#007: It's Time We Start Thinking Beyond the User - Dan Griner - Director of Design, Innovation, and Strategy at University of Colorado Denver

Dan comes to the interview with a level of humility for design that we all should aspire. In this episode we walk the path of Dan's story from accident to excellence. We talk about the responsibility that designers have to go beyond just making the pretty object and expand into realms of meta-design to go beyond just the end user and truly think in terms of a products life cycle, cradle to cradle.

Contact Info
 Dan Griner
daniel.griner@ucdenver.edu / https://www.linkedin.com/in/dangriner/

www.theidpodcast.co
https://www.patreon.com/theIDpodcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Besides using our skills to make people desire something, we also have that added burden or responsibility of making sure that it's meeting a need. We have a finite amount of resources on the planet. How are we going to use them to better things, not just keep them the same or make them maybe even worse?

SPEAKER_01: 0:41

All right, hey guys, what is up? I'm Rob Irwin, your host for another episode of Designing in the Wild. Today, we've got an awesome guest. We have a little bit of history together, full disclosure. I'm glad we're reconnecting actually, and I was able to get some time on the schedule to talk with the one and only Dan Greiner. He is right now in Denver, I believe, at the University of Colorado, Denver, and he is the Director of Design, Innovation, and Strategy. Dan, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14

Thanks so much. I'm really enjoying the show. I've been listening as well. So, you know, I'm coming to it honestly.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22

That's great. That's great. Glad to hear it. Glad to hear it. So, yeah, like I said, you're out in Denver. Is that correct? And what's, are you, what's been going on lately for you out there? At a high

SPEAKER_00: 1:36

level, I guess. Yeah. At a high level? Well, I'm enjoying, you know, the warm weather today, but it's been snowing on and off. Less than ever in Colorado, unfortunately, so worried about the climate situation. But at a high level, I'm a new dad, so I have a new lens to look through. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, a new lens to look through in life.

UNKNOWN: 2:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 2:08

Yeah, I have a new position than the one you mentioned that I've been doing for about a year now, which is a different take on design as well. So, yeah, a lot of new things, a lot of new things.

SPEAKER_01: 2:21

That's great. That's awesome. No, no, that's great. Yeah, we'll be getting into that. So I guess for a lot of people out there who don't know you, I'd love to offer you the table for a moment to give a quick backstory, maybe even before college, to roll us back in time, talk this through maybe how you slowly got interested in industrial design at some point. But yeah, I'd love to hear your story.

SPEAKER_00: 2:47

Yeah, I came to industrial design a little bit later. I, full disclosure, I was a high school dropout, ninth grade, and I became, I went into, become an electrician early on, although I had aspirations of being an artist, wasn't able to really go after that and do that the way I'd hoped. Had a crazy car accident that made me reinvestigate what I could do physically. So I had to, I started my own company doing custom art on cars and motorcycles. I did that for almost 10 years. and built that up, learned a lot about running a business, being an adult, trying to, you know, being able to talk to people. Yeah. Talking to people who weren't like me, you know, trying to provide value with something that I could do physically, you know, and artistically. So it was with that kind of experience that I came. I was a huge fan of design. I had read a ton. I knew All the backstories and all my favorite designers and stuff and mid-century modern was kind of where I was shooting as far as my favorites. Ross Lovegrove, that very biomedic, you know, I know you love biomedic, so although I can't say it, I do love it. Yeah, that's a great field. Sorry. Yeah, go ahead. I, you know, I came in learning, you know, wanting to learn how to do all the things that these, you know, kind of heroes of mine had done. So I was really shooting for furniture and lighting. That was kind of like my that's where my target was set coming into into school. And that's at the point that you met me. That's where I was at. Right. So I was about 27, something like that at that point.

SPEAKER_01: 4:59

Yeah. So, yeah. Was there a natural segue between some of the work that you were doing initially with the company you started after the car accident and whatnot into furniture and lighting? Or if not, was there maybe some spark or something that really drew you to that particular category?

SPEAKER_00: 5:24

Yeah. You know, I collected furniture back then. I really had an appreciation for, you know, the aesthetic that was derived back then. And it was more than... serving the need, right? It was also looking beautiful, right? And at that period of history, I think is when they really took that on in a, in a big way. Um, and for, you know, for profit, obviously, but, but in a, in such a fantastic way, there was a lot of thought and empathy started to really creep into design at that point too. So things weren't just beautiful. They also worked well, um, not in every case, but in many most, the most successful ones, at least. So I appreciated that, and I looked at that. As far as direct correlation between what I was doing professionally back then, pinstriping and custom paintwork is very much decorating the surface of something or helping to accentuate the line work or the things– the subtleties that a designer puts into a product, I was trying to make those, you know, louder or make them pop out in a way that wasn't necessarily as deliberate. So that's what I often found is trying to, I call them accent stripes, right? If they were so loud that they became the thing that people were looking at on a car, then I had missed my my job, right? For me, it was a way of accentuating lines and subtleties that were already there. So I think an understanding of aesthetics, an understanding of color, how to accent material, all those kinds of things, those were really important parts of my job back then. And I didn't realize how much they would carry over, but they really did help me a lot in my career.

SPEAKER_01: 7:19

Yeah, excellent. Yeah, I think about a lot of the mid-century modern furniture because I think you knew I started a short-lived furniture company out in Denver for a while building and designing furniture and that was kind of the a lot of inspiration I drew from that and you talk about kind of the accentuation and it's kind of a and I totally agree it's one of those things where you know you have an environment for furniture you have a home you have an environment a space and the furniture is the accent and the Kind of the extension of who you are and the love of the long linear lines and the flowing forms that kind of play on each other. And yeah, I think that's an interesting correlation. I definitely agree.

SPEAKER_00: 8:10

And celebration of material too, right? Exactly. Wood grains and looking at the sheens that come off of aluminum versus stainless steel versus a powder-coated melt. There's just different things that are able to– they're the tools in our tool belt as designers. And I had learned some of those things early on that I was able to say, oh, okay, this is still useful.

UNKNOWN: 8:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 8:36

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 8:37

Absolutely. So that's amazing. Yeah. I'm wondering, so I know you went and left and went to Seoul for a little while. Was that after college immediately? And tell me about that experience.

SPEAKER_00: 9:06

And I had decided I was going to start another company. And I had worked with another grad, Devin Gores, and we had started a company together. And we were doing all kinds of crazy projects. And the first one, while I was still in college, we had bid on a chance to do the polar bear exhibit at the Denver Zoo and to redesign that and to build that. which was a massive undertaking for a couple of students. But we weren't your average students. We had some skills and some things behind us. And the zoo was really great in working with us and helping us fill in the blanks, too. So that was something I had a chance to do. I had a chance to build a pirate ship with another pilot. group that, that was there in Denver. I did a bunch of children's playhouses, a couple. So I did a few projects and then I saw the, the schedule getting longer and longer, you know, companies delaying longer and longer. I'm like, well, we don't need that just yet. You know? And so I, I really saw my, um, my financial situation starting to drive me to look at other options. And, um, at that point in my life too, I was at a big turning point. I just, um, Just had a divorce, frankly, and was, you know, for the first time trying to figure out as an adult, as a male, what I want to do, where do I want to go. So I really needed an adventure at that part of my life. And one of the things I'd always said no to, because I had been married for almost 10 years at that point, we had never moved out of the country, and that had been something I had as a goal. And I didn't know anything about Korea, which actually was part of the reason why I went. I really wanted that adventure. So I was offered Seoul, Busan, you know, some of these major cities. And I said, well, you know, do you have a fishing village somewhere? Do you have some like some remote spot where I can really just immerse? Because I... I mean, if any of us who've traveled to big cities, you know you can always find other people like yourself. You can quickly find ways to find the same culture or pieces of it that you left. So, you know, there's chilis everywhere in

SPEAKER_01: 11:36

the world, right? Really? So you went all the way to a fishing village in Korea and just popped into a chilis here and there. That visualization is hilarious. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00: 11:47

it was actually a shipbuilding village. And for me... At that time, I had a mohawk, and I was wearing a three-piece suit every day, and I was as foreign as you could have possibly been to that environment. It was a great way for me to... look at myself again, look at who I wanted to be, look at humanity in a sense too. Um, and really just be intentional about how I wanted to be for the, you know, for the rest of my life or, or for at least at that point. So, right. It was a great learning experience. Um, and I, I often found myself just, I, I, I've say this about myself. I can't get bored, you know, and I just start looking at things at a at a more finite and finite level, my environment. But there I was just, my senses were just electrified because everything was new. Everything was different. And you start questioning the way things are done everywhere because you start to see the same challenges being dealt with in completely different ways and success there as well. Right. So it makes you I think it made me a much better designer and made me more empathetic, more understanding, and also a little bit more forgiving. It's like, well, here's the way to do it. Well, actually, that's a way. It doesn't have to be that way. It's a way. Yeah. Lots of people do it different ways. So,

SPEAKER_01: 13:17

yeah, it turns out. Yeah, that's like maybe 100 million to a couple billion to do it a different way. Right.

SPEAKER_00: 13:23

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 13:24

Exactly. Yeah. And so. So, yeah, you're you know, you're you're touching on the humanities part of the design aspect. And I would love to get to a project here in a moment. But before we jump over to that soul, I've been there twice. Sure. And and I loved it. It sounds like you spent some time over there at some point. I did move there for about a year. Okay. Okay. Got it. Got it. So I wanted to ask you, one of the things that intrigued me was that, you know, it had been nominated and I think it won like one, like design, high design award. um, accolades for the structures in the buildings. There's like so many, I mean, it was amazing how many just crazy, I mean, everything from, from brutalist to super minimal, modern glass floor to ceiling, you know, the Samsung museum is there. It's a, it's a kind of a bit of a Mecca for a lot of high design there. And I wonder if you could, if you could talk a little on if there was any influence there or if you got inspiration around that or something else.

SPEAKER_00: 14:27

Absolutely. Um, so, I mean, I, I was... When I was in that fishing village, or not fishing village, ship building village in Goseong, which is far, far south, it's about a five-hour drive or five-hour bus ride up to Seoul. And that's where I frequently spent some time off. If I had a couple days or something, I'd go up to Seoul. And I had a chance one time to go to the Seoul Design Olympiad, and that was the same year that they were elected as an international design city that I think you're referring to. And I had a chance to meet a lot of fantastic people while I was there. The architect, Daniel Liebskin, I had got to have lunch with him randomly. Oh, yeah. I got to meet. He did the Denver Art Museum. What did. The Berlin Holocaust Museum as well, I believe. OK. Yeah. Yeah. Just amazing. You know, takes architecture to different places. Right. Yeah.

UNKNOWN: 15:26

But.

SPEAKER_00: 15:27

I got to meet all these fantastic designers and people who I'd only read about. And because I could speak English and I was one of the few people there that could at the Soul Design Olympiad thing, I got a chance to talk to all these folks. But anyway. What I was getting to is, you know, the buildings there, they've had to rebuild completely almost since 1950 or 53 since the end of the Korean War. So they had a chance to re-envision a lot of those things and look at them. And Seoul is not, you know, a third world country by any means. It's incredibly technologically advanced. It makes a lot of our cities look pretty... Pretty behind the times, frankly. In doing that and going up there, I got the chance to meet a lot of great designers and it made me start to think about, okay, well, I'd like to get back into design and maybe I can do it in Seoul. So I actually enrolled in the Yonsei University, which had a really good language program for Korean. And then through some of those contacts, I got a chance to work on a design council taking on some projects for the city, which was pretty neat. Oh, wow. Yeah. I didn't know that. So can you elaborate on maybe a project? Sure. Yeah, there is a project to redesign the... So there's a place in Seoul. It's one of the older parts of the city. And it's right next to a place where a lot of tourists go through. But it's called the Nagwan Shijang. And it's this huge raised building that kind of rests above the highway. And inside of it is just tons and tons of vendors of musical instruments. And on the top floor, there's an independent theater. And this independent theater wanted to redesign the, um, the access to that space, the way finding, and really just reimagine the brand and think about how to do that, which involved like a six story frontage piece that, that faced out into the city, you know? So we, myself and some French designers, some Korean designers, you know, people from all over the world, we were kind of, you know, re-imagining what that could be and working together and coming up with some ideas. And, um, So that was really fun, and it got me a chance to step outside of my English teaching and think about design again, kind of pick up, use those tools again. And that project, unfortunately, didn't go through in the way that we had hoped. In Korea, there's some challenges around the culture, and I know that they're improving on this now, but there's an ageism piece. So the oldest person who walks in the room generally um gets garners the most respect and and in this particular design project you know we had walls and walls of designs and concepts and this older gentleman walked in and just said well i think we should do this and they were like okay well that's what we're going to do and we're like that's that but what about all the like oh no no no no we've already got our idea i was like oh wow this is not this is not what i thought not quite design thinking to the end. Yeah. And I know a lot of companies don't work that way, but this particular project did. So it kind of went, oh, okay, I'm going to have to probably do design back in the States or reinvestigate, you know, working with a company that maybe embraces design thinking or looks at, you know, the best idea needs to win, not the person who's saying it, right? Yeah.

