An ongoing complaint from both design and business professionals is the “other side’s” tunnel vision approach to addressing market problems. Yet it has become increasingly accepted that all roads to innovation lead through design, and that design strategy factors into every step along the path, from engineering and finance to product placement and the customer experience. Design-centered businesses are no longer an anomaly. It takes design thinking to solve business problems and vice versa – and to do it fast, because competition is no longer regional or national, it’s global.

So, it is reassuring to note that the California College of the Arts in San Francisco is awarding its first MBA in Design Strategy degrees this spring. The full-time, two-year MBA program is the only one of its kind in the United States.

Nathan Shedroff, chair of the MBA program, says that the inaugural Class of 2010 had 25 students, ranging in age from 25-61. About two-thirds of the students come from design backgrounds and are working professionals, with the other third holding degrees in disciplines including engineering, science and financial management. “Even the students who don’t have a design background have an affinity to design,” Shedroff adds.

The program’s flexible structure includes five monthly four-day weekend in-person sessions per semester, with the rest of the course work done online. As a result, many students not only keep their full-time jobs, they “commute” to class from as far away as New York, Washington, D.C., Mexico City and Vancouver, Canada. That’s a big commitment, Shedoff admits, but adds that when students factor in the cost of moving and living in San Francisco for two years, “it’s probably a wash.”

Even the online collaboration between students is part of the learning experience, since so many projects today involve teams working across time zones and vast geographic distances. Course assignments require students “to develop individual and team solutions to a variety of economic and social challenges, using design techniques such as customer-centered research, prototyping, critique and iterations as well as business metrics.”

Shedroff says that most of new graduates found the MBA program a “transformative” experience. “It’s our intention to create business leaders who are design-aware and innovation-prepared, and not only managers who can oversee the marketing, design or product development functions within a company.”

Shedroff adds, “We blend integrative thinking with analytical thinking. That is where the business world says their needs are going. They are looking to be better innovators.”

Converging design and business strategic thinking is striking many as critical to career success, which explains the growing interest in the program. Already more than 60 students have asked to enroll in CCA’s MBA program this fall, and CCA has even added a Leading by Design Fellows Program that is set to begin in May.

That’s why when we ran across this lesson on Hoefler & Frere Jones’s website, we had to bring it to you. (H&FJ, as most of you know, is one of the world’s foremost digital typehouses.) H&FJ’s overriding advice is: Keep one thing consistent, and let one thing vary.

1. Use typefaces with complementary moods to evoke an upbeat, energetic air.

The interplay between fonts gives them energy.

2. Mix typefaces from the same historical period whose families have different features.

Choosing typefaces with different features alleviates redundancy.

3. Mix typefaces with a similar line quality if they offer different textures.

Using these three mechanical typefaces in combination sets up a dramatic typographical tension.

4. Mix typefaces with similar proportions and give each a different role.

Only one typeface can be the star, the other two are assigned to play supporting roles.

“Logorama,” which won this year’s Oscar for Best Animated Short Film, is a movie made up entirely of logos. Remarkable in itself, this award is testament to the fact that logos have risen beyond tools for brand marketing and have become the most recognizable images of pop culture around the world. Written and directed by H5’s Francois Alaux, Herve de Crecy and Ludovic Houplain, “Logorama” is a 16-minute animated crime story that takes place in Los Angeles (where else?). Brand logos not only comprise the landscape, they are the heroes and villains of the film. The plot, which has shades of Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” gone seriously awry, revolves around a curvaceous Esso girl, a sinister Ronald McDonald, Michelin men cops and a dapper Mr. Pringles, with cameo appearances by more than 2,500 logos and corporate brands. At a time when brand advertisers pay huge sums of money to sneak their product into the scene of a feature film, even for a few seconds, “Logorama” turns the concept of brand placement on its ear.

Last week five of the top U.S.-based magazine publishers joined forces to launch a multi-million dollar “Power of Print” campaign, extolling the advantages of ink-on-paper magazines.

Over the coming months, nearly 100 magazine titles owned by Wenner Media, Time Inc., Conde Nast, Meredith Corporation and Hearst Magazines plan to print 1,400 pages of “Power of Print” ads, reaching an average of 112 million readers a month.

Created by Y&R New York, the ads will appear in prime magazine positions, that typically would cost regular advertisers around $90 million. The ads will roll-out in May issues as full-color spreads boasting headlines such as, “We Surf the Internet. We Swim in Magazines” and “Will the Internet Kill Magazines? Did Instant Coffee Kill Coffee?” In June, another set of ads will feature covers of popular magazines embedded in text.

Y&R developed a special “magazines” logo for the campaign made up of the familiar logotypes of several magazines. (Shown below.) The “Power of Print” campaign isn’t directed at mainstream readers. It targets advertisers, shareholders and industry influencers, and backs up its claim that magazines remain as relevant as ever by refuting misperceptions with hard numbers.

