything, but the things they've done us so insignificant yet, somewhat obvious. They're trying to message to us. Yes, it is a different model. Although it's just the, the hub. It has a different trim on it and a different texture on.
The rubber or the matting or the plastic wrap on it. And you're like, the Cobb was, it was carved the year before. Like what did you need to change? And I feel like that automotive is a great example of design just to have something different. And it's like, guys, if it's good, just leave it. Yeah. Yeah. And I think Apple kind of falls into this trap too.
And all of the other electronics manufacturers. It's a little different because the technology it's, it's less true today. I think though, you know, Moore's law and kind of increasing computing power kind of necessitated, you know, upgrading. But I think, I think that people can kind of see Moore's law kind of decelerating some bit, you know, there's the processing power in these devices.
Isn't. Step changes of differences, kind of more incremental. And yet we're still seeing new models every single year. And even sometimes every six months when maybe that's not, not necessary. Yeah. I w it, it reminds me of a story that you're going to have to help me with here. So in my readings, I came across the story of final cut pro was in the last few years, Apple did a massive redesign and helped me out of here.
Basically, the story goes. It, they completely changed all the shortcuts and hotkeys that a lot of people in the industry had really enjoyed about what final cut pro had to offer. And it's so was designed for designs. They say that actually, when they released the product, it was so poorly received at core caused hue and cry and great drama that Apple was.
If I believe this story is right, and this is going to help me, they had to rerelease the product with the old interface due to all the hate that they got now. Correct me. Is that roughly the story? Uh, I, yes. I mean, my own personal experience with final cut was when they did the, the upgrade to final cut 10, which is kind of the massive, spectacular update they did.
I completely jumped ship. For, for the keyboard, shortcut reason and many, many others, because they took a huge bet on a diff a new UI and UX. And it was just such a huge departure from the old way that I think I am. And many others just, just abandoned. The product. Yeah. And it has never gone back. And I think what we can take out of that, even Apple can make those mistakes.
We've seen Amazon who generally does a great job with their products. They released the, uh, the fire phone, which was a disaster. Um, so it happens to all of the, all of the, if it happens to the best, it can happen to all of us really. Um, and. I think we have to remind ourselves that indeed his thinking whilst they do sound simple, if we actually take these onboard and attempt to follow them, I think we can avoid a lot of those problems.
Wouldn't you say, like this is just such a great set of guidelines to keep you on track. Yeah. Yeah. And I want to remind everyone that they can find these design principles on moonshots.io. And I would actually like to hear from you the listener, which, which of these principles resonated with you most, or which one that, you know, you want to try and incorporate into work that you're doing on your teams in, in, in your companies.
We saved the best clip for last, I think, um, and this. Next, uh, nugget of knowledge from Dieter is really when, when Mike, you had first suggested him for us to profile here on the show, this is what I knew of him. So I'll just leave you in the listener and Mike, with this last piece of knowledge from Dieter, I always was tying to make the product in a way.
That it is easy to understand that this the help of design, uh, you, uh, you're up the product less but better is stripy the objectives, the main objective for the future. Less less, less. I think this is probably the hardest single thing about design that less really is better because the temptation is just so big to add a fee, to add a line at a pitcher at an icon.
I mean, when you're working chat and telling a story, it must be so hard to cut. And to cut and to cut, but we know that gets us to the good thing, but it's do you find that hard? Yes. It's the only way to make it better. Yeah. And this, this is his 10th principle of design. Good design is as little design. As possible.
And again, that's very philosophical kind of circular statement, but I think it's so true, like you and I, I think can see quote, unquote, fussy design quite easily, or an overstuffed story. And I love his idea that. That less is more or less the way he says it less but better, I think is the best way of saying that that sentence be proud of himself because that's a lot less, uh, letters than good design is as little as possible.
