By John Custer, Designer, Creative Development Being a petrol-head means that I am all about the experience of driving. I love having grease under my nails and a hood over my head; the sound of a roaring engine is more important than a screaming guitar solo through the speakers; and an odd rattle or pressure [...]

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Specimen #15: Bladderpod (Isomeris arborea) true California native, the bladderpod (Isomeris arborea) lives comfortably in the desert and by the sea. It inhabits the sort of world traveled by the itinerants in Steinbeck's books: the parched highways and less-traveled coastal roads, the desolate bluffs and disturbed areas, from Monterey to Mexico. It is hearty and [...]

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Fine artists look down on graphic designers. And graphic designers look down on comics artists. Like all generalizations, this one isn't entirely true. For one thing, a great number of successful designers look into the work of comics artists, very often and very closely. Chip Kidd is, of course, the prime example. He was also [...]

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The New York City Chapter of the Industrial Designers Society of America and innovation consultancy Fahrenheit 212 collaborated last month on a very successful event entitled, Design Thinking: Dead or Alive? A stellar panel of voices, including Stephan Clambaneva, Debera Johnson, Cliff Kuang, Bill Moggridge, Mark Payne, Helen Walters and moderator Allan Chochinov, gathered at [...]

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Specimen #14: Southern Magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora) he seeds were the first thing I noticed. I was collecting specimens in my Hollywood neighborhood when I came upon the crimson drops, scattered across the grey concrete like so many precious stones. Truly, to me, they were jewels. They lay in the generous shadow of the tree from [...]

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Andrew Byrom hates graphic design. At least that's what he told my UCLA Extension "Exploring L.A. Design" students a few months ago. We were visiting his studio on the campus of Cal State Long Beach, where he's a professor of Graphic Design History... so I'd like to think he doesn't hate everything about the field. [...]

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Continuing our periodic look at some of the more interesting and influential contemporary Dutch designers (so far we've featured Wim Crouwel and Droog), today we visit the studio of?Bruno Ninaber, who says his main source of inspiration for design "is irritation." A man after our own hearts. Ninaber is thought of primarily as a product [...]

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MFA Design students at the School of Visual Arts (MFA Designer as Author + Entrepreneur) were asked to illustrate today's New York Times Education Life section devoted to Grad Schools. Based on Scott Stowell's class "Explaining Yourself," the students developed a feature titled "The Grad Life," a series of lively info graphic "snapshots" covering such [...]

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by Mark Payne, President, Head of Idea Development A perspective on the pursuit of?breakthrough innovation. There’s a rarely-discussed but fundamental truth about the pursuit of growth-driving transformational innovation: the likelihood of an innovation project landing on transformational answers pivots?almost?entirely on whether it starts with transformational questions… Spend enough years zipping out the door each morning [...]

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As an innocent ploy to get a tour of a spectacular 80 room mansion in Salisbury, Ct., called "The Chateau" (above), because its design was based on a Belgian estate, Seymour Chwast and I told the realtor we were starting, with Louise Fili and Paula Scher, a design academy called TGU (Touch Greatness University). This [...]

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