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.
Lots of Canadian examples in this piece on Brutalism. A short historical lesson on Brutalist architecture, the philosophy behind it, and why so many of our public buildings were designed in this style. I’ve loved the boldness and purity of these types of buildings since I was a little kid. For some reason I was always attracted to them:
I’m teaching this semester. I’ve been trying to articulate how to communicate certain abstract concepts of industrial design in a way that students would understand. So I figured I’d do this video to help get all of my thoughts in one place. I still think it has value for professional ID’ers as well. I decided to do an analysis of these Shinola headphones, which was designed by Astro Studios…it just felt too self-serving to do a product of my own, so I figured I’d do it for another product that I thought was really well-designed. If this goes well, I might do it for some other products. Check it out:
I’m hoping to improve the production value for the next video, too.
Edit: anyone know how to embed a youtube video? I tried a bunch of different ways and none seem to work…including click the “youtube” button.
Edit Edit: if this is too self-promotional or spammy let me know and I’ll take it down.
If I am correct, simply click the youtube button and insert the movie ID code.
Thanks for sharing, I enjoy the work by Astro studios as well as a professional.
Just saw the Canadian Premiere of Rams. A Docuumentary Film. last night. Was great. A good bit of background and coverage of his work, and some pretty funny insight to his personality. Best part was when he was in the Vitra museum trashing some other designers’ chairs saying how they were useless. Won’t give away the spoiler.
Cool tour merch too including a signed poster, tote and Rams Field Notes books with the 10 Principles of Good Design on the rear.