Brandon Schauer: You have a unique perspective from which to think about design. You've studied it, you've practiced it, you founded a business that sells products of modern design, and you write about design and its impact on communities and cultures. Given your perspective, what's the role of design, and in particular, what's the role of design in business organizations?
Rob Forbes: The role of design is to solve problems, to make things better. Most of us have preconceptions as to what design includes, and most of us think of it primarily as visually determined. But the role of design is far greater in organizations and businesses than just that of visual elements.
Our company is an example of how these preconceptions operate. People tend to think of Design Within Reach as a design organization because we sell products for designer applications. People consider furniture to be more about design than cars or shoes or tools or businesses or processes. However, we could be a poorly designed organization that's selling modern designs, and people would probably still think that we're a design-oriented organization. A critical aspect to the design of DWR is the speed of delivery, but most people do not associate speed or service with design. Maybe these preconceptions are changing. It seems that recently design has become a buzzword in business.
I like Ralph Caplan's definition of design as, "the artful arrangement of materials or circumstances into a planned form." From this perspective, design is as much about the way you set up the organization, manage logistics, install communications systems, interact with your customers, as it is about the objects you sell or how you manage your graphic identity and marketing materials. It's a process. Maybe the role of design in an organization is a process that keeps the organization focused on its true priorities.
If somebody asked, "What is the most design-driven retail company?" one might answer Target, because they sell fashionable products with influential designer styling. But that doesn't that mean that Target is more of a design-driven company than Toyota, for example, with its Prius division. I think of Target as being well-designed more by their innovative retaining techniques than by their products. I use the Prius as an example of design because a truly modern car should be designed to use fuel effectively. This aspect makes the car more modern than its body styling does.
BS: Can a waste management company be just as design-oriented as Design Within Reach?
RF: Absolutely. By definition, design needs to be purposeful and solution-oriented. The issues that deal with the environment and waste materials are very important modern problems. If you made waste management relevant and efficient while having consumers contribute to the solution, you'd have a very modern and smart application of design. Fifty years ago, designers were more focused on the making of stuff than on the disposing of stuff. Now the latter is probably the bigger problem for most of us.
I saw some examples in Buenos Aires recently that gave me a visual symbol for the complexity of this problem. On the sidewalk, there's an old recycling system with wire forms perched on poles. They're beautiful architectural baskets. And they're designed with purpose. The baskets are lofted up to keep them away from the rats. Alongside these baskets are the big blue contemporary plastic containers, like the ones you or I might roll out onto the sidewalks in Chicago, San Francisco, or anywhere else.
Two different solutions to recycling in Buenous Aires.
Which one is the right solution? There's something about making your waste visible, like the South American baskets, where people have to deal with it. Compare that to the blue trash containers that hide the trash, which might be more sanitary and efficient. But these blue plastic containers could be found anywhere, and they detracted from the uniqueness of the culture and the urban environment. There was something about these contrasting trash containers that suggests a good waste management company could create a solution that was responsible to the local community, culture, and environment as well as being efficient. That's asking a lot of a waste management company, but if they could pull this off they would certainly be given accolades as a design-oriented company.
BS: So one quality of modern design that goes beyond simply the visual aspects is that it's purpose-driven; but engineering and other disciplines are also purpose-driven. Does this make these disciplines modern?
RF: I would say they are modern to the degree that they are solving modern problems. Purpose-driven is a criterion that is difficult to measure in aesthetic terms. For example, there's a purpose to having well-designed furniture. People appreciate it visually, and it solves a problem. It makes them feel better and allows them to relate personally to their environment. But the benefits are subjective and hard to quantify.
Defining purposeful design in the modern world is tricky. Would you say a fast food chain company is design-driven? It depends on your definition of design. Because of the efficient systems and throughput some may say that they are extremely well designed. Or take oil companies, which deal with a commodity product. Could they be well designed? I'm sure there are some oil companies that are designed better than others in terms of the efficacy with which they move their product through their supply chain or how they deal with environmental issues. These aspects of oil companies are more crucial to their design prowess than what their graphics and signage or architecture looks like.
Someone once defined good design as, "function that has cultural content." This is a helpful distinction because it asks that design take on a broader social purpose. Using that definition might help determine if an oil company or a fast food chain was truly well designed.
