The Sharper Image has announced that it will be closing 90 of its 184 stores as part of its bankruptcy restructuring. According to the Wall Street Journal:

“The San Francisco-based retailer blamed its liquidity crisis on a host of factors, including increased competition and deteriorating gross margins, tightening credit from vendors and suppliers, and the negative impact of pending litigation over its air-purification products. The air purifiers were once one of Sharper Image’s highest margin products.”

Hmmm. Increased competition and deteriorating margins are never reasons for a company’s failure. They are symptoms. Symptoms of design and marketing problems. The real reason is that the company that once sold gadgets that people were willing to buy has been offering little in the way of compelling products. It also sounds like they had really become an air purifier company and couldn’t survive the hit to that part of the business because there really wasn’t much else.

As a young designer I once admired Sharper Image for bringing decent and sometimes even cool design to banal products. But the company that was once an early design adopter had become a design laggard. Both in terms of aesthetics and function, as well as retail design.

I was last in a Sharper Image about four months ago, just out of curiosity as I had not been inside one for years, and I found very little of relevance to me today. The fact is that gadgets have become more sophisticated (cell phones, iPods, Xboxes and computers) and Sharper Image just couldn’t keep up. Combine that with evolving tastes in product and retail design and you have a company that severely failed to keep up with the times.

Xerox recently redesigned their corporate identity, which they’ve done quite often (and quite radically each time) for such a well-known company. They’ve also redesigned their website, which is pleasant enough and reflects current design trends. What is most interesting to me is that, like most companies undertaking significant redesigns of their logos, they have totally ignored the product.

Where’s the radical new design language to go along with and reinforce the new identity? If you are a company that makes products and you want to “re-brand” the company, start with the products, not the logo. Best to do them all at once, of course. But to ignore the product design as an important design aspect of your brand is woefully ignorant in today’s increasingly design-driven and design-savvy environment. Especially when your products look dated as Xerox. Now you’ve spent gobs of money to make a big impact on me, the customer, and when I look at your product it all goes out the window because, despite your best efforts to convince me otherwise with your graphic window-dressing, I still see that your products, the things that generate your revenue, haven’t kept up.

I hope Xerox’s products offer best-in-class performance because they look as if they contain last year’s last decade’s technology.

So why does this happen? Well, the graphic design and industrial design professions still operate quite independent of each other. But more importantly, the management of graphic design and product design is handled separately at nearly all companies. You have your MarComm group and your Product Marketing group. And they don’t talk or even have a clue that their efforts should be coordinated when it comes to design.

The result is inconsistent visual branding across multiple touchpoints and missed opportunities to build brand more effectively and efficiently. Which translates into a lower return on investment.

Increasingly you will see companies creating positions for Creative Directors or Visual Brand Managers that will be responsible for ensuring design consistency across all touchpoints. A concept I call Brand Harmony. (VPs of Design don’t cut it because they are usually product-centered.) Until then, most companies will continue to fall short on their branding efforts.

Anyone notice this Hyundai ad that ran during the Superbowl? It’s another sign of the continuing fall of the U.S. automakers. The ad is for the new Hyundai Genesis, a luxury-inspired sedan coming this summer. While Hyundai won’t get any points for originality, they do score on design and marketing acumen. Three things to note. The first is that the ad makes specific reference to the car being in competition with BMW, Mercedes and Lexus. When small players like Hyundai don’t care to compete with you, that’s not a good sign.

Second is that Hyundai has gone from creating car designs inspired by Honda (the Azera) to taking cues from BMW, Lexus, Mercedes and Infiniti. The significance of this is that who the up-and-comers imitate (in any market) helps to further reinforce the leadership position of those that are imitated and further marginalizes those that are not imitated. Basically, the more consumers see cars looking like BMW, Mercedes and Lexus, the more they become the design standard. The more they come to represent what a car should look like in the consumers mind. And if you make mediocre cars that don’t adhere to this “standard”, you could be in trouble.

Third is that companies like Hyundai have more sophisticated marketing messages and advertising than inane campaigns such as “The Car You Can’t Ignore” (Chevy Malibu). Even the vehicle names are more sophisticated - I’d rather say I drive a Genesis than a Malibu.

GM and Ford better hope the Genesis is poorly built, awful to drive and unreliable, ’cause it looks a whole lot more respectable than a Malibu or Taurus.

