Succeeding by design

Many factors influence successful endeavours. Few do so as much as design. Succeeding by design is a way of doing things that does not leave essential aspects of a product, a service or an experience to chance.

Realising the importance of design is a key to achieving more better results in your endeavours, the enabler to getting more satisfaction from projects. Becoming conscious of the criticality of design is the single most important factor to create your happiness and your success day after day.

Good design is about harmony and style.

Succeeding by design requires attitude and discipline because there are a few universal rules that actually underpin successful design of anything you can think of from...

• hit products like the iMac, a Cartier fountain pen or a BMW,
• to excellent service like Amazon,
• to awesome experience like a show of Maurice Béjart.

This is a book I purchased a few months ago that summarizes all these principles of design; it deals with the 80/20 rule, the way people perceive colors, how metaphors and archetypes work to convey meaning, applications of the normal curve, the golden ratio and many many other principles, all presented in a fabulous manner.
It is a goldmine if you are interested in design and a powerful source of inspiration about things you can do to enhance your experience on the planet. Of course there are a few other things you ought to be informed of, but that will be for a future post on this blog :-)

Comments

[chai anyone]

Alex,

My post today has nothing to do with your entry for the day. Although I did take a moment to read it I cannot comment on it as I am not well versed in the subjects of design and choose to keep comments to myself about things I am not sure about. However, I came here today to let you know that I was quite surprised to see all the comments you posted on my blog. I am grateful for all the thought and time you put into your comments. After all we bloggers write exactly for moments like these when others come to our sites and like what they see. I look forward to our future interactions.

[Phil]

I tend to agree here but giving the example of BMW now when talking about brilliant design is like putting Chernobyl and public health in the same sentence. Chris Bangle has ruined the 7 series, before doing the same to the 5, the 3 and creating the abomination called 1 series. I'm not even going to mention what happened to the wonderful Z3. The only thing that allows these to be sold right now is the sign on the hood.

Why is it that Mercedes and Audi never lose that touch of class whereas BMW loves to drown into the tasteless and ostentatious world of rappers and chavs? Audi's ad for the A6 was spot on: 6>5.