BS: There's the design of objects, design of trash receptacles, and the design of the trucks to move them. But what's the design of a business or an organization in comparison to that?
RF: That's a full design problem in itself with many layers to it. Take DWR for example. One of the design issues that DWR solves is getting products to people quickly - speed. Logistics management is an important part of what we do. We also have a curatorial function in what we select to sell. Is getting product to people quickly more important than the curatorial editing part of DWR? Of course not. But both design elements are critical to putting design within reach. And the decision to make logistics management a priority is not generally looked at as a design decision. Another somewhat oblique design priority of DWR is being relevant to local communities. We try to find locations for our Studios that are integral to the community, both architecturally and socially. That's a very important business design decision that differs from much of mall-based retail design, which isn't about community engagement. Our web site offers a good example. The backend design of the web is as critical as the front end of the design, the visual interface that the customers view.
These logistics and location decisions are critical design decisions, even though they aren't often though about that way. They're about the overall balance and integrity of the parts of the business and how they work together.
BS: Design can play a measurable functional role in an organization. For example, DWR has invested in its own product development to address customers' unmet needs with design solutions. But there's also the potential for a larger cultural role for design. Can you help me appreciate the differences?
RF: I'll give you two examples. We heard from customers about a need for a lightly scaled reclining lounge chair. Many women are not attracted to the traditional men's super-sized recliners that take up a lot of space and remind them of men's dormitories. So we developed a solution called the Flight Recliner in collaboration with a product designer, Jeffrey Burnett. That's a straightforward product design process, and it's easy to quantify the solution in terms of success or failure.
The Flight Recliner, designed by Jeffery Burnett.
A contrasting example is the Design Notes Newsletter. Its primary purpose is to broadly educate people about design. It's objective is to enlarge our clients' perception of what design is so they can appreciate design in its many forms. The results of the newsletter are harder to quantify than that of product sales. We know how many people receive and open the newsletter each week, but we cannot quantify exactly what purchase decisions they make based on it. But on a broader perspective it certainly establishes a conversation with our audience. That is what good retailing is ultimately about, and it's very stimulating to our customers. So the metrics I look at for the newsletter are how many people are actually reading it, and how many people are responding back with comments. We have similar programs in our retail locations, where we hold events that are first about education, not selling our products.
Educational and cultural benefits have always been hard to measure. I understand why most organizations don't focus on these. It's hard to connect them to the bottom line, and it's hard to measure them with traditional business metrics.
BS: You've been quoted as saying, "I realized that most of our perceptions of modern design were based on what was served up in the design press... There is also a silent hand of design at work, most noticeable in urban areas where we have the greatest concentration of man-made stuff." Is the Design Notes Newsletter part of this conversation?
RF: Yes. An aspect of the newsletter and my communications is to get people to make personal observations about design that surrounds them every day, so that it becomes relevant to them. They shouldn't look at design as something that requires a critic's blessing. Everyone should be encouraged to draw their own observations and conclusions about designs from their everyday world.
Once you start observing design from your personal perspective, you develop both a confidence and an understanding that is personally relevant. You are then more able to evaluate and select the chair or pen that you use, the car that you drive, or the place that you live in based on your own criteria. These design decisions can reflect your own personal values and interests, not those of some critic.
Design seems to get broken off in so many different, separate fields. For example, there are the people who write about architecture from a design standpoint. Their writing is usually very academic, highly technical, or just written for that particular group of people. It follows certain trends and terms and only shows a highly specialized aspect of design.
Most of the media covering interior design, product design, systems design, or fashion design exist in their own finite fields and disciplines. So many people see design as limited to these fields rather than existing in the broader world.
BS: The DWR newsletter seems to encourage this participative view of design by asking the audience to create their own modern chair designs from the cork of a champagne bottle.
RF: Yes, I think that this kind of hands-on interaction helps people get involved with design in simple, fun exercises that are about form and structure. It's an exercise that does not require specialized tools or formal design education.
In their everyday work, many people make decisions that are taken for granted and aren't considered design decisions. Take for example the people who professionally cut hair or who prepare meals at the better establishments. They are making really important design decisions for the people they serve, and they may have dozens of "design deadlines" every day. These people are extraordinary in their particular areas of design. And I'm sure that a good chef or hair stylist would also be a good critic of the design of chairs or buildings.
Chair designs from the DWR Champagne Chair Contest.
