Future Design

future design what is this what's going on over 
here am I in the wrong am I in the wrong lecture

um just kidding um so good to be here and uh wow 
this is uh this is packed so thank you guys for

for attending um pay special attention to the 
bust of Nefertiti on the right she's going to

appear again and you're like wait a second why 
is he showing that for TTI this is the moment

where I'm telling you guys to pay attention 
all right well hello everyone um it's such an

efficient twetter hello I mean it's so nice the 
T and the O um so I thought what I would do is

get all the capabilities like who the hell are 
you on stage and what do you do stuff because

that's like and it'll to get down to like the 
real meat of the lecture so I'll play a little

little movie that we made um but before that um 
this is my favorite cartoon of all time which to

me if you take anything away from this lecture 
I have to attribute it to Sam gross because this

to me is the very heart of future design you have 
to see something in something that doesn't quite

exist driven by your passion and love for this 
thing that passion or love is very unique to

you and people even this snail next to you may go 
uh I think it's a tape dispenser uh I don't think

it's a snail so ask yourself are you the snail on 
the right snail on the left or you might even be

the tape dispenser without further Ado here's 
some little capability stuff about what we do

okay but about that flying car bit we'll we'll 
come back to that whole flying car situation um so

what we do is we partner with radically ambitious 
leaders to design better better businesses and we

try to Encompass both kind of the left brain 
and the right brain side right the Strategic

underpinning of needs of the business but also 
the the human needs right to truly care for

people on the other side right so we not just 
about you know making money for shareholders

ultimately about um serving um people that have to 
um enjoy these Services whether these are culture

institutions you know Global Mobility platforms um 
democratizing fashion um branding you know one of

the most difficult cities to brand of all time 
New York City um no opinions there New Yorkers

have no opinions at all um you know working with 
um with Bono and Bobby Shriver on collapsing kind

of product and social good and creating the brand 
red um to save lives um and ultimately along the

bottom and though right now I think our our team 
is is basically receiving both the most Innovative

company for design uh award in Fast Company 
right now in New York City um as well as the

most awarded creative consultancy in the world 
as of today but I think more importantly than

the words are the fact that I think why the design 
is considered special is because it's strategy and

design Blended together in one so this is the 
strategy track um but really I think the focus

should be on uh how to think about why you're 
doing what you're doing as much as the how or the

what um so we were founded a long long time ago U 
before I was even a thought to be born and uh one

of our first clients with the Beatles um also um 
very easy client no opinions there as well um but

you can read about all this wonderful history on 
wolf.com so about the future about uh all this uh

talk about this uh this word right uh well just 
as Potter Stewart uh was tasked with defining

obscenity laws and he said I can't put my finger 
on obscenity but I know it when I'll see it I

think that same thing could be said to the Future 
right um it's more of a feeling right about what

comes next and as you look at our tools from then 
and now of course this is the the most masterful

jump cut from Stanley Kubrick's 2001 um he kind of 
indicts society and maybe indicts technology right

uh from a bone that's thrown up by basically 
primitive man into a nuclear satellite that's

orbiting the Earth um we see that there's been no 
alteration in the intention of the tool that the

tool is more sophisticated um and it embodies 
all the great advances right of modern science

it's still a nuclear satellite and the bone was 
still used to to kill that was the first instinct

right of the ape so about this n that I told you 
guys to pay attention to uh is actually created

from an open-source code packet that was released 
by artists so that everybody could enjoy the bus

of Nefertiti and it created a whole dilemma in 
the art world because if everyone could have a

bus of Nefertiti which of of course was stolen 
originally um what does that mean what is the

value of the bus of NTI is it still Priceless what 
is the value of art if it's not based on supply

and demand and scarcity this whole idea of open- 
source art starts to come into consideration and

so the word open source we have to give credit 
to Christine Peterson who coined the term open

source and so that's her Twitter handle so I give 
her this little shout out for these people that

often times have forgotten through history and as 
we see uh talk about the future there are a lot

of things we should keep in mind right it used to 
be about things oh I want to get this thing I want

to get this horse saddle I want to get these shoes 
with this amazing waffle soul and over time we've

seen this importance placed on data but ultimately 
what do you do with the data how do you understand

it how does that data become informative and 
point you in the right direction and we see the

difference between these kind of panopticon like 
structures right where everyone's being watched

they're all kind of centralized into one place 
two distributed teams right teams that could be

working remotely from anywhere and so the idea of 
the future uh being designed to distributively by

a group of people that are not in the same place 
is an interesting conundrum Challenge and also

opportunity and so these are some of the briefs 
that that we get tasked with and we're sometimes

foolish enough to raise our hands and say yes we 
will accept this brief so the brief here was um we

are the most sophisticated technology company in 
the world that you haven't heard of and we need to

define a category uh because there's no category 
that we fit in some people call us biotech but we

apply machine learning we have quantum computers 
generating scientific hypotheses to a field of

robots doing High through experimentation to 
optimize microbes for an industrial supply

chain the hell does that mean but what we 
ultimately have to do is we have to start to

believe right this future exists this category 
exists and we have to start to trick ourselves

using all devices you know whether it's WR writing 
speculative headlines zyren which is the name of

the company is a molecular technology company an 
emerging Titan at the Forefront of an industrial

