Tomorrow in class we're talking about storytelling and prototyping, and no one has done these quite as eloquently, throughout their whole careers, as Charles and Ray Eames. The Eameses were designers, and husband and wife, best known for their furniture. But they designed anything and everything, houses, curricula, exhibits, communications, film -- and are revered inside and outside the world of designers for the things they made and for their professional practice, the Eames Office.
For a couple hours I've been jotting lessons we can learn from the Eameses in preparation for discussion tomorrow.
Some companies have a culture of prototyping; the Eameses took the culture of prototyping to an extreme. They lived their lives that way, professionally and personally, and then they told the stories in films and photos. For example, they built their own home, a prototype of a do-it-yourself, modern house designed to bring "the good life" to the general public by integrating high and low art and modern materials and construction technologies. Then they made a film titled House: After Five Years of Living.
There were no boundaries between life and work for them, which is probably why the Eames Office only took on projects that they were intensely interested in. That Charles was interested in.
Here are the lessons:
For a project to be successful, there needs to be vision. At Pixar, this is the job of the head writer(s) and director, like John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Brad Bird.
So what I mean is, there has to be an aspirational vision that you believe in to keep you going. Something about believing that design can really do good, or can push the world toward progress, or create a new profession, or make lots of money, or raise the consciousness of the audience.
Talk up to your users. Believe in them.
Design is some of the hardest work there is, because when you're making something there are no shortcuts. Constraints come as close as anything to shortcuts, though.
Constraints are a designer's friend.
It's a great idea to be that picky about projects -- only do what intensely interests you -- but you have to be really, really good to earn this right.
Prototype like mad and maybe you'll make something really, really good.
Hire great, really talented people and manage them heavily with vague direction so you seem like a god.
Solve the problem: bring something special of your own to the table to make it not just good, not better, but great and unexpected. (From Eames Design, by John and Marilyn Neuhart: "Although clients usually brought to the office fixed notions about what they thought they wanted, Charles more often than not redefined the project and expanded its scope.")
To do this, you often have to make unexpected connections. Synthesis. Where I come from, we like to think that doing research makes this happen faster, with more appropriate outcomes. We can learn from the Eameses that research isn't limited to user research and business and cultural research. Research can include going to the ballet or the Art Institute or to Steppenwolf or taking a walk along the lake picking up fallen leaves in different colors, and reading New Science Magazine, or an article in the Times about a bird fossil with a skull similar in size to that of a horse; inputs, inputs, inputs! The Eames were the king and queen of inputs and outputs. Connect two unlikely things and then...
...prototype the synthetic explosion. Tell the story, and tell the story, then make it. Write it down. Draw it. Fabricate a scenario. Build it out of foam core. Describe it to a friend. Tell the story.
