Without beautiful, precise pictures of the product we wish to create, how do we gain resources to actually make them a reality? This new approach would turn the process on its head: it makes building and designing something one and the same. Rather than creating and presenting a design prototype, only to dismantle it in order to build and present a functional prototype (often at a lower quality), the functional prototype itself becomes the presented artefact, greatly reducing the cost of making it a stable, complete product.

The burden and responsibility of precise, perfect design should be shared between designers and engineers. The fact that this is true for every other related industry—architecture, industrial design, printed matter—and not for digital product design is indicative of nothing but the immaturity of our tools, processes, and philosophy.

Daniel Eden on the current state of design tools and workflows, short and on point.

I have always believed we need to stop treating design and development as two distinct disciplines and start following a more cohesive and authentic approach.

Nice video from Vox and 99% Invisible’s Roman Mars about biomimicry.

It reminds me of Bruno Munari’s analytical study of plants and fruits in his must read Design as Art, in which he meticulously describes and praises the essential features of natural objects as a source of inspiration:

This object [an orange, an almost perfect object where shape, function and use display total consistency] is made up of a series of modular containers shaped very much like the segments of an orange arranged in a circle around the vertical axis. Each container or section has its straight side flush with the axis and its curved side turned outwards. In this way the sum of their curved sides forms a globe, a rough sphere.

It saddens me to say it, but we are approaching the end of the automotive era.

The auto industry is on an accelerating change curve. For hundreds of years, the horse was the prime mover of humans and for the past 120 years it has been the automobile. Now we are approaching the end of the line for the automobile because travel will be in standardized modules. The end state will be the fully autonomous module with no capability for the driver to exercise command. You will call for it, it will arrive at your location, you’ll get in, input your destination and go to the freeway. (…)

Most of these standardized modules will be purchased and owned by the Ubers and Lyfts and God knows what other companies that will enter the transportation business in the future. (…)

This transition will be largely complete in 20 years.

Bob Lutz, former vice chairman and head of product development at General Motors, on the future of the automotive industry. We have been talking about this for a long time, but it’s impressive to hear it from an industry leader with decades of experience in the field.