What is good design? Lessons we can take from home and landscape design experts

“Entire art, architecture and design movements have been built on the question, What is good design?,” writes Melanie Warner Spencer in a recent issue of the Houston Chronicle.

In our field of marketing, advertising, and digital design, we also look to learn from others – in what Ms. Spencer describes as being “built, rebuilt, imitated, deconstructed, abstracted and reconstructed.”

I thought we could draw some parallels and lessons from her interview of a few designers and architects. Here are some of their views of what’s coming next.

David Lake and Ted Flato of Lake/Flato, award-winning architecture firm: “Good design always considers the larger problem, considers the larger context. Good design needs to make the larger environment a better place. We're also healing and mending an existing environment and trying to connect it back to that. That idea can go in many different contexts. In an urban setting, we think of the entire block and how that building can be a good citizen with the buildings around it. Good design encompasses a broader design solution. Good design needs to be comprehensive. Comprehensive is also about health.”

Laura Umansky, interior designer and owner of Laura U Collection: “Good design must consider three things: intention, function and beauty. Every decision that I make for an interior is carefully considered prior to presenting it to a client or including it in their home (intention). It must also be smart, useful and have a very valid reason to exist in the space (function). Lastly, the space as a whole should have special meaning for, and elicit an emotional response from, its inhabitant (beauty).”

Liz Lambert, designer and hotelier (her projects include El Cosmico in Marfa, the Hotel San Jose and Hotel Saint Cecilia in Austin and the Hotel Havana in San Antonio): “Good design is often about knowing when to stop. It is about finding a balance between elegance and simplicity, vibrancy and calm, old and new. It's about collecting objects that reflect your life experiences and your passion more than it is about filling a room. And for me, it's usually about letting the people be the color in the room rather than the stuff.”

Julie Schaff Risman, furniture and interior designer, owner of the Inside Story Design: “Your home should tell your story. Art and artifacts from your travels, collections and artful photos turn a house into a home and prevent the model-home look. Always add an organic element to a space: plants, fresh flowers, seagrass, shells and salvaged items breathe life and warmth into a space. Edit - if in doubt, leave it out.”

I felt these designers offered some good guidance, even for projects on my desk right now: consider the intention and function of the brand, then go beyond to tell its story in the context of the customer’s larger environment.

And most of all, know when to stop.

It’s time to launch.

8 eBooks I want to Write ASAP

Content.

Creative energy.

Cultivation of relationships.

I don’t simple write books and blogs to educate. Rather it helps me gain (and share) a deeper understanding of subjects.

Here are some ideas I’m working on with deeper value.

• 8 Best Practices for Brand Story Development
• 8-Point Check List for Evaluating Brand Innovation Concepts
• 8 Ways to Introduce New Hires to Your Industry
• 8 Common Questions about Focus Groups Answered
• 8 Mistakes to Avoid When Writing a Research Report
• 88 Health & Medical Statistics For Better Decision-Making
• 8 Experts Share Industry Insights: Learn From The Best
• 8 eBooks to Write Right Now

Could you contribute to any of these? Let’s collaborate.

What other types of eBooks do you like? Share your suggestions.

How to build trust

on Authenticity

"Authenticity is the alignment of head, mouth, heart, and feet - thinking, saying, feeling, and doing the same thing - consistently. This builds trust, and followers love leaders they can trust." 

-Lance Secretan

How to get brand ideas from UNhappy customers

on Responsiveness

"Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning." 

- Bill Gates

How to gain brand sophistication through simplicity

on Simplicity

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” 

-Leonardo daVinci

8 Ways to Balance Your Work and Family Life

A lot is being written and debated these days about working at home, life balance, and working moms.

Here are 8 suggestions on ways to balance work and family:

1. Put your family first. 
2. It’s your schedule—not your clients’. 
3. Plan your day in advance.  
4. Exercise each day.  
5. Take vitamins and eat right.  
6. Turn off your mobile phone from time to time. 
7. Team up with another practitioner in the office.
8. Give yourself a daily reminder.

In an article from Career Journal, published by The Wall Street Journal Online, writer Kevin Voigt offers this story:

"Ostensibly, successful people, if they do have an Achilles heel, it's work-life balance," says Michael Jenkins, Singapore-based Asian managing director of the Center for Creative Leadership, an executive training and research company. "You can't regain your children's childhood; no amount of professional success can compensate for the loss of that family time. At the end of the day, if you aren't a success at home as well, (success at work) probably won't count for much."

Source:

http://www.realtor.org/archives/slscoach20050425

Why your brand's customers value surprise

on Surprise and Delight

“Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us.” 

- Boris Pasternak

How to be more persuasive by being more transparent

on Transparency

"There is no persuasiveness more effectual than the transparency of a single heart, of a sincere life." 

-Joseph Berber Lightfoot

The best way to understand your brand's customers

on Listening

"The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them." 

- Ralph Nichols

"Left/Right Brain" ad from Mercedes-Benz

Take a closer look at this Mercedes-Benz ad created by Shalmor Avnon Amichay/Y&R Interactive Tel Aviv, Israel.


Enjoy this copy....


Left brain:

I am the left brain. I am a scientist. A mathematician. I love the familiar. I categorize. I am accurate. Linear. Analytical. Strategic. I am practical. Always in control. A master of words and language. Realistic. I calculate equations and play with numbers. I am order. I am logic. I know exactly who I am.

Right brain:

I am the right brain. I am creativity. A free spirit. I am passion. Yearning. Sensuality. I am the sound of roaring laughter. I am taste. The feeling of sand beneath bare feet. I am movement. Vivid colors. I am the urge to paint an empty canvas. I am boundless imagination. Art. Poetry. I sense. I feel. I am everything I wanted to be.


(I appreciate the share from http://streetanatomy.com/)

The inspiration behind great work

on Passion

"The only way to do great work is to love the work you do." 

-Steve Jobs

The idea behind responsiveness

on Responsiveness

"Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it." 

- Charles Swindoll

N-of-8 groups: elements of an impactful meeting

I really enjoyed working with Cindy B over the years to create impactful N-of-8 groups.

Here's some notes from the archives as we thought about the elements of one meeting.

The difference of storytelling

on Storytelling

"If you tell me, it’s an essay. If you show me, it’s a story." 

—Barbara Greene

The drive for simplicity

on Simplicity

"Less isn't more; just enough is more."

-Milton Glaser

3 things reps don't seem to value as much as the brand agency

Why do we need sales aids, iVAs, and non-personal promotion?

The reps don’t think they mean much to their targets. 

What are your thoughts?

How to know if you're a leader

on Leadership

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." 

—John Quincy Adams

"Minding Design: Neuroscience, Design Education, and the Imagination"

I am a member of The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and was quite interested to share this with our neuroscience innovation colleagues.

Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture and the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture hosted an international symposium dedicated to exploring the relationship between neuroscience and architecture. The symposium titled, "Minding Design: Neuroscience, Design Education, and the Imagination," was held in November 2012, at Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Architects and brain scientists have much to learn from each other and discussion addressed the implications of neuroplasticity on lifelong learning, how the environment changes the structure of the brain, how the imagination functions, and how to best nurture it and what is important for the designer to know and how best to teach it.

Minding Design explored the implications of these advances on the education of those who design our built world.

Here is a link to share with anyone interested in details

www.taliesin.edu/md

The surprise and delight of brand innovation

on Surprise and Delight

"A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless."

-Charles de Gaulle

A revelation on authenticity

on Authenticity

"I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I've become. If I had, I'd have done it a lot earlier." 

-Oprah Winfrey