A few years ago I was involved in design mentoring junior high school or lower secondary school students in the pilot run of the Many Ways of Seeing Project (MWOS). Based on the work by Nelson Goodman, and a few others, this design project was developed
After my recent rant on how some companies continue to generate needless wants and fuel consumerism, I was not surprised to see a growing back lash towards designers like Philip Starck, who are guilty of creating overprices products that may look great but essentially hollow
I have been asked by a few readers how I manage to do so much. Actually I do have a lot on my plate and actually don't get too much done! But seriously these days balancing between being a stay home Dad and running my
Intrapreneurship or Internal Entrepreneurship is fast becoming a big buzz word as companies start to embrace design, innovation and creativity as a strategic competitive advantage. Using the viewpoint that "innovation begins with everybody" as a credo to beat the competition, companies like IBM, 3M and
Further our previous discussion on the merits of the ability to sketch and how sketches are used in studios, I now present a list of hints and tips that has helped me improve my drawing ability. Tips on how to be a sketch god! (or at
This by far, is one of the most frequent questions designers always ask of me. Furthermore, "I can't be a designer cos I can't draw" is also one of the most frequent reasons people give for not being a designer or any type. I myself had
Quite a few significant events have happened to me in the last week, my yearly national service commitments, winning a Red-Dot, and managing to sell my home (another story on its own). Another significant event worth mentioning was the purchase of my new Nokia
Being creative in the military? Is that not an oxymoron? Not really, especially if you, like me, believe that "the most creative freedom comes from a tight brief." After my last rant on creativity in a structured environment, where I insist that creativity cannot occur in
Sometime about 2-3 years ago, the saturated consumer electronics industry, hungry for new but matured technology, has been exploring what we designers call "static" buttons. These "static" buttons are essentially non-mechanical (ie non-moving) and use electronic circuitry as a means to detect triggering contact. Function
If you have not already, please do take a look at part 1 first. Here we go, welcome to the second installment of 10 tips on getting the "buy in". 6) Join the "water cooler" talk I like this strategy the best. Simply because it saves you
Update 1: Oops sorry forgot to add. The Industrial Design 101 series are about my adventures of designing, creating, hacking and remodding my own brand of Cool Mp3 players. I'm not a marketing expert here but when ever I consider a new design I
Sure! Aim high as they say. Its nice to have a dreams don't you think? Well I am sure the Apple fan boys are preparing their ammo, but I must say I wont guarantee our final design will be an iPod killer, but what
Alright here we are in the final installment of this series. It was such a beast to write but I hope the write up is really useful for all of you who are interested to get into digital concept development. Before we go on do
So from Part 1 we really get a gist of the direction of where digital businesses are moving. If we use Crowdsourcing, which is a way to generate ideas and source for labor, and The Long Tail Effect which tells us that people buy niche products
Updated: New links were added and my usual poor grammar was corrected. A Web 2.0 marketing plan focusing on real tangible products, was really only made possible for our discussion today because of the pipeline pathway opened by the Internet. The Internet is amazing in the
This morning I was watching the News show on TV when they had a little chat session with some artists visiting to promote The Asian International Art Exhibition. One thing that hit me was: Each piece is an artistic expression that embodies the culture and history
Welcome to the fourth installation of the Concept Equipment Shoot-out between the Sketchbook, Drawing Table and Tablet PC! I do apologise as it's been almost 1.5 months since Part 3, but I needed some time to really get into all the equipment to give
Finally, I'm back to this last installment of this series. Phew! Took awhile, more than 6 months, but I finally got all my thoughts organized. Just in case do check out Part 1 and Part 2 first. In summary, the last two installments talked
About 2 weeks ago I wrote about how I managed to "cross the threshold" and become a social entrepreneur. With the urgings of my fellow comrades at SG Entrepreneurs, I've decided to blog my experiences during my 3rd go at entrepreneurship. Strangely this time I'm
Business plan competitions have been pretty big recently. I like to congratulate the winners and this post is in no way demeaning their hard work and excellent ideas. That being said I am pretty skeptical about such business plan competitions, entrepreneurship grants, and