Renaissance what does industrial renaissance mean 
I guess it means that the material world really

hasn't changed since 1970 right we're still very 
dependent on fossil fuels plastic still rules the

world the giant plastic island in the Pacific is 
still growing growing growing um so the question

is how do we change the material world how do 
we actually stimulate an industrial Renaissance

we're looking at the material property of things 
that can actually be beneficial to the Earth and

so we said well the story consists of three parts 
right you have uh machine learning you have high

fut experimentation and you have the industrial 
Renaissance so it's a three-part story for three

part Z and we were inspired by the movement 
of all these armatron like experimenters all

these robots I got to know so well and they 
all have names and it's like oh you're doing

a great job great job experimenting with these 
microbes you're doing an exceptional job I know

didn't have success today but tomorrow is going 
to look really really good um and these robots are

given an embodiment uh through the mark and they 
asked us what color they should be it couldn't

be as simple as I don't know let's look at a 
panone book and think of what Pantone would be

perfect for you what are the material properties 
of color what are the optical properties of color

from actually how the pigments mix and how the 
light comes together so if you want to reshape the

material world you should shoot against a green 
screen you can change the material backdrop right

you could think about you know a color like Baran 
pink right which is the unique color of a space

right and a shout out to all all you folks that 
have visited Mexico City um or ikb Eve Klein right

a color that symbolizes a person and a unique 
individual contribution to color um and then

Cosmic latte which I guess is the approximate 
color of the Universe um I haven't actually um

taken a step back that far to see the color of the 
universe but I imagine maybe one day it's going to

look great and so then what posters look like for 
a category that we're defining for an event that

might happen 5 years from today um and apologies 
for the glare in the front I'm realizing there's

like a huge like Spotlight I'm like oh no like 
stop that glare I cover your chest man um so we

have Welcome to the New zimer Gen the new stuff 
of materials not just stuff but how stuff gets

made and you know some partnership you know with 
the dchool shout out to all my friends in pal

Alto what will these products look like 5 years 
from now when they're shipping to Market whether

it's you know surgical glue or new ways to think 
about um non kind of plastics or security badges

so my task is to think about you know identity 
right and identity often times is confused with

a logo or a Mark or an embodiment right but 
that's that's almost like a sticker it's like

putting a sticker on something that doesn't seem 
foundational that doesn't seem to me that exciting

uh the bigger question is um what is the whole 
organism that you're crafting right the culture

um the design of all these things Big 
D design right so identity is ancient

right so we can go all go all the way back to 
hieroglyphs and pictographic communication but

ultimately I like to start with my name right 
and specifically um although I was blessed with

a wonderful hippie name that I've only recently 
just come to fully fully Embrace um it means you

know it's a noun right but more importantly um 
it's phonetic which means it's made up of con

and vows right which is kind of great but what 
it also means is that irreducibly the letters

don't actually mean anything contrasting against 
a pictographic communication where each of these

characters have an irreducible meaning whether 
it means Forest whether it means Park whether

it means wood so here you go meaning no meaning 
um and so I think everyone's talking about emojis

are ruining the way we communicate all these kids 
using these little smiley faces well it's actually

returned to a very ancient form of communication 
the first form of communication which is to

communicate with images so my task is to take a 
meaningless letter like the letter M and give it

meaning whether it's M for Murder oh no they think 
I'm a murderer or whether it's the insides of a

wonderful gace who's been hard at work digesting 
chicken McNuggets and fries and burgers so this is

from an exhibit um I have seen in the future 
right Norman Bel Gettys and it's from 1939

and why it's important is when I teach class and 
I ask my students do you think the future is going

to be better than this moment today and they 
all say no I said well you're in a class called

future design who here thinks it's going to be the 
same who thinks it's going to be worse and they

all raised their hand they think the future is 
going to be worse than this moment it's going to

be worse politically worse technologically we're 
going to be more lonely more kind of together and

alone at the same time and it's a very depressing 
moment because these are students who are mfas

who are you know mastering design and choosing to 
apply design to a world that they believe is going

to be fallen and 1939 marks I think the last point 
where we believe that a future would be actually

better than this current moment right it was maybe 
naive optimism but it's a moment that we've we've

lost now we look at A Moment Like This where we've 
actually taking pictures of atoms and it's kind of

like what does this mean we're actually that's 
a picture of an atom I mean that's amazing and

yet amidst all of this turbulence that we're 
seeing globally we can't even appreciate this

moment but barely can the future be constrained 
by a secular expression whether it's you know a