UNKNOWN: 19:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 19:17

100%. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 19:19

Well, yeah, that's great. I did not know that about you. That's really interesting. So when you got back, you know, back to the humanitarian side of the social side of design, it feels like you've started to kind of I mean, you sounds like you've always been in that mindset as well. But you recently did some work with the homelessness ecosystem project. Can you talk about that? Sure, sure. I think that was with was that with Common Sense Institute?

SPEAKER_00: 19:51

Yeah. And I, you know, there was a couple more things that kind of drove me before, like coming back to the States. I had another company, you know, and we did like experiential marketing and, you know, theme park design and crazy, crazy stuff like that. And that kind of touched upon, you know, some more of that humanitarian, you know, affecting people in a different way, connecting with multiple users. And that helped to drive me a little bit. But then I had when I... And I know you didn't bring this up, but living in India, actually, that was a big part. From that, in 2016, I moved to India for a little while to run a design school out there. And that really made me reinvestigate. you know, how we were using design and what value it brought, you know, because India is a third world country and it does have a lot of challenges at the base level of, you know, human needs. And You know, I had students who were hyper-focused on designing the next Bugatti, you know, and I'm just like, guys, there's so much need around here that, you know, that frankly, I don't know how you can be distracted by these, you know, I want to design Bugatti. I want to design Yeezys, you know, and I'm just like, oh, my gosh, guys, like, you know, people need water in this country. You know, this there

SPEAKER_01: 21:23

is. Yeah. Flushing, flushing toilets and things.

SPEAKER_00: 21:26

Yeah. Yeah. And it's easy for me to look at that in India and point fingers. But I started to look and think about, well, you know, my own country has challenges. My own country has these issues. And, you know, I was thinking about designing, you know. Giant jalapeno peppers for McDonald's. You know, is that necessary? Did that solve anybody's life or challenges? No, absolutely not. So there's a little hypocrisy in there that I had to. kind of deal with and i was really focused when i came back to think about i wanted i wanted to do something that was more valuable i wanted to affect the community in a positive way with with design or with encouraging of creativity and really using what i feel is a gift that we that were given and have a chance to develop for more than just financial gain right so yep i um In 2018, when I came back from India, I ran the Maker Faire for Denver and had a chance to really connect with lots of different types of people who are trying to be creative. And that was my way of trying to showcase the community's creativity and show kids that, hey, there's lots of options out there.

UNKNOWN: 22:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 22:46

And

SPEAKER_01: 22:48

that was... high end, you know, coming down from above kind of, you know, hierarchical, this is how you guys need to do these things. It's more, I, you know, it's more of a, you know, we've been given the tools, we've trained with the tools, people deserve and should deserve to know how to reinvent not only themselves, but their communities and create these amazing things, because everyone is endowed with this ability to think at crazy abstract levels and bring it back down to create something that's quite appealing and needed in some cases.

SPEAKER_00: 23:34

Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. The idea of what a post-industrial designer is, you know, what do we need to be now besides just making something beautiful, right? Besides using our skills to make people desire something, we also have that added burden or responsibility of making sure that it's meeting a need. We have a finite amount of resources on the planet. How are we going to use them to better things, not just keep them the same or make them maybe even worse? So doing that Maker Faire really taught me a lot about the different types of things that were happening in the community. I had a chance to go into product design, and I went into the regular type that we're all familiar with, working with OtterBox, which they do phone cases and protective equipment for electronics. And that really helped me to understand a little bit more about the things that I maybe didn't want to do. and what I really valued as well. I really tried to help that team to look more at the human-centered portion, and we developed an innovation method with the team there and figured out how to add some extra firepower to go after better opportunities for their customers. While I was there, