Inspirational Design Shorts

It’s fun to see the evolution! They’ve really kept the overall side profile detailing consistent throughout the years, although the wheelbase seems to have changed a lot.

In a world full of crappy news, here is a little Carl Sagan to start your day. Get after it :arrow_right:

This is great!
I would love to see a very slow and intelligent sci fi movie that deals with some of the shown themes and is equally bombastic in it’s visuals.

seriously agree. I think I’ve watched this a dozen times. It deserves to be expanded.

CG SciFi shorts have gotten so good

Check out this quick Vox video by Phil Edwards on the Lincoln Monument and how it almost wasn’t built. This is a great analogy to what many of us in design encounter at times when guiding stakeholders to a solution. Lisa Benton-Short lists in the video lack of vision, fiscal conservatism, and lack of will as “the perfect storm of nothing happens”. Designers in the process can help by showing people the vision in such a compelling way that it not only explains, it overcomes the lack of will. It is also incumbent upon us to help find the most financially responsible solution, or to help show how this solution might have outsized returns.

Luck Rudy and the invention of Nike Air:

always wondered why these engines were flattened! Now I know: Why are the Boeing 737NG engines FLAT? - YouTube

That’s cool! Now I also know why the engines sit so far forwards. I always thought it was something to do with engine thrust flowing under the wing, I’d actually never considered center of gravity.

Also just watched the Chris Do post, he has some really great content on valuing design.

Yah. That Chris Do stuff is great. He is obviously focused on branding but most of what he is saying is applicable across any creative field.

Here’s a 1.5 hr long podcast where Chris Do talks about his personal background. It’s very transparent. It was my first intro to him and gave me a special appreciation for his Futur/Skool videos.

What this lacks in design substance it makes up in pure coolness.

zero sum vs positive sum economics and innovation’s role:

Interesting short. The idea of “we are stronger if we work together” is something I wish there was more of in the world.

I think a lot of business leaders see their individual markets as zero sum games. In order for your marketshare to go up, someone else has to go down. In stable mature product categories that can be the case… but the category can also be ripe for disruption and growth. Take headphones, a totally stable market. Most were free (came with a product) or cheap replacements (crap, lost my headphones and I’m at the airport, I don’t want to spend more the $20), with one mid tier player (Bose) and a few very high end players. Beats entered the market and instead of taking share by crushing competitors, they basically doubled the size of the pie.

I know this isn’t the point of the video, and I also think the $250 fashion headphones aren’t the model for increased global happiness, but a micro proof point of a macro concept. I’ve only met a few leaders who think this way. A few years ago Nike stated a goal to reach $50B. It wasn’t that long ago that the entire sportswear industry was smaller than that. Could they reach their goal by taking share, yes, but it would be an incredibly hard slog and probably not the best thing for the category or sustaining that number. The only way to grow is to increase the overall size of the pie.

I’m not sure if this is a “design short”… but I loved learning how turbos work: