I knew of Herb Simon somewhat before I went to study design at Carnegie Mellon (CMU) but only as “factoid” bits of info: Nobel Laureate in economics, contributions to AI, legendary scholar par excellence. Once at CMU I finally dug into his writings, particularly “Sciences of the Artificial”, a definitive treatise which articulates a theory of […]

One of the most critical, even inherent, aspects of design is the notion of craft — shaping a material with masterful familiarity towards a benchmark of quality, based upon a dedication to refining the details so the result is worthy of personal pride and general appreciation. Craft is what makes design truly a maker’s profession, […]

There are now numerous ways to learn “design thinking” or methods of practicing design for many types of problems: interaction, communications, service, governance, etc. There’s plenty of books and online courseware, professional bootcamps and workshops — from General Assembly to LUMA Institute to Stanford d.school to full fledged university degree programs like at CMU, IIT, […]

What does it mean to be a design leader? Countless discussions, essays, blog posts and pithy tweets abound covering this question in numerous ways. But as you prepare your portfolio, pitch yourself to potential clients, and present yourself to a future employer, you need to ponder quite deeply about how you yourself approach leadership. Every […]

If your’e just starting out, or at a relatively early stage in your career as a designer, the commonly perceived evidence of potential ability & quality is your portfolio, the body of work you’ve done for clients & teams. This is certainly still true as you develop a significant career path with 10, 15, even […]