Thoughtful’s Christmas Speech 2011

Hello and Merry Christmas.

It’s exactly five years to the day since Thoughtful was born.

But before I start I need to make an apology to you.

For what felt like the right reasons at the time I never posted our Christmas Speech for 2010.

Looking back, I regret not making that post live because it undermined the very reason we make a Christmas Speech: it might help someone in a similar position.

I had blinked in the face of failure.

If you have the time and are interested, you can read it here.

2011 — Part 1

We’ve been on quite a journey these past 5 years, with the past 2 years being the toughest of our lives in almost every respect.

Like any new thrusting design studio we began our journey looking to conquer the design industry. But soon after we won our first big pitch and cooed over our first foil blocked invite we looked at each and thought: is this the best use of our skills?

We’re hugely grateful for the support we’ve been shown by our clients since we set up but we slowly began to realise that the design business isn’t quite what we imagined it would be.

Just so we’re being crystal, we’re not complaining about that fact or not that surprised because being in the service of others is largely what the graphic design business is all about. But after 3 years in business our hearts were no longer interested in building a company solely around graphic design — a business of seemingly never ending rounds of free-pitching — that’s where the buzz might be some studios and that’s fine, but for us life’s too short. Not unlike Steve Jobs, we want to put a dent in the universe and we can’t see that ever happening operating as we are inside the graphic design business.

Through meeting lots of fascinating and inspiring people outside of planet graphic design — people like David & Clare Hieatt of the Do Lectures; Tech futurists, Jonathan MacDonald & Alan Moore; Education, creativity and innovation expert Sir Ken Robinson; Architect, designer, and author of cradle-to-cradle, Bill McDonough; Visionary husband and wife team, Bruce Mau & Bisi Willimas and peace campaigner, Jeremy Gilley, (all people who try to bring about positive change on a global scale in one way or another) we’ve become more interested in how things work, rather than how they look.

It’s Darwinian — we’ve simply evolved. Nokia began life on the banks of the Nokianvirta river as paper company and rubber boot empire before being transformed into one of the world’s leading forces in mobile technology. 3M moved from mining to adhesives and Carlsberg is now a coffee company.

One look at who we follow on Twitter is a good indication to what excites us, pioneers in teaching, mobile, science, art and business...very little graphic design.

Now some people will argue that’s what any graphic designer worth his or her salt should be interested in — everything that’s fascinating and magnetic about the world we live in — things that matter: art, science, fashion, technology, politics, security, health, architecture, travel, film, sex etc…but how many graphic designers truly believe that?

And if we’re being brutally honest, we began to look at planet graphic design as being, well, err, kinda dumb...sorry — a strange place where designers win awards for projects they’ve designed to win awards. (And yes, we include ourselves in that.)

Add into the mix a couple of nasty car crashes, family bereavements, Chris leaving the company, the longest / deepest recession in living memory and the feeling that sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is actually a train, it’s no surprise we’ve been reflecting (or perhaps even brooding) about what we want to do with the next 20 years of our lives.

So to cut a long (and perhaps tedious) story short, we’ve been struggling to find our place in the world for quite some time now. But fortunately for us a chance meeting gave us a new purpose… 

2011 — Part 2

We have seen the future of design.

It is dressed in black, has a big smile and a wicked laugh.

I’m referring to the visionary, innovator, designer, and author, Bruce Mau.

If we’re being honest, prior to meeting Bruce Mau we just thought of him as an accomplished book designer, creator of the Incomplete Manifesto for Growth and Creative Director of Bruce Mau Design — that’s it. So to hear he was making a presentation over 3,500 miles away from his studio in Toronto at a business event in Liverpool was a bit surprising.

But his presence in Liverpool wasn’t just a surprise, it was a revelation.

He began his presentation by saying he no longer views design as being about ‘the object’ — design doesn’t even have to be visual. Rather it’s about outcomes, which can relate to anything — health, happiness or prosperity. 

He spoke about a world which has become so complex and so threatened by environmental apocalypse that we have no choice but to design nature itself. This he stressed isn’t megalomania or arrogance but rather an obligation.

“Living in a designed world isn’t about control” said Mau “it’s about responsibility.”

And it’s this responsibility which will shape design and design education in the 21st century because it’s not enough for a designer to create an idea, product or service just to look good because if it’s not fundamentally intelligent we’re only making matters worse for society and the planet.

But if we can’t make that idea, product or service desirable no-one knows about it, no-one wants it, no-one wants to change their life to live that way.

Watch this short film about a floating garbage patch in the central North Pacific Ocean that is twice the size of Texas. Garbage Island (as it’s known) contains 6 times as much plastic as plankton, which begs the question: If the food we’re eating is becoming polluted with the stuff we throw away, where exactly is away?

Even if you’re not a hippy designer, it has to be hard to watch that film and not feel some sense of responsibility?

If we want to have a chance of getting out of the economic, social or environmentally mess we find ourselves in, designers need to be generating ideas, products and services which are (in the words of Bruce Mau) both ‘smart’ and ‘sexy’.

Smart = sustainable, innovative, compelling story. Where all design problems are approached with a ‘cradle-to-cradle’ mind-set. And all components that make up a product are endlessly recycled or upcycled without waste.

Sexy = looks great.

Bruce Mau was like a lightning rod for all ideas and thoughts we’d been having for some time but couldn’t quite articulate.

Listening to Bruce Mau changed everything.

I’m sure the cynics out there will have lost the belief that design can save the world, or even wonder why it should — Bruce Mau would argue we cannot afford the luxury of cynicism.

2011 — Part 3

What I’m describing here isn’t just the stuff of thinktanks or utopian dreamers, it’s happening.

Last year, Alex Bogusky, dubbed the Elvis of advertising, left one of the world’s most famous ad agencies — Crispin, Porter & Bogusky, in a storm of publicity to set up a new venture called COMMON.

It might be Alex Bogusky has found a new passion in life? or it might be, as one CPB executive said: “I think he’s doing his penance for selling shit all these years”. Whatever the reason, Alex Bogusky’s timing is perfect and takes full advantage of a cultural moment.

He’s sensed the need for a dramatic shift in the way business is done towards more transparency, more collaboration, more equality, more ethics, more sustainability and ultimately more value.

Now, COMMON is a really interesting concept. It’s a collaborative community brand that works for society not shareholders.

It’s mission is to re-invent capitalism so that it spreads love and prosperity to all stakeholders and not just a few. I know, that sounds a bit vague, so here’s Alex Bogusky talking about COMMON.

One of COMMON’s start-ups is COMMON CYCLES — a bike company that uses Alabamboo, a new bamboo cash crop that is being developed in Alabama. The grand goal is to create the most accessible, renewable, sustainable bicycle on the market — as Bamboo sequesters carbon at a higher rate than any other biomass.

COMMON CYCLES is also situated in Hale County which is the poorest county in America, with 24 percent of the population living below the poverty line. So this is a business which has also been created to bring in industry and employment into the area.

Imagine 100, 1,000 or a 1000,000 companies each with a story as compelling as COMMON CYCLES all living under 1 umbrella brand with a shared set of values and a commitment to spreading love and prosperity...it’s the stuff of revolutions.

In short, what Alex Bogusky is doing with COMMON is a re-interpretation or re-purposing of Ken Garland’s 1964 First Things First Manifesto — Alex Bogusky is making cat food, stomach powders, detergent etc. the tools for change rather than criticism.

According to ‘optimistic doomer’, John Thackara, we’re no longer in recession — this is permanent. And with less and less work around and tighter and tighter budgets I can see a growing desire among designers to bring their curiosity, strategic vision, iterative methodologies and divergent thinking to launching their own brands and it promises to be transformative and explosive for the discipline of design. It also offers creative control, shows a potential client you ‘walk the walk’ when it comes to selling creativity as a transformative business tool and potentially a better chance of a financial return than free-pitching.

But this ‘Designer Entrepreneur’ is not a new idea, it’s a revolutionary idea but not a new one...

It goes back to the the late 19th Century, and really started with William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement, where artisans and designers produced typefaces and books and much more for the marketplace. It was also one of the foundations of the Bauhaus and the inventions of the faculty’s and students are still in the marketplace today. And what began as an exploration of how Art and Industry could benefit from each other, has evolved into common practise.

And of course there’s Charles and Ray Eames in the middle of the 20th Century, who were multi-disciplinary designers and entrepreneurs. They created everything from furniture to exhibitions to packaging to films and videos. Their work really changed the face of design in America.

What they did so successfully (and which is a hallmark of the entrepreneur) was to see a need in the marketplace for a variety of products that reflected the public mood of the time. Just like Alex Bogusky.

2011 — Part 4

Okay, let’s bring it back to Thoughtful for this last bit.

I mentioned earlier we had found a new purpose. And that new purpose involves design education.

We think the future demands a new breed of design student. A design student that isn’t just visual but also written and verbal. A design student that is the synthesis of artist & inventor, thinker & doer, adaptability & self-reliance and empathy & entrepreneur.

A design student whose future isn’t solely tied to just selling more stuff to more people — it’s also about understanding their potential as problem-finders and problem-solvers who can design better systems and services and maybe even happiness and prosperity? (As well as stuff ;-)

Which is why we’re going to be dedicating our time to helping re-design design education. 

Along with client work we’re going to focus as much time as we can on our own design school and look to partner with like-minded tutors, students, designers, businesses and institutions — you can see our fledging effort here: www.litfi.ac

For better or for worse Thoughtful has always had a strong streak of idealism running through it, and it now feels as if we’ve found a way of putting that at the heart of what we do. We don’t pretend to have all the answers or that it will be easy, either — we’ve so much to learn from other people, which is why co-operation, collaboration and dialogue will be the only way of making progress.

We’re not planning for failure, either but if we do it will be doing something we’re passionate about, which I guess is more than most people will achieve in their lives.

I sincerely hope this year’s speech doesn’t sound like a rant — it isn’t. Or that we hate design — we don’t. Or that we’re having a premature mid-life crisis — we’re not. We’re massively excited about the future because after being lost in the forest for 2 long, and at times painful and humbling years we’ve found our way out, and it feels good to have the sun on our faces again.

Thanks for taking the time to read this year’s Christmas Speech — we wish you the very best of luck for 2012.

Thoughtfully
Stuart

ps We’d love to hear from any like-minded designers or tutors who would like to get involved with LITFI. Please e-mail stuart

Teams win.