BS: You mentioned urban environments before. It's a topic you often focus on when you write. What's driving your interest in urban environments, and what do we have to learn from them?
RF: My interest in the urban environment has evolved out of my training as a product designer. Looking at objects is one focus; seeing how they actually get used is another. Design's greatest relevance isn't in what something looks like, but how it actually functions. What's the use of an urban park if it isn't taken advantage of by the public? What's the use of bicycle if it doesn't actually contribute to an efficient way of getting around? It is in the urban environment where we see the usage of design most abundantly.
There's also density of stuff in urban areas. It's the most manmade environment that exists. There's richness in the volume of manmade objects. Looking closely at cities is an efficient way to see a wealth of good and bad design decisions. On a cultural level, it is more revealing than looking at the design decisions we make in our private environments. Private spaces reflect our personal commitments to design. Public areas measure our commitment to design on a broader civic level. Good design in a public space will affect more people than it will in private environments. Design in public is a measure of our true civility, or lack thereof.
If you look at the evolution of our urban environments in the post-war U.S., you see trends in the relocation of people from the urban areas to suburban areas, the segregation of groups, and the emergence of housing projects, from Corbusier on down to local anonymous architects and developers. Many of these developments were not such good design decisions. These decisions did not accommodate the way human beings need to work and live together. The myth that we would be safe and happy in our monocultures has proved to be false. The current work to refurbish the city, plan for mixed use, and adapt and reuse buildings - these are all very encouraging design trends.
BS: I know you're a big fan of George Nelson, and his book How to See. How should we see our own businesses? Are there things we can learn from looking at our businesses just like you look at public spaces?
RF: I've always appreciated Nelson's holistic approach to design and to "seeing" in general. For him, "seeing" was a visual way of "thinking," and a discipline for getting at the essence of things as opposed the superficial. The discipline of thinking is entirely relevant to business, of course. And, coincidentally, How to See began as a document for the Social Security Administration to help public servants "see" the importance of their communications. But Nelson described himself as a "reluctant administrator" and he was quite cynical about the motives of most businesses. I'm not sure how far we should push the connection between Nelson and business management. Inherent in organizations are complexities and bureaucracies that, once established, work against efficient and direct decision making in our work and communications. I'm sure Nelson would find see these as evidence of a lack of design.
BS: Your past experiences in sculpting, inventory management, product line management, and in the creation of DWR have employed both your design-brain and your business-brain. As organizations work to understand the interface between design and business, have you been able to resolve it in your own head?
RF: I may be an odd duck, but I've never understood the supposed rift between the left and right brain functions. When I was involved in the art world as a practitioner, I was very conscious of running a little business. It was my livelihood, not just an outlet for my creativity. I became involved in inventory management directly after leaving business school. I was building simple, quantitative forecasting models to counterbalance the intuitive forecasting of the success of new product introductions. There was both an aesthetic and quantitative aspect to the work. They both seem equally logical to me. Business and art are just different types of problem solving. They both involve a similar discipline and processes, it seems to me. Business results are easier to quantify and account for, so they are more easily understood by most of us.
There are plenty of examples of bringing these mindsets together in business. Google is a great example. They seem to have succeeded through simplicity, a nice fusion of art and technology, and a superb example of modern design.
At DWR there are similar principles at work. One is the authenticity of the content, the value in the products we sell. The other principle deals with the efficiency of the delivery of the products, which is largely about speed. But these principles aren't in opposition. When these principles are brought together, artfully, they define much of modern design.
Rob Forbes is the Founder of Design Within Reach, a company he launched in July 1999 as a San Francisco based catalog, internet retailer and resource for modern design. Over the past six years DWR has expanded to include 60 studios across the country and an online publication, Design Notes, which reaches an international audience. He is currently a member of the SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) Architecture & Design Forum, and sits on the Board of Directors for San Francisco Jazz. He also serves on the San Francisco Mayors' Council for Greening and is an advisor to the National Institute of Design for Mayors.
Brandon Schauer is a senior practitioner for Adaptive Path, a leading user experience company. He has nearly a decade of experience developing new products, services, and user experiences for the Web, handhelds, and more. Brandon received a Master of Design from the IIT Institute of Design in Chicago, where he studied the planning, development, and management of innovation. Concurrently, he graduated with an MBA from the IIT Stuart School of Business.