The Portland Auto Show was going on over the weekend and I made my yearly trip to get an up close look at new models. Of course, it’s a very small show with no new concept cars, but it affords one the chance to see everything in one place. I have to say, this is a pretty boring year for cars. The only thing that really caught my eye, mainly from the rear, is the Volvo C30 (above). It’s a good looking little car and the interior is my vote for best in show. Super simple and clean. Quite a difference from where most manufacturers are these days.

As someone who may be in the market for a new car soon, there wasn’t much to whet my appetite. I still like the BMW 3 Series. And the new 1 Series looked better to me in person than in photos (but I still wish they were bringing the hatchback to the States). All in all, it made me want to keep my current car, a 1996 Audi A4, for a lot longer. My A4 is a great size car. On the small size by today’s standards, but I don’t care for larger models. The new A4 was on display (but you couldn’t sit in it) and it looks enormous. The car has grown with every new model introduction since mine, the new one being the third iteration since.

Overall, it makes me shake my head and wonder why these car companies can’t bring themselves to do much interesting in the way of design. Why isn’t someone really trying to do something different? What have the U.S. makers got to lose? The Mini Cooper has been around a long time now (even though the new Clubman is nice). The Honda Element has been around, too. As has the Toyota FJ Cruiser. Everything else just has a feeling of sameness to it.

The new Ford Flex was unexciting in person. It is such an imitation/variation of the Mini Cooper/Clubman, that Ford should be ashamed. And its interior is a horrible match to its exterior styling. Who makes these decisions at Ford?
Saturn is doing a decent job of creating a branded, family look between its vehicles, and it’s not a bad look, either.

That Chevy Malibu, though, is worse in person than in photos. I’ve already mentioned this, but having seen it in person, it is more a car you can ignore than one you can’t. Especially with the new, redesigned Honda Accord out there and the 2009 Mazda 6 on the horizon.

I still like Mazda’s lineup, but unfortunately did not see that upcoming new 6.

Jeep has problems. Unexciting line of vehicles from top to bottom aside from the classic Wrangler. Every time I see that Compass, I wonder how that front end made it through reviews and who signed off on it. And the new Dodge Nitro seems like it would be better with a Jeep badge on it (though it’s pretty darn Land Rover-ish).
The Infiniti lineup has long been a favorite of mine, but their new small sport ute is a disappointment. Looks way too similar to the new Hyundai.

Overall, Detroit has a big problem moving forward. The German brands seem to be setting the design standards and the Asian brands are doing a much better job of quickly following suit, with Detroit flailing off in left field somewhere. Left field is a fine place to be if you build a great car, but if you don’t, you’re better off playing follow the leader. That or settle for dwindling market share.

As I posted about back in March and April of 2006 (and predicted a couple years prior to that), angularity is emerging as a dominant design theme. The latest and one of the most extreme examples of the angluar/faceted theme is the 2008 Lamborghini Reventon. Check out the gallery at Serious Wheels.

I just returned from the Portland chapter of the American Marketing Association’s monthly luncheon. The featured speaker was Kyndra Russel, Director of Field Marketing for Starwood Hotels. Kyndra gave some insight into how Starwood frames their marketing strategy and how they measure and track their execution. As usual, I was struck by the differences between how marketing professionals discuss their work versus how designers discuss theirs.

I have been a member of the AMA for a couple years and have attended several conferences and events. I have also been a member of the Industrial Designers Society of America (on and off) since 1993, and have attended many of their conferences and events. I have almost never heard a designer explicitly discuss ROI, financial data or any sort of business metric relating to their work on a regular basis. Yes, they often tout how many units were sold of a particular design, or may sometimes mention that they took cost out of a product. But such talk is almost exclusively about one particular product. It is not about a pervasive mentality or way of managing design. Meanwhile, almost every marketing presentation includes something about return on investment or other metrics that directly affect a company’s bottom line. And seldom is it related to reducing cost, rather it’s about adding quantifiable value.

In the case of Ms. Russel at Starwood, she is held accountable for “spend attribution” (revenue versus expenses, ROI) and considers how her efforts affect EBITDA, revenue per available room, brand awareness and image, and ADR (sorry, can’t remember what that meant). She needs to be able to track, measure and evaluate these metrics and the effect her efforts have on them. How many designers track anything about the performance of their products once they hit the market?

I’ve spoken with design directors who purposely avoid such metrics, saying it has a negative impact on their process. Well, if that’s the case they need to figure out how to deal with it in such a way that it doesn’t negatively impact their process.

