The Guggenheim Foundation will open their largest museum of the arts in a Frank Gehry designed building to be built in Abu Dhabi. Shown is Gehry's Guggenheim in Bilbao. Considered a coup for the Gulf State which has an ambitious plan of becoming an emerging center for cultural arts in the region, Gehry plans to unveil his design by November 2006.
Gehry said yesterday that he had only recently committed to building the new museum, and had not yet decided on a design. [...] "It's got to be something that will make sense here. If you import something and plop it down, it's not going to work. It is important for a building to be a good neighbour and not just a foreign comer from outer space."
Hewlett-Packard's recent push towards promoting design as an integral part of their product marketing strategy gets an international boost in the arm - they're also seeking a business executive as a brand ambassador in India for their "The computer is personal again" campaign.
Nokia design continues to fascinate the media - their newest head of worldwide design, Alistair Curtis, is grilled by BusinessWeek in the same issue that the Nokia 8801's design gets panned in a product review. In an interesting tidbit from last year, Joi Ito points out that all the sound and ringtones for this premium phone were composed exclusively by award winning composer, Ryuichi Sakamoto.
We've also been establishing what we call design oases. At the moment we have two, one in Bangalore, one in Rio. They're not exclusive Nokia design centers. They're an open environment. A local creative university sponsors, it's an area where we can interact with local creatives in order to sort of look at the culture of that country. We can look at specific design issues we want to develop with them. We are a global organization and there is diversity in the marketplace. It's about being able to tap that better. What are those differences? Are the drivers the same? In many cases they are, but you may need to tweak products to make them more appealing from a Rio perspective or a Russian perspective.
Taking a leaf from Nokia's book on tweaking for the Russian perspective may have helped the recent rebranding of MTS, Eastern Europe's largest mobile service provider, here's a particularly insightful snippet, and more to read here and here on this recent campaign.
And speaking of the egg...according to a recent Vedomosti article, the idea of using an egg as the great rebranding symbol is a complete failure. As I noted, the rebranding was led by British firm Wolff Olins, which also did BeeLine's rebranding. As Vedomosti noted, in England an egg represents simplicity - hence the English saying "simple as an egg." Yet in Russia, as Vedomosti wrote, "In Russia an egg means not just simplicity but also a certain body part." As in balls.
The auto industry is suddenly buzzing around design - an interview with Ford's design chief balances one by Toyota's head of design in Europe. Who will win this round, as Dvorak wonders whether General Motors can just directly learn from Apple?
In other words, most of the GM cars still look old-fashioned. The ghastly Cadillac Crossover looking the most like a car designed either by a committee, a focus group, or Homer Simpson.
And, of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And we generally don't read a lot of carping in the press about the boring designs coming out of GM. But just look at the way reporters dress to understand why.
If Ghosn manages to find his way to the top of GM, expect everything to change and watch GM go back on top. And the reason for success will be design. The rest is gravy.
In global news this week: A quick look at the 'undefinable' flavour of Australian design; Taiwanese company and students win Asia's Lite-On Awards, the largest scale industrial design award in Greater China; in light of Panasonic's recent bag of 6 IDEA awards, Matsushita's CEO announces his product strategy; 'From Golf to Laptops' explains why Asian design stays hot this summer; National Geographic looks at the curious problems in designing sportswear for Muslim women; Italian design sponsors a gallery in the Royal Ontario Museum and finally, Motorola's launch of their color phones in China use the X'ian region as cultural backdrop to resonate with their local audience:
"Motorola unveiled the colors in Xi'an because of what Motorola sees as the core design philosophy and its 'color spin' approach specifically -- that phones are made for individuals, not for mass markets. The stripes on Xi'an's ancient City Wall which has welcomed leaders for centuries and on the terra cotta warriors that evoke awe from around the world remind us of the power and emotion of color," noted Michael Tatelman, Motorola corporate vice president and general manager, North Asia Mobile Devices.
The Packaging Society of the UK have just announced their StarPack 2006, annual awards for the industry. DD thinks rum is best when out of the bottle, but,
The Supreme Gold Award went to a beautifully designed and innovative bottle for Diageo's Oronoco rum, which the judges said was a "stunning pack combining technical difficulty with real shelf presence".
This week's newsletter ends with this comprehensive overview of IP and Patent Law for Retail environments and links to the complete online and free archives of Design magazine for the decade 1965-74. And this lingering paean to the humble ashtray.
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