picture or a photograph or it's a pen that you're 
wearing proudly on your lapel it can't be a type

face right so I just recently I'm I'm obsessed 
with Back to the Future of course as a future

design professor of course I would be um and is 
it you know is it OCR right is it how you know

computers read letter forms like you see on Ed ret 
to the right um or is it the digital LED that you

might imagine in your DeLorean time machine well 
can't just be typographic because that would just

be symbolic right it wouldn't be fundamental and 
so my favorite Parable is the parable of the six

blind monks who encounter an elephant right and 
this to me is probably the second most important

image relative to Future design that one monk is 
going oh my gosh it's like a garden host the other

monk is like oh it's definitely a fan other monk 
is like oh my goodness it's this really really

sturdy tree it's like definitely got deep deep 
roots and another Monk Is On Top going my goodness

it's an enormous Boulder they all argue about what 
is the true nature of this thing no it's a tree

no it's a boulder and I think what it gets to is 
the Peril of partial truths if you have a partial

truths and you don't have conversation to work 
those out um rarely will you figure out the true

nature of something so I was raised on a steady 
diet of civil rights and computers my mother

was a computer programmer and a civil rights 
activist and I think what this means is that

I was constantly dealing with different forms 
of reality realities that are happening on the

screen realities that are happening on the world 
and as we think about a lot of the briefs that

many of you will receive like we need a new AR 
thing because all the kids love AR right a lot

of times designers get these briefs which are 
about additive more and more make more things

make more shiny objects um of course immersive 
realities like VR but rarely are designers

thinking about diminish reality we're actually 
limiting stimuli so we have noise cancelling

headphones could we have Optical cancellation 
or haptic cancellation right could designers

actually reduce things that are harmful versus 
contributing more things and creating a surplus

and so half of you are probably seeing a cube 
that's pointing up and half of you are probably

seeing a cube that's pointing down or it might 
be 7030 etc etc the point being is that multiple

realities are always happening simultaneously 
and how do we through empathy and through Love

Actually appreciate these realities not as 
an either or but actually embracing this

simultaneity so aser often talk about the pale 
blue dot and it's a psychological phenomenon

known as the overview effect which is that when 
you actually see the Earth in matter of space and

the Continental boundaries divide and the national 
boundaries divide and of course the neighborhood

and City bound boundaries divide asant speak of 
being enveloped by a sense of love for Humanity

because they realize that they're seeing the 
entirety of their home as one image so continually

faced with a series of great opportunities 
brilliantly disguised as insoluble Solutions

so a lot of times we think of oh my gosh the 
planet is in such great Peril what are we going to

do in these turbulent political times what are we 
going to do now that marijuana is legal in Canada

sorry that's I had to do that joke because that's 
just it's just so topical right how are we gonna

get male um so John Gardner you know just a great 
great quote right which is we have to see these

things as opportunities brilliant opportunities 
brilliant moments of appreciation of love and care

that are masked by formidable circumstances or as 
Eric loose sites to say I'm afraid you have humans

and I love this slide you know is we are basically 
U parasites um but how do we not be parasites how

do we be something else how do we evolve from 
being parasitical to something that actually is

more symbiotic um with the organism that we live 
on so one of my favorite projects that I had the

pleasure of partaking in momentarily was a brief 
a similar brief um that we accidentally raised our

hand for um there was a professor at Stanford who 
resigned in his post and he said I want to change

the way the earth looks at matter space so I 
thought wow pale blue dot overview effect could be

good and he said no no no that's that's the brief 
change the way the earth looks in matter space um

wow so he resigned from his post and he said well 
the way that I can apply the best of my human

ability ities to change the way the earth looks in 
matter space is to address industrialized animal

farming it's the greatest you know footprint 
it's the greatest amount of water consumed

it's the greatest amount of methane that's being 
emitted into the atmosphere and so he said well

I'll do is I will create a plant-based meat that 
actually is for meat eaters not for vegetarians

and not for vegans but actually for people that 
actually you're looking at that same Big Mac

that Grimace is going to be grabbing and saying 
the texture and the flavor even though it's that

cooks reminds me of meat and actually is pulling 
me away uh because it's it's more desirable and

actually using the design of the meat to actually 
bring about this outcome of the pale blue dot oh

just to explain that the the little squiggle 
over there the colors are the seven continents

and the blue are the bodies of water so in some 
ways the logo serves as a data visualization of

the condition of the planet and of course we hope 
that the blue doesn't get wider or smaller etc etc

so both proximity and distance uh can help to 
dissolve boundaries so Walter Ben you mean was

obsessed with this painting by Paul clay and uh 
I have to I I hadn't seen this painting before

I read um you know his kind of you know angel of 
history and he talks about um how he interprets

this Angel being so distress because the Angel's 
duty is to serve Humanity it's flying down it's

saying I am here on on behalf of all of you etc 
etc but unfortunately the angel has the view

of all of human history and essentially sees an 
Ever accumulating catastrophe one mistake after

the other Wars colonization uh uh dispossession 
of land etc etc and as the angel is trying to

intervene on Humanity's behalf a breeze blows 
back from Paradise right from the original kind

of Eden and the angels perplexed because the 
angel can't see what's behind him or her and

as the angel is blown back this is what benyamine 
calls progress if we could actually see the future

I think first of all many most of us would be 
probably like kite surfing or doing some other

type of uh um adventurous Endeavor right now 
um but we're actually moving backwards into

the unknown and unfortunately looking at reference 
points that are familiar right which then create

biases about the things that we're creating 
right that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy

this is my homage uh to Benin it's a piece that I 
created for the for the MoMA show talk to me which

is about reversing traffic signals right so these 
are crosswalk lights in New Haven and there was a

specific Street it must have been like a I don't 
know a lot of elderly in the neighborhood because

of a 60-second countdown um I don't know how many 
of you need 60 seconds to cross the street uh but

if you reversed it it actually counted up like 
a clock and so this was 9:34 and 56 uh seconds

so future are inevitably historians so I think in 
order to understand what's behind you you have to

know what came before and this is um I think 
sometimes Des un this is unfortunate I don't

want to be constrained by the past the past is 
ancient the past is old it's calcified but the

past most likely is going to happen again and most 
likely it's going to be a cyclical relationship to

time so we need to understand what came before and 
what came before that and what came before that to

understand what's coming next a very interesting 
thing that many designers face is the problem

of influence the people that were basically 
contributed to you becoming a designer becoming a

strategist becoming an artist are oftentimes the 
people that create such a strong gravitational

pull that you often times become a shadow or you 
become an echo right of their greatness you you

are a mirror to their light and so a lot of people 
say well if I'm going to be truly great or truly

be the best of my abilities I have to undo this 
influence I have to create an escape velocity

from the center of gravity you whether it's James 
Joyce you know trying to say how did Homer create

this amazing narrative and how can I create in 
the ulyses a conversation with this historical

um precedent or Picasso saying I am not great 
until I understand Las minus by Velasquez because

he many would argue is the greatest painter of 
all time and so Picasso painted this painting

over 37 times to understand this greatness so 
that he could actually detach emancipate from

that influence or Stanley kubri of course a lot 
of kubric kubri throughout this uh this show and

of course he's referencing um you know broken 
blossoms right so a lot of these images that we

think are fresh or new are in some cases omage but 
their intentional homages fully aware of the great

precedences set in you know cinematic history etc 
etc so reconciling a past is a creative act just

as imagining as an Envision future so we're both 
looking backwards and imagining forwards and how

we interpret the past is just as creative as the 
thing that we're going to be building you look at

sunr the great musician and people said where did 
you come from and he goes I came from outer space

I could say I came from I know my ancestors 
were slaves and they were C like I came from

outer space I'm creating music and who are you to 
contest how I choose to imagine my history so you

guys came to a talk called future design and that 
was the future component and so I wanted to make

these nice little bookmarks for you guys you know 
when we hit the design section but of course it's

all future and it's all design so dun and Raby 
um created this speculative design model where

they said that if we were to look ahead and assume 
that there was an inevitability about where we're

going to go right and if we choose to believe 
that that inevitable outcome is not something

that we find desirable how do we use the faculties 
of design to alter that trajectory alter it more

right there's the probable future there's a 
preferable fure right of course preferable

hopefully to a large number of people and not 
just a rarified few there's a plausible future

which is just at the boundary of probably what's 
possible and there's things that are just simply

not possible right out of the realm and so I like 
to look at all these amazing you know ads about

you know the future right the Citron Das right the 
greatest car ever made like a spaceship just kind

of landing and of course it reminds me of the the 
flying car and a lot of the flying car projects

that we're involved in um so here you have flamino 
bon right and you have this family that's in awe

right of this object we'll we'll fast forward 
to uh some other um references to that Muhammad

Ali um asked uh um flip Shuli to take these 
pictures of him underwater and he said uh he

said oh interesting he say I didn't know that you 
trained uh underwater he goes oh yeah this this

swimming pool training is How I build my uh my 
endurance and why I'm such a formidable opponent

so flip Chuli said my goodness I'm going have to 
create this little underwater rig I'm have to go

underwater um so I guess you're going to hold 
your breath it's going to be a difficult issue

but you're Muhammad Ali so I'm going to do this 
so Muhammad Ali went down and put up his fist

etc etc a year later flip Shuli found muhamad Ali 
and Muhammad Ali winked at him and he goes that

was kind of like a practical joke wink and then 
he realized that mam Ali couldn't actually swim

but what he realized is that any opponent that saw 
this image image would be terrified that Muhammad