Designers are always whining about how other disciplines get more money, are held in higher regard, and get a more consistent seat at the executive strategy table. Well, those folks that get more money and sit at that table take making a profit seriously. If designers don’t have any such interest, or desire to prove value in a meaningful way, they will always be subject to the whims of those who do.

The News Hour on PBS had a segment on the third Solar Decathlon yesterday. Twenty teams from colleges around the world competed, constructing 600-800 square foot homes that were required to be powered entirely by solar energy. The winning entry was from Germany’s Darmstadt Technical University.

As I’ve said before, one of the major issues in gaining wider adoption of alternative energy solutions such as solar, aside from initial cost, is aesthetics. Not many of us want to spend enormous amounts of money to make our homes both uglier and more energy efficient. This is why I like the winning entry in this competition. It’s actually a structure I would want to live in regardless of its energy efficiency. I especially appreciate that it eliminates the unsightly angled roof panels that are so common on solar homes (by putting the solar panels in the louvered blinds). Unfortunately, many of the entries were still using the rooftop solution, to varying degrees of design success.

“Green” entrepreneurs increasingly need to realize the aesthetic needs of the consumers in order to drive adoption of new solutions. Only the most die-hard eco-conscious consumers will ignore the design in favor of the “green” benefits. Tapping into the mainstream market will mean partnering as much with designers as with engineers.

It’s also interesting to me that there was little or no media coverage of this event, which was on display in Washington, D.C. in October, and PBS was very late in its coverage.

Saturday’s WSJ had an article about the trouble Nicholas Negroponte has had gaining adoption (e.g. sales) of his brainchild, the OLPC (one laptop per child) initiative. For those not familiar, the OLPC idea is embodied by a product, the $100 laptop, that is intended to bring computing and enhanced teaching and learning to children in impoverished countries. The laptop was designed by the current darling design firm Fuseproject.

In contrast to Amazon’s Kindle, The OLPC laptop computer is a case study for when design can’t help you sell more products. Where the Kindle is likely to disappoint its maker because Amazon failed to make the design of the unit a priority, the OLPC laptop did make design a priority, but neglected to consider elements critical to customers. The OLPC laptop is well-designed with an attention to detail and well thought out features and usability. It even has its own graphical user interface and operating system based on Linux. The product is quite cute and has garnered an awful lot of media attention. Mr. Negroponte expected to sell over 100 million units right out of the gate in 2008. But he’s not. Not even close. And the reason why is one of the biggest challenges that design has in certain situations. The end user is not the customer.

The OLPC laptop was designed to delight, engage, and enable children to learn in ways their country’s infrastructure doesn’t currently support. But OLPC laptops aren’t purchased by the children. Or their parents. The laptops are purchased by governments. What do you think these large institutional customers care about? Price, yes, and OLPC has had a hard time meeting the $100 price point, due in part to not being able to produce the product in extremely large volumes. But these customers also care about important aspects of the “whole product” like service, teacher training, and future upgrades. Something OLPC cannot sufficiently address as a company with no track record. The customers also want one more important feature, a connection to an industry standard, the standard of developed nations. That standard, of course, is Windows.

The marketing issue that Mr. Negroponte ignored is considering the actual customer for the OLPC laptop and their needs, concerns and desires. Instead of thinking only of the kids, Mr. Negroponte might have realized that these developing countries don’t want to be treated as second-class citizens. The fact that Mr. Negroponte wants to provide something to these countries that is not used in the U.S. or other developed countries creates the impression that they are not being treated as worthy of the same computing “standard”. These developing countries want the same computers for the children in their schools that kids in developed countries have. That means Windows-based laptops.

As I see it, the only way for the OLPC laptop to succeed as designed, is if it is accepted as a standard teaching tool in developed countries, and then marketed to the developing countries as Mr. Negroponte intended. Only then will the developing countries feel as though they are giving their constituents similar experiences to developed nations. Otherwise, OLPC might want to consider adopting Windows.

The media popularity of the OLPC laptop idea also caught the attention of Intel. And Intel decided to create their own low-cost laptop for the same market, but featuring Windows. Intel is giving the customer what they want. The users may suffer slightly, but that is the reality of the marketplace when a product’s customers are not the end users. Mr. Negroponte (and designers, too) needs to study some Geoffrey Moore and Clayton Christensen.

The best designers act as advocates for the end user, working hard to create a simple, elegant, and enjoyable experience for them. That works well when the users and customers are one and the same. However, very often there are intermediary customers that must also be considered. Maybe that’s a little more marketing strategy than designers want to be accountable for, but ignoring the needs of the customer and solely focusing on the needs of the user can be a losing strategy. Designers need to keep that in mind just as much as marketers do.

Jeff Bezos introduced Amazon’s new electronic book device today, the Kindle. I imagine Bezos thought he was delivering a Jobs-like product launch. But the product itself shows that Bezos is no Steve Jobs and Amazon is far from being Apple. Alas, the world has yet another example of a (potentially) good idea poorly implemented. That is to say, poorly designed.

The design of the Kindle is so bad I can hardly believe my eyes. Seriously, did anyone involved in developing it ever look at the prototypes or did they always just look at the list of features? The folks at Amazon seem so enamored with the display technology and the ability to wirelessly buy books that they have made everything else an afterthought (including the name).

The first test is this: just by looking at the product, without knowing what it is, do you want one? Is it attractive enough to even make you inquire further about the device? Unfortunately, the Kindle looks like it was designed twenty years ago out of cheap plastic. And those parting lines around the buttons are huge! They couldn’t hold tighter tolerances? It looks to me like something sold in an infomercial.

On Amazon’s website, Jeff Bezos says “the design objective was for Kindle to disappear in your hands…so you can enjoy reading.” Excuse me? Then why put that awful, distracting keyboard below the display and make the product so sharp-edged (it looks like I could dice vegetables with it when I’m not reading). And why put such large buttons on either side of the display for me to accidentally actuate? I don’t believe the product achieves the stated goal. Additionally, the goal should have been to create a compelling and contemporary design, not a dull, awkward, cheap-looking device for $400.

If the display is so special, why in the world would you make the plastic housing a lighter shade of gray? It has the effect of making the screen look dull. More like an old-style monochrome LCD display. The product should have been black.

Even the interaction details are poorly thought out. Just try and turn the Kindle on. The power button is nowhere to be found. It’s located on the back of the device, right next to an identical switch for the wireless. Totally baffling from an interaction design perspective. And made more so by the fact that there is a leather cover for the product. How do you access the on/off switch then?

The cover, too, seems like an afterthought. Any good designer would have thought holistically of the product, considered the cover important, and would have included a clever attachment method (maybe integrated snaps on the back) instead of merely sliding it into corner tabs.

I could go on, but the bottom line is this: in this day and age there is no excuse for such poor design. Good designers and examples of good design abound. Amazon, like Sony, had a chance to creat an iconic product, one that defined the category. Instead of creating a design that would have helped increase sales of the product, they developed a design that may actually hurt sales.

And then they named it Kindle. With over 88,000 books to choose from, they couldn’t have found a more inspiring name? Something perhaps more literary. Or playful. Or inventive.

So, what would I have done differently? My ideal reader would use Apple’s Multi-Touch interface so there are no buttons. Instead, you would flip the pages by sliding your finger across the display in the direction you wanted to turn the page. You would simply point to words you wanted to look up or highlight. And a virtual keyboard would be accessible when needed. Just like I posted about back in January.

A friend of mind asked me the other day, “What about the Ford Flex?”. Admittedly, I was unaware that Ford Flex was entering production. Okay, Ford deserves some credit for bringing the Flex to market. It’s almost cool. But as much as I want to like it, I can’t quite bring myself to heap praise on it. For one, I doubt Ford would have had the guts to bring this to market if there was no such thing as the new Mini or the Honda Element, because that’s what the Flex basically is: a Mini crossed with an Element. For another, the interior doesn’t quite carry the flavor of the exterior. Once inside it feels too much like any other car, while the exterior is quite differentiated from other cars. It almost looks more like a Land Rover than a Ford. And, I don’t know why U.S. automakers are so enthralled with putting detail lines all over the surfaces of vehicles. I’ll reserve further judgment until I see it in person.

Additionally, the new Lincoln MKS is quite nice. Too bad it’s an ‘09 and not an ‘08. It’s a shame Detroit hasn’t been producing vehicles this good consistently. Unfortunately, they are going to have to make a few generations of models this good, and make sure they drive and handle well, in order to have any chance at winning new customers in significant numbers. And they are going to have to stop making the inferior designs (like the Taurus X) that detract from the good ones they do make.

Okay, enough about cars for a while.