So he's living the dream right there in, in the, in the thought itself. So, so I, I, I really think that's the perfect way for us to, to wrap a journey into the world of DDA rums, a world where, you know, design is unobtrusive and honest and durable where design is less. Rather than more. And we don't give into the world of the spectacular, shiny of the now we build timeless things.
And I think if we build timeless products and services, we can build timeless companies. And I think that's, that's a really exciting thing for me to take away from data. What's what's the one thought that. Keeps coming back to you now, Chad, as, as you take in and take a breath to, to reflect on the world of data rums, for me, it's two things.
It's, you know, we as designers or myself as a storyteller, we can't do it alone and we need that. Buy-in from, as you, we need those cross-functional teams. I think that that is certainly the way that we're going to work better, you know, into the future and, and incorporate many of these, these principles into how we work.
Um, and then of course, less but better, you know, I've got many projects on the docket right now, and I'm going to take that. And go through all these projects with a hatchet cut cutaway. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Heaven forbid. So what a, what a great, what a great way for us to remind ourselves of not only the past, but the future of design lays in, in these great principles.
Now we've been feeling like we've got one more designer in us. Um, Do you feel compelled to head down the road to Cupertino? Do you think we should say a little hello to Johnny? I, I think it's only natural. I mean, it was hard for us to not talk about Apple in this show, just because I feel like it's designed roots and culture.
We're really pioneered by Dieter arms at Bron. So yeah, I'm excited. To kind of fast-forward to, to learn from, from, from Johnny and kind of how Apple, uh, is trying to keep these design principles alive and, you know, embody Dieter's thoughts around, you know, Good design can make good products, but it can also make your company a lot of money.
And, and Apple is, is a shining example of that. And so that's so true. So, um, I'm, I'm pumped also to think about using some data where in a huge design, uh, phase of, uh, of building a brand new product from one of our clients and it's. B complex product and it's, this is giving me some new clarity on how we should be, how we should be, uh, approaching this.
And I think that at the core of what we can learn from Apple is that we can see specific products and services that we can touch, pick up, feel, smell, play with. That embeds so much of not only DDAs thinking, but some of the fresh thoughts that Johnny ive, uh, adds on top of, particularly around industrial design and, and he's got some awesome, awesome ideas that we can all learn from to create the next product, the next service or even company that's built on design.
Hmm. And I want to ask you the listeners, you know, we've taken this detour into the world of design. What other people or companies or industries would you like us to dive into the interwebs, to research and bring you these nuggets of wisdom? And you can do that by emailing us@helloatmoonshots.io. We.
Absolutely love your feedback. Um, and the responses we've, we've gotten from all you, the listeners, it's probably my favorite part of doing the show is just seeing, um, you know, what is most interesting to you and what's resonated with you. And I have to tell you that. We're near wherever I go. I meet people who are listeners of the show and they tell me what they love, but I can't travel the world.
I do enough travel as it. So we need you to send email people, come on, you can do this. Um, don't wait for our live broadcast or Mike and Chad traveling. Well, let us know. We'd really appreciate your thoughts. Just like we appreciate the thoughts of DDA, rums and Johnny Ivan. Personally, I want to thank you, Chad.
It's been great to talk about data. I hope you're excited about going into the world of Johnny eyes. Yeah, I can't wait that there's, I'm, there's so much great material. Uh, both that's been produced by Apple, that dives into their industrial design process. But I think, um, so many designers today look up to Apple and what they're doing that I know that, you know, they've, they've cornered Johnny and tried to extract as much knowledge and information out of, out of him.
So I'm, I'm really excited to see. The interviews, uh, and discussions that, that he's had about design. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So I think, yeah, we've come to a wrap. You can expect some magic from Apple computers and Johnny ive down there in Cupertino, California. But in the meantime, you can digest all this goodness from data rums.
So for me, it's a big, thank you, Chad. Thank you for all your thoughts, your contributions. We supposed to, I think that gets us to a wrap from us. Chad and Mike here at the moonshots podcast. We'll catch you next time.