NEWS
The Paradox of ‘Human Error’ : How bad design can shift blame to the user
It’s an unfortunate fact that no matter how good design becomes, there will always be accidents. Be it a simple misunderstanding that is easily remedied, or a terrible industrial disaster with lasting consequences, the products, and systems we create are proven time and again to only be as good as those who create and use them. However, despite the diversity in scope and nature of errors, between 80% and 95% of all industrial accidents are blamed entirely on human error. For a designer, this seems at first glance to be excellent news. The products and systems we design are rarely at fault, and who really can be blamed if a user happens to fall asleep at the wheel or leave their stove running? Design can only do so much.
But is that true? Even a cursory consideration of the numbers seems a bit off. If the human error rate is so high, then perhaps the humans at error are not the users, but those who created the device or system in the first place. While electrical or mechanical errors necessitate fixes before a design can come to fruition, errors of operation or use are often not so immediately addressed. After all, the design works! Surely the user is simply failing to follow instructions correctly, or not paying proper attention to the design’s operation. And maybe some are. But when improper use becomes the leading cause of failure, one must ask why so many people are unable to fulfill a design’s promise.
Despite all the progress made in the design field over the past decades towards a more human-centered method of thinking and creating, there exists a large blind spot in the eyes of many designers: experiential design. While a product can be created that fulfills a task sufficiently, if that product exists in an otherwise boring environment and is supposed to be the sole focus of an operator for eight hours a day, five days a week, it becomes easy to see why the device may not be operated perfectly each time. Ergonomics and aesthetics may cater to the tactile experience of a design, but what is it that addresses the mental and emotional stresses of interacting with a device or system?
No design can be perfect, but every design can become better by troubleshooting, iteration, and considering every aspect of its lifecycle, from the raw materials used in its creation, to its manufacture, and through its use. Error, human and otherwise occur when a design does not consider each step along its journey, and it is the role of the designer to thoroughly research each step of this process, and strive to fix errors not only technical, but of a more human nature as well.
Design Interface Inc. can show you what is possible. Our forward-thinking solutions for product design, package design, medical device design, graphic design and photography unlock the value of your ideas as we communicate your message and goals. See more here: https://designinterface.com/
Design Mortality
Nothing lasts forever, and design is no different. Tastes change, styles evolve, and what was once the pinnacle of design brilliance can tomorrow become out of date, retro, or antique. There is much to be said about creating ‘timeless’ designs that can remain in good taste throughout the ages, but despite many attempts, few designs manage to reach this fabled immortality. What is it that makes a design last? How have some styles of architecture, graphics, forms, and all else withstood the tests of time?
Lasting designs are those that do more than embody the design trends of the day but instead combine a unique aesthetic or form with evergreen design sensibilities that have driven good design since time immemorial. The first such bedrock is above all, simplicity. Good design is memorable, repeatable, and adaptable to many situations. From a simple beginning can spawn endless variations, allowing a solid design foundation to adjust in subtle ways to changing tastes. Making further use of color, geometric shapes, and creative typography to give a feeling to a design is what can allow consumers to form attachments to the marks and forms of a product, beyond its utility.
These principles are embodied in many older designs and brands that have remained relevant and modern, despite the antiquity of their marks and product’s origins. Avoiding the label of ‘retro’ or ‘old-fashioned’ is a difficult thing for any design that seeks to survive through the ages. This problem is often most apparent in architectural design, which by its nature is made to last. Once a neighborhood or building becomes out of fashion, housing prices can decrease and the place itself becomes undesirable. Other buildings however, become antique or classical with age, and their value can increase. While the age of these buildings can be the same, one matures, while the other degrades. For the architect, the use of evergreen design may determine whether the property they are designing can retain its merit in the long-term.
The world is an ever-changing place, with new designs and trends appearing all the time. It is the task of the good designer to not only keep abreast of these developments, but also to incorporate them into an ever-growing repository of evergreen design principles that can make a good product great, and a momentary style into one that can become immortal.
Design Interface Inc. can show you what is possible. Our forward-thinking solutions for product design, package design, medical device design, graphic design and photography unlock the value of your ideas as we communicate your message and goals. See more here: https://designinterface.com/
Cleveland Institute of Art Faculty Show 2022
We are honored to be invited into the Cleveland Institute of Art Faculty Exhibition again for 2022. The mbrio branding and packaging (pregancy earbuds) is on display designed by the creative team at DI. It’s also an honor to be sharing a case with Dan Cuffaro (nCamp knife) and Kathy Buszkiewicz (ring made from U.S. currency). This vibrant artistic community’s show is in the Reinberger Galleries at CIA until December 22. ~ Carla Blackman and Adrian Slattery
Gallery photos by Jacob Koestler
The prevalence of sustainability in design thinking has been one of the largest shifts and greatest triumphs of the green design movement over the past years and has led to a renaissance in the development of products and systems design with both the earth and humans in mind. However, even as advancements are made in reducing waste and improving efficiency, we must ask the question: are we truly doing Good, or simply a bit less Bad?
To make products that are truly beneficial to the earth system we must give back more than we have taken away. This means making products not to be XX% less polluting than last year’s model, but to question every stage of the process upon which those products are made. Are the raw materials for the product collected in a way that harms their surroundings? Are the factories in which products are produced putting out more pollutants than they take in? What of the logistical network that ferries the product around the world? And what happens after the product is used up?
If the answers to these questions are in any way negative, if the effort of making the products we design is a net loss for the earth system, then are we truly being sustainable? Breaking free from the polluting and dangerous systems of manufacturing and extraction that power the world is no easy task, but until we improve these processes, no amount of smart design and green thinking will turn a product into one that has a net positive effect on the world.
Design Interface Inc. can show you what is possible. Our forward-thinking solutions for product design, package design, medical device design, graphic design and photography unlock the value of your ideas as we communicate your message and goals. See more here: https://designinterface.com/
Artificial Intelligence in Design
There is no technology that is more rapidly advancing and evolving that that of artificial intelligences (AI) in the world today. These new smart machines have numerous exciting applications in every aspect of our world, none more so than the field of design.
Already, the most advanced AIs can create incredibly detailed and imaginative product concepts at hundreds of times the speed of a human designer. Though they may still lack on occasion an eye for what is possible, algorithms such as DALL-E 2, StableDiffusion, and Midjourney, among others, represent a new frontier in the field of ideation and concept generation. Beyond the drawing board, AIs have seen widespread application in the manufacturing sector, where increasing smart machines unlock faster and more complex methods to create objects that would have been impossible even just a few years before.
Though some may express concern about the possibility of robots taking over the field, if not the world beyond it, such fears are largely unfounded. Like computer-aided design (CAD) and many other disruptive technologies before it, AI-aided design represents the next step in the evolution of the design world, and one which can open the doors to innovative products and imaginative forms that are truly beyond what we can imagine.
For any designers or hobbyists looking to learn more about AI design tools and how to get started on the path to mastering these tools, there are plenty of free resources on Youtube and other media platforms, about how to take the first steps. For those looking to jump right in, several options are available: For generating product concepts, sign up for the DALL-E 2 waitlist. For writing needs, check out NovelAI. For those with a bit of programming knowledge, StableDiffusion is a highly flexible program that can get the job done. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and new AIs are developed all the time.
Design Interface Inc. can show you what is possible. Our forward-thinking solutions for product design, package design, medical device design, graphic design and photography unlock the value of your ideas as we communicate your message and goals. See more here: https://designinterface.com/
Additive vs. Subtractive Manufacturing and its Implications for Design Thinking
Before any great product idea can be launched, an important question must be asked: how can this product be made? Designing in such a way that your product can be cheaply and efficiently produced by well-established methods is a sure way to improve a product’s chance of success in the marketplace, and with incredible innovations in additive manufacturing, exotic materials, and more, the realm of what’s possible continues to expand.
To fully embrace the possibilities of additive manufacturing in addition to the traditional methods of subtractive manufacturing, new ways of thinking are needed at every step of the design process. The fundamental difference between these two processes is that additive manufacturing creates products through the addition of base materials layer by layer, whereas subtractive manufacturing creates products by removing parts of a material, generating waste material in the process. Due to the nature of both methods, the mediums that a designer can use, as well as the speed and efficiency of product are vastly different between the two processes.
The legacy of subtractive design is evident in the fundamental tools of design, most notably in the computer-aided design (CAD) programs we use to give products their shape and form. The language of these programs are spoken in terms of cuts and extrudes, revolutions and sweeps; terms that align with subtractive manufacturing techniques. With the incredible ability of additive manufacturing to capture complexity and smooth forms, the field of product design has begun to adopt the terminology traditionally used by modeling programs, the language of meshes, sculpting, and supports.