Ali was training using such unorthodox methods 
that his reflexes would just be unimaginable that

he might be from outer space so Muhammad Ali was 
creating a future brand we can bend an inevitable

outcome to something preferable so it's important 
to realize that design is powerful and every one

of you has an ability to alter uh an outcome 
that you don't find desirable this was orosco's

interpretation of the Das right seeing this not 
as a sacred form but one that can be augmented and

altered drastically and of course we don't want to 
do harmful things but sometimes it's an important

exercise to think of the worst thing that you 
could possibly do the worst tea kettle you could

possibly make right the most harmful thing to 
understand maybe what the most beneficial thing is

so sometimes these edge cases these disaster kind 
of nightmarish objects these speculative objects

that show us the absolute wrong direction we can 
go in I'm going I like to show this quote and of

course we can substitute kind of artists for 
designers anyone who has the ambition of both

being a diplomat of reconciling differences 
between kind of waren factions a profit uh

ultimately trying to imagine what's going to 
happen next by looking at what's happened before a

storian and a poet and so a lot of people you know 
talk about branding and they say Okay branding is

about logos or maybe branding is is more and more 
about interactions or branding is about ux or

branding is about all these things and ultimately 
you can think about the history of branding comes

starting with craft right the physical craft so if 
I was making a shoe a running shoe say in Oregon

um I might start with a waffle iron right but then 
over time I need a way to signal that this is more

than just a shoe it's an idea of being Victorious 
right so I look at the Nik of Seth race and I say

well she's the goddess of Victory should be the 
perfect emblematic you know Stripes so you pay a

designer $37 to do a little nice little logo and 
you don't really appreciate it the time but later

you will learn to appreciate it and then it's not 
enough to just have simple wayfinding the aisles

to say this way for for Nike this way for Adidas 
etc etc you need to stand for an idea an idea of

athletic empowerment right this is when you get 
to just do it right the idea that is larger than

the signal the signal which is larger than the 
craft and ultimately it becomes a platform it

becomes comes a network of data of experiences of 
communities that are stitched together to create

something that's even larger than the idea itself 
and then specifically it Narrows back down to a

moment in time to a context to a place 6: a.m. 
what am I doing oh I need to I need to train

with my coach on my app so it becomes incredibly 
narrow but incredibly precise we can also think

of you know robots in the same way right we can 
think of you know know our first inclination is

to recreate Master Slave Dynamics with our robots 
I want to create a robot made I want to create a

want to create a robot to clean my house right 
a Roomba then over time I need to signal that a

robot is good a robot is evil so we can look at 
you know Autobots or Decepticons in the middle

although you might be a little bit annoying 
uh C3PO stands for protocol he stands for an

idea right he stands for translation that is his 
role that is what he stands for But ultimately

the meteor between the head and the hands must be 
the heart and of course this is from metropolis

and on the back you can also say that of course H 
9000 was a platform and uh Samantha was all about

context why this is incredibly important and maybe 
the third most important slide is that as we think

about technology and specifically designing for 
the future we have a lot of you know cognitive

Fascination about what could be right the science 
the the bleeding edge of innovation and then we

have you know how is it going to be made like the 
physical kind of practicalities of how it's going

to be manufactured and rendered and prototyped 
but the overlooked aspect of course is the heart

what is the capacity for us to bring love into 
our process and it seems soft especially when

things are know how how you're going to monetize 
this but ultimately I think the heart is the true

Bridge of all great things so mclen said that 
you know all media Works to extend some basic

you know human ability ility right so the wheel 
just extends our ability to walk right but then

as we start uh Wheeling around maybe in our 
cars and Automobiles Eclipse you know HSE drawn

carriages all of a sudden the meaning of that 
Transportation changes right you're actually

saying this is obsolescing this meaning that 
that is that is a ride that I take when I want

to propose to someone it's romantic it's nostalgic 
it's a specific type of experience it used to be

an essential mode of transportation and now it 
comes to mean something totally different we often

times see the technology is retrieving meaning 
from something previous a surveillance camera

retrieves the feeling of a medieval Fortress I am 
protected these crenellations where these archers

are going to shoot down things and there's a mo 
that's around this Fortress and if there's a fire

we may all die but we're going to be protected so 
it's both a blessing and a curse But ultimately

there's some relationship right between the 
surveillance camera and the medieval Fortress

and lastly when it moves too fast it collapses it 
reverses onto itself and then we just desire to

walk again like who needs cars right so there is 
a myth the more there's a myth the designer's role

is to create more maybe our role is to create 
less or how to inspire people to make less or

to use less and designers should question such 
briefs right and be instrumental and possibly

even creating the briefs or augmenting them and 
there we see our poor abandoned D definitely not

flying and definitely is is um is a piece of scrap 
metal that's just sitting somewhere in abandoned

woods so this was a graduate school project and 
for the people that are you know wondering about

this thing called the real world and all the hype 
about the real world and when you're in the real

world this the real world that and I would say 
that take out the Gran new salt uh because I think

that your passions and your unique Fascinations 
ultimately Drive anything great that you do it