“Power of Print” reminds us of the excellent “Life with Print” campaign sponsored by Sappi Fine Paper about five years ago. Both present compelling arguments for why print is far from dead. Print is rediscovering its mojo and telling the Internet to scoot over, it’s not going away.

Here are 11 facts that magazine publishers want you to keep in mind:

1. Magazine readership has grown over the past five years. (Source: MRI)
2. Average paid subscriptions reached nearly 300 million in 2009.
   (Source: MPA estimates based on ABC first and second half 2009 data)
3. 4 out of 5 adults read magazines. (Source: MRI)
4. Magazines deliver more ad impressions than TV or Web in half-hour period.
   (Source: McPheters &amp Company)
5. Magazine readership in the 18 to 34 segment is growing. (Source: MRI)
6. Since Facebook was founded, magazines gained more than one million young adult readers. (Source: MRI)
7. The average reader spends 43 minutes reading each issue. (Souce: MRI)
8. Magazines are the No. 1 medium of engagement – across all dimensions measured. Simmons’ Multi-Media Engagement Study find magazines continue to score significantly higher than TV or the Internet in ad receptivity and all of the other engagement dimensions, including “trustworthy” and “inspirational.”
   (Source: Simmons Multi-Media Engagement Study)
9. Magazines and magazine ads garner the most attention: BIGresearch studies show that when consumers read magazines they are much less likely to engage with other media or to take part in the non-media activities compared to the users of TV, radio or the Internet.
   (Source: BIGresearch Simultaneous Media Usage Study)
10. Magazines outperform other media in driving positive shifts in purchase consideration/intent.
    (Source: Dynamic Logic)
11. Magazines rank No. 1 at influencing consumers to start a search online – higher than newer media options.
    (Source: BIGresearch Simultaneously Media Usage Study)

Take the Magazine Masthead Quiz: Can you identify the eight mastheads these letter are from?

An exhibition of “The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946” opens today at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery in Washington D.C. It is curated by @Issue’s very own editor, Delphine Hirasuna, and based on her book of the same name, which was designed by @Issue’s very own design director, Kit Hinrichs.

The exhibition (and book) features art and objects made by some of the 120,000 ethnic Japanese who lived on the U.S. West Coast and were forced into barbed wire enclosed/heavily guarded internment camps for the duration of World War II. Allowed to take only what they could carry, they were sent to live in remote uninhabited locations in the deserts and swamps.

While this represents a sad and troubling episode in American history, the objects made by the internees truly represent a triumph of the human spirit. Assigned to live in hastily constructed barracks, furnished only with a metal cot and pot-bellied stove, they set about trying to create a home for themselves and their families. Forbidden to take any metal objects into the camp, they made their own tools and scavenged for wood to construct chairs and tables and a way to store their clothes. Then they surveyed the surrounding landscape to find other things they could use. What they created out of scrap and found materials is deserving of consideration in this design blog. It shows problem-solving design and innovation, and a high aesthetic sensibility.

FYI, for those of you who live around Washington, D.C., Delphine is speaking at the Renwick Gallery at 12 noon, Friday (March 5). Her talk will be followed by a booksigning by Delphine and Kit. Come see us and mention that you read @Issue!!!

How do you brand a banana? It’s a generic fruit, like an apple or peach. right? If you live in the tropics, you can grow bananas in your backyard. Still, for the past 65 years, only one banana has a brand identity, not to mention, a name, a face and a personality – Chiquita.

Back in 1944, Chiquita charmed consumers by turning a caricature of Carmen Miranda, the flamboyant Brazilian samba singer/dancer with the tutti-frutti hat, into its brand icon. Then to reinforce its slogan “Quite Possibly the World’s Most Perfect Food,” it created a little blue sticker that to this day it affixes by hand onto every single banana it sells.

Although the banana is the butt of countless jokes, Chiquita is one smart marketer. It has evolved its blue sticker concept and introduced a family of “cool” and playful characters created by DJ Neff and Mark Krajan of Neff Ink. Partnering with The Famous Group in Los Angeles, Neff didn’t stop with stickers. He built an entire campaign around the storyline “Don’t let another good banana go bad” with viral videos, sticker generator and a 3-D flash game called “Banana Boogie Battles.” Now a new generation of kids can interact with Chiquita.

Hospitals are notorious for making people sick. In the U.S. alone, the government estimate says that one in ten hospital patients catches a hospital-borne infection, and such infections contribute to about 90,000 deaths in the nation annually. What’s particularly disturbing is that studies have shown that one-third of these infections are considered preventable. Thorough sanitizing of surfaces, for instance, has been effective against staph infections and gastroenteritis.

In the UK, the relative percentage of hospital-borne infections is comparable, but the Brits aren’t taking it lying down. The UK Department of Health and National Health Service enlisted the support of the Design Council to design hospital furniture and equipment that are easier and faster to sanitize. In 2008, they launched the “Design Bugs Out” campaign with an advisory board of microbiologists and healthcare experts assigned to work with designers. The Design Council, in turn, organized teams of designers, ergonomists and researchers to meet with nurses, patients and housekeeping staff to identify problem areas that could be addressed through design. Their findings were presented to the Expert Reference Group and Advisory Board, who chose the top 10 priority areas to develop into design briefs. The Royal College of Art’s Helen Hamlyn Centre was assigned to work on such things as hand sanitizers and blood-pressure cuffs. For furniture and larger equipment, the Design Council sponsored a national competition for teams of designers and manufacturers, with a monetary award given to winning concepts for prototype development.

One product that made the public see that design is about more than making an object pretty is the new commode by designers Tom Lloyd and Luke Pearson and their manufacturing partner, Kirton Healthcare. The commode is molded from 100% polypropylene plastic that can weather repeated use of germ-killing chlorine bleach and a sturdy stainless steel frame that won’t harbor germs in the scratches. Designed to minimize unnecessary touchpoints and joints between metal and plastic, the structure is safer and can be disassembled easily for cleaning. The commode design also integrates a number of features that enhance user comfort. Armrests are textured with a fine grain to create more grip for the user and swing up to make it easier to get the patient in and out of the seat. The chair is equipped with wheels and footrests so patients can be transported from the bedside, and looks like a regular porter’s chair to dispel the impression that the patient is being wheeled about on a toilet. The pan is made from disposable paper pulp that drops into the hole, rather than mounts from underneath it, thus eliminating splash back. It also has a lid to contain waste when taken away.

While the intent of the commode’s design was to minimize contact with infectious germs, it addressed many more critical issues including functionality, comfort, cost of replacement parts, the dignity of the user, and, yes, the modern aesthetic look of an essential piece of hospital equipment.

What can we say, we have always been inspired by Milton. He is a born teacher that always inspires. In 2006, Chris from C. Coy shot this short video of Milton Glaser sketching a portrait of William Shakespeare and musing about how the act of drawing makes him conscious of what he is looking at and focuses his mind on the world around him. In addition to the thoughtfulness of his comments, it’s impressive to see that he draws confidently without ever pausing or erasing — or losing his train of thought.

Sports Illustrated and Wired are the latest magazines to demonstrate a prototype of how its online content could work on an iPad-like tablet. While dazzled by the possibilities, as someone in the communications design field, I started wondering about all kinds of practical production matters. This may seem silly but I wondered if reporters and designers would be “joined at the hip” creatively, assigned to sit side-by-side, desk-to-desk, in the editorial office and work in unison to produce “content”? It used to be that editorial and art departments were separate entities and sequential processes. And the interactive staff often was not even in the same part of the building. Now, more than ever, visual, interactive and editorial content have converged. How will that change the physical configuration of an editorial office?

Another question: Will photographers sent out to cover a story be expected to come back with a dozen great images, instead of one iconic one that would make it into print? Will this require sending out teams of photographers to cover the same story? And when the reader has the ability to enlarge or zoom in on a photo, do designers lose control over how a photograph is cropped and viewed? How will designers lay out a spread when images come alive and readers gain the ability to move elements on the “page”?

The prototypes we have seen so far follow the traditional format of ink-on-paper magazines, but is this format really the most effective use of the medium? At what point does a digital magazine cease to be a publication and become a hand-held version of “60 Minutes”? Incorporate enough video footage and sound and it is more like TV than a text-rich periodical.

Then there’s the question of whether consumers would pay to read a periodical on an iPad-like device, when they can now read most newspapers and magazines free online?

Another question: Will iPads become an information delivery vehicle for corporate communications? If so, how will this affect the thousands of design studios around the world that see corporate mar-com work as their “bread-and-butter” business? What skills set will graphic designers need in the future? So many questions, so few definitive answers.

Transformation is in the air. Business leaders across industries are recognizing that “old school” management isn’t up to the task of nonstop innovation. As a result, companies that were once run from the top down are steadily shifting to a more networked style of management in which employees and customers play a greater role in driving innovation. Networked cultures tend to be more creative, more agile, and better able to anticipate the needs of customers.

How do you create a culture of innovation? By recognizing one simple fact: If you want to innovate, you’ve
got to design. Design and design thinking are the tools that create new products, new services, new business
models, new markets, and new industries. The best way to leverage innovation—as outlined in my latest book—is to build a “designful company”.

To find out where you are on the culture curve, take this simple test: Share a total of 10 points across each of the
10 pairs below. For example, if your company is more siloed than collaborative, you might score it 6 and 4.
When you’ve finished, add up the two columns to measure your progress. If your totals come out to 60 and 40, for example, you could say that you’re 40% along the path to an innovative culture.

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