Not only do new methods of manufacture change the ways we can make and improve existing products, but they also change the very ideas we have about what products can be, and open doors to product designs that not too long ago would remain trapped in the realm of the impossible.
Design Interface Inc. can show you what is possible. Our forward-thinking solutions for product design, package design, medical device design, graphic design and photography unlock the value of your ideas as we communicate your message and goals. See more here: https://designinterface.com/
New Coworker Jake
Hello, my name is Jacob, and I’m all about product design. Everyday I strive to put my skills to use in creating sustainable products that help make the world a better place. It’s my pleasure to work with the professionals at Design Interface Inc. as an Industrial Designer, and to continue their legacy of product design excellence.
I specialize in mechanical and biomimetic products, drawing from my background in both design and engineering. (Visit https://jsv-design.com/ for a look at some of my work) I’ve worked for some time as a Freelance Industrial Designer, and have joined Design Interface to take my work to the next level, and to learn invaluable lessons as part of a consulting design studio.
Design Interface Inc. can show you what is possible. Our forward-thinking solutions for product design, package design, medical device design, graphic design and photography unlock the value of your ideas as we communicate your message and goals. See more here: https://designinterface.com/
The Death of Type 1 Fonts
Fonts are a basic staple of designers and are used for both print and online publication. Things are about to change in 2023 as Adobe ends support for Type 1 fonts which have been around since the late 1980s. The good news is the more versatile TrueType Fonts (TTF) and OpenType Fonts (OTF) are still acceptable. This could become a headache as designers will have to replace older fonts with newer ones, but the advantages are many as the modern fonts, especially OTF, have useful features that extend a typeface’s range. For example, designers have the ability to add ligatures, glyphs, small caps, and alternate characters to name a few. Type 1 data embedded in file types such as EPS and PDF will be unaffected by this change, as long as they are placed for display or printing as graphic elements. If those files are opened for editing in applications such as Illustrator or Photoshop, they will trigger a “Missing fonts” error.
Design Interface Inc. can show you what is possible. Our forward-thinking solutions for product design, package design, medical device design, graphic design and photography unlock the value of your ideas as we communicate your message and goals. See more here: https://designinterface.com/
How to Create an Automation Droplet in Adobe Photoshop
Have a ton of photos or files to resize or do the same repetitive actions to? You need a Photoshop droplet! The powerful function of the Droplet in Photoshop saves tremendous time when you are dealing with a lot of pictures that need adjustments, and you don’t want to make the same adjustments over and over again one picture at a time.
The Droplet is an exe file that produced in Photoshop to simplified the process of actions function. It is created to be used over and over again. The way to do that is after you generate the Droplet file you then simply drag and drop all the necessary pictures you want to adjust onto the Droplet file, and the Droplet will do the rest. It will automatically open, edit, save and close one by one all of your pictures. Learn how to create one in this video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h99QLmLAH8E.
Design Interface Inc. can show you what is possible. Our forward-thinking solutions for product design, package design, medical device design, graphic design and photography unlock the value of your ideas as we communicate your message and goals. See more here: https://designinterface.com/
Ohio Regional Urban Sketchers Summit
Grab your art supplies and explore downtown Columbus as an urban sketcher!
Hosted by four Ohio USk chapters, the one-day Summit will feature workshops from six world-class instructors. There will also be opportunities for participants to practice and hone their urban sketching skills.
All skill levels and media are welcome. Participants must provide their own materials.
Summit Schedule: Saturday, August 13, 2022 Columbus, OH
Registration, 9:00-9:30
Keynote Address, 9:30-9:50
Session 1, 10:00-12:00 (choose one workshop)
Lunch and Practice, 12:00-1:00
Session 2, 1:00-3:00 (choose one workshop)
Summit Wrap-up, 3:00
Continued Practice, 3:00-5:00
Instructors & Workshops
Amy Bogard, Quick Captures for Beginners
Yuki Hall, Expressive Urban Sketching
Kay Bea Jones, Artists Have Perspective: Tools for Conveying Space
David Rankin, Sketching Better & Faster Using a 9B Woodless Graphite Pencil & Blender
Jeff Suntala, Sketching People and Cars
Terry Welker, Composition Techniques
Register Here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ohio-regional-urban-sketchers-summit-tickets-359062023177Event Website: https://ohiousksummit.blogspot.com/
Design Interface Inc. can show you what is possible. Our forward-thinking solutions for product design, package design, medical device design, graphic design and photography unlock the value of your ideas as we communicate your message and goals. See more here: https://designinterface.com/