will be things you lean back on and say wow only 
I could have thought of that only I could have had

you know this particular interest and Fascination 
in this thing so for me it was pixels I love

pixels right because I I was raised on pixels but 
I was frustrated by the size of a pixel it's so

small so tiny and it's always flat right it never 
gets bigger and it never bends it never folds and

so the first thing I had to do is say could I 
break a pixel could I fold a pixel could I look

at environments as being pixelated this is just a 
project of basically taping vinyl letters uh in a

bathroom but later it gave me the idea um when 
I had to redesign the Cartoon Network that this

idea of these pixels or these squares creating a 
four-dimensional network right that was having a

conversation between different animation Styles 
different spaces both 2D 3D cell-based animation

vector-based animation all were held together by 
these pixels these pixels created a world um of

commonality or for the next right which 
was um the aicps um award show for the

most Innovative type of media and advertising 
and what I saw is they had a square logo and

I imagine if you could fold the pixel then 
you would create letter form to the creases

in the paper so you could actually spell out 
neext through the creases as these folded and

thinking about the design of this is almost 
like building a robot or building some type

of object that had hinges and movement 
and anticipating its relationship to

time so folding and SC in pixels are actually 
possible Right within that kind of spectrum

of of possibility it actually fell just within 
that right but only through investigation but

only through my bizarre passion for pixels and 
folding pixels right which contributed to both

of those projects this was a project again um 
another ridiculous brief I don't know why I

raised my hand for these ridiculous briefs but 
I tend to find that um the level of difficulty

and challenge is both rewarding and also not 
just to be um Paralyzed by the challenge but

ultimately to try to bring compassion and love to 
something that gives you the confidence to see not

only the successful outcome but the benefit of 
the successful outcome so the brief was hey I'm

going to North Pole and I'm going to cut out a 
fton block of ice and um I don't know how I'm

going to get it to the Bahamas on the hottest 
day of the year and it can't melt and I I want

to have a show at an elementary school uh could 
you help me so he said the first thing if I'm

going to North Pole I need a flag cuz no one goes 
to north pole without a flag it's like going to

the club without dope shoes um and so I was like 
okay well let's look at the history of flags the

North Pole right Admiral Perry with his stoic 
flag with a bend and the five-pointed star and

the P for Perry of course no h for Hensen who is 
his you know first mate who did most of the work

and so he became obsessed with Matthew Henson 
he wanted to become Matthew Henson he invited

you know Matthew Henson's relatives to the opening 
of course the opening if we didn't know how we're

going to hit the ice actually there um but here 
is him kind of approximating Matthew Hensen who

is the hidden figure right of that North Pole 
Expedition and so there he is with his uh his

flag going up to North Pole and it's a t for Taris 
uh Taris stwn he's a Bohemian sculptor just won

the field prize and it's again looking at history 
my fascination with hidden figures his fascination

with hidden figures and figuring out a way to 
alter and adjust this flag so it's it wasn't just

a repetition of Admiral Perry it was actually an 
alteration using the bamian colorway and Futures

are often catalyzed by images he wanted to bring 
this big block of ice to his Elementary School to

show children that this type of feat was possible 
even if he didn't believe I don't know how I'm

going to pull this off but I'm just going to cut 
out a 510 block of ice this was a project for uh

Mandela 95 and it was to commemorate Mandela's 
95th birthday and unfortunately Mandela fell

ill and and passed and all of a sudden became a 
committ memorative opportunity to look at this

poster as something that could tell the story of 
his life and I think a lot of times you know as

designers were saying what is the role of design 
how important really can design be I mean Big D

design and how things work and how things move 
sure are great but like a poster How could a

poster have any kind of communicative effect and 
so we actually measured the footprint of his cell

in Robin Island and we found a way to fold an 
A2 poster so when it unfolded it was actually

the footprint of his cell that where he was held 
captive now Mandela was a box and he often talked

about how your character is defined by the ring 
how you respond to challenge how do you respond to

your opponent and so in some ways this was a story 
of light and darkness so constraints are often

times the magic makers those things that are these 
formidable um problems that actually are masking

brilliant opportunities and so um this is probably 
one of the most embarrassing stories but I have to

share with you which is that uh I thought that 
Paul ran was African-American and people were

like what how did you think that well here's the 
story I was working in the library and I I saw

that book and I took the book jacket off I thought 
man this guy is like he's like you know he's like

a Stokely carmichel he's like one of these like 
civil rights Heroes he's like you know it's like

it's like kind of side profile and it's black and 
white image and it feels like somebody they need

to know and oh my goodness this must be such a 
diverse profession um and also wow so Progressive

and also wow so many opportunities for designers 
of color to truly shape you know the the corporate

landscape see that that's called interaction 
that's interaction with the audience um so I wrote

this uh I actually wrote this article um in white 
zendel um which is a it's a beautiful publication

you should check it out um and this was the piece 
called Paul ISM Paul ran is an African-American

cultural hero and design is a black man's 
playground um and that was the author's

internal monologue Circa 1999 and sometimes you 
know self-d Distortion right when understood

can actually be incredibly powerful I had to 
create self-d Distortion because I didn't see

any role models in the industry that I wanted to 
pursue so I had to make believe that a role model

existed stereotype how many people know the 
origins of the word stereotype show hands

yes so the answer was it's kind of like labeling 
you know somebody kind of generally abstractly

well stereotype is a letter press term so back 
in metal movable type days when books became

incredibly time the labor of kind of time and 
capital to create a book you had to place every

single letter right in the little slot you had the 
little um pieces of lead that created the leting

right you had a case that was higher on the Shelf 
which is of course you had your capital letters

why it's called uppercase and lower case right 
and in these little things inside these little

trays were called fonts right which where the word 
fonts comes from right and these type cases became

known as type faces right well a stereotype is 
a way to actually print entire spreads or Pages

at the same time kind of like just creating 
like a stamp right you just kind of stamp the

book right but over time it came to mean the 
efficiencies of having this kind of cookie cut

way of making books that was great for the 
margins on people who are selling these books

became a way and an unfortunate metaphor for how 
we tend to generalize people right so stereotype

is actually the most designed term of all time 
which we can take it as a blessing or a curse

and so some of my projects self- initiated uh 
deal with stereotyp ography what is stereotyp

ography I didn't know stereotyp ography typography 
doesn't have any type of inherent loaded meaning

but when you look at the top and you look at that 
Noland in line you think of American Spirits maybe

jamanji maybe the first Crocs logo and if you go 
to a bookstore and you go to the African-American

literature section you notice that probably 
half the books are in this type phase why is

that because of cigarette marketing possibly in 
the 20s or the 30s to largely African-American

communities um that figured these this 
particular type of wood block lettering or

you know um circus performers right here are 
the the circus performers and and acrobats right

Kung Fu right and you SE on a lot of you know um 
you know takeout takeout shops right becomes an

abbreviation a bad abbreviation for something 
other right so as we choose tight faces tight

faces have meaning oh this tight face was created 
by somebody who you know served as a Nazi Soldier

and you'd be surprised by how many people will use 
this type facee I have to point these things out

who made it why made it and also the form has 
its own kind of semiotic code and these things

unfortunately get baked into products right so 
the Shirley card um which was um mass produced

by codog and it came with basically all types 
of film was a way in which you could basically

balance your exposure but if you balance your 
exposure on a Shirley card and you were shooting

a model that was not that was not uh someone who 
looked like Shirley um it was Overexposed or was

underexposed and many people I talked to gave up 
photography because they just thought they were

bad photographers but it was because the standard 
was set on something it was impossible to meet for

a large number of people and of course Rihanna 
saw this Rihanna of course is always ahead of

the curve and Riri said that's terrible I'm going 
to design Fenty Beauty which of course is selling

like nobody's business because there's a huge 
huge Market of people that were overlooked by by

by cosmetics and of course we can relate both of 
these things and of course she courageously just

refused to perform at the halftime show um because 
she supports Colin Kaepernick who's Who's acting

um in some ways um against all the police 
brutality um against unarmed black men

women in the United States but if caring for The 
Human Condition is too soft and mushy just think

about the money that you can make from all these 
people that have been overlooked that finally have

something that addresses their needs and wants 
so what whatever driver that you need to address

the underserved and underrepresented and so our 
industry is changing our industry is changing

because it used to be small D design or the people 
that were pushing pixels or cutting Ruth etc etc

um the product people were making widgets right 
in a vacuum or a silo and then you had the brand

people who basically were creating logos and or 
stories or strategies but then all these these

things became enhanced right bigd design became 
about you know design thinking and organizational

structure branding became you know endtoend 
Solutions and product of course became you know

everything user experience or human Center design 
became the most parent amount thing specifically

in Silicon Valley so what happens to the 
intersection of these three things is it contested

turf or is it a moment or a brilliant moment for 
collaboration for creating something that is truly

up leveled and so one of the products I wanted 
to share with you um hearkening back to open

source was a brief um that came to us to the zigby 
alliance the zigg alliance created the first mesh

Network and they told us we need to create a hero 
brand uh for a new application for 802.1 4 which

basically just means how devices connect over 
radio just like Wi-Fi is 802.11 and they said we

want to create an open internet of things so the 
first thing we had to figure out if we actually

understood what the Internet of Things actually 
was and then how that could be open versus closed

oh it only has to be Samsung product or an Apple 
product or etc etc etc but what if they all just

communicated together wouldn't that be a better 
outcome for everyone and so someone said well what

if you could actually text the logo what if the 
logo wasn't an image what if the logo was just a

colon in two posts wouldn't that be cool so we 
created a logo that could be te be texted sent

through SMS and what did it mean well very simple 
Hardware software and two devices connecting over

radio and somebody said kind of looks like a face 
I go don't don't tell Engineers looks like a face

anything face like is going to get a bad bad 
reaction and we presented this and the CEO goes

my goodness looks like a face I love it so the 
face happened anyway and it was sold and the nod

of course is to an emoji that the logo is not on 
the left side of the word Mark it's on the right

side because it's it's it's having a conversation 
with the moment the pictographic moment that we're

in dot dot lives in a open repository of GitHub it 
doesn't live in a brand portal or a gated portal

or gated community um open font license right so 
it's actually available to anyone and everyone and

therefore we were able to communicate in open iot 
through the tools right through the things and

the assets and where they live not just something 
that's emblematic right or symbolic of something

so here is the actual forking of the code um so 
actually changing the size of a logo through code

itself so it's not an EPS it's actually Dynamic 
and and code based and sometimes we create these

bizarre things like what would a tape dispenser 
be for both righties and lefties and things that

communicate you know how we often tend to design 
specifically me I'm I'm I'm right-handed or I'm

dextrous right not Sinister of the left of 
course Sinister is bad right is good right

all these codes that are baked into right-and and 
left-handedness right bakes into book design and

everything we do so how does how does this feel 
appropriate and accessible how does this feel

appropriate and accessible so on to a uh a recent 
project um which is the Rebrand of uber and this

was actually a book that I uh mailed to uh Dar 
who's the CEO of uber um at his home um and part

of the conversation we wanted to start is we 
need to kind of think about roads a little bit

differently we need to think about the experience 
of global Mobility maybe from a vantage point of a

flying car not from a point of a car that's on the 
road and ultimately maybe the greatest positive

impact that Uber is going to have in the world 
is actually going to be through flying cars it's

going to release congestion it's going to look at 
uh forgotten um or um in some cases underutilized

rooftops is skyports all these flying cars are 
going to be all electric they made a commitment

to not even having hybrid engines and it'll be 
the price of an Uber black and so everyone will

be able to essentially get where they're going 
faster and better so the real story of how the

system came to be was an accident that happened 
11:46 and I and I want to kind of you know not

come across this is very like academic like we 
always do perf things like this is completely

accidental this was Inc this was like a fluke 
the day before a massive presentation and what

happened was the adjustments were set to top and 
Center Line and so we're moving all these clips of

various forms of movement of divers and Runners 
and jumpers etc etc to understand what type of

movement was right for Uber what do they mean by 
movement ignites opportunity and what we realized

as we look more at this image but there was a 
giant you around this diver and what a community

at is that the first thing you should notice 
is not the company it's the person that the

company serves out of love the first thing you 
should see is the person and it just so happens

that Uber exists as a supportive entity that 
helps realize these opportunities made possible

through movement and then once we recognize 
that it could be passive but also profound and

that it could be seen from a thousand ft away I 
understand this is a this is signaling that Uber

is present uh but ultimately it could be immersive 
right but ultimately a nod to where Uber was

before and so here we see acknowledgement 
of the road but we see something that feels

maybe lower in brand volume its initial cap 
it's not all caps it's not uh tying into a

legacy of Automotive branding right where car 
logos have a relationship to being machined and

living on the front of a grill this just 
feels like almost like a unassuming mark

and that was the intention pure geometry order 
a type face that was the logo and a logo that

was the type face that was Dynamic and simple 
black and white for maximum contrast passing

all types of um Ada um AA and and AAA contrast 
standards something that was based on movement

and the stories made possible through movement 
um rather than a brand that's trying to be your

friend one that says I understand you're 
trying to go to an airport um I can take

you there a color blue that became symbolic 
of safety carried over an iconography but

ultimately how do we remind ourselves that 
it's not about us it's about the people we

serve so then we of course we had to had some 
fun with it and of course with Beatles as you

know one of our first couple of clients 
you this was a nod to the to the Yellow

Submarine or maybe for those Back to the Future 
fans you might imagine that a self-driving

car could be rendered as a DeLorean or a time 
machine or maybe you love Jeff Coons and you

want to see an augmentation that relates to 
Art in the world of making But ultimately it

shouldn't degrade it shouldn't degrade when 
it goes to their markets if I'm thinking of

a language that goes from left to right or right 
to left ultimately what we're talking about here

is it's an enhancement this conversation between 
these two that ultimately we're trying to create

something better a conversation about schools 
that should be free for Cooper Union ultimately

we arrived at a successful outcome right 
in 10 years we're going to go back to free

free schools the reason I became a designer 
was because a plane could have a smile every

brief is an invitation to consider a different 
trajectory but doe design for love and Hue Lewis

is probably the best reminder of this don't need 
money don't take Fame don't need no credit card

to ride this train it's strong and it's sudden 
and it's cruel sometimes but it might just save

your life because that's the power of love 
I think I'm officially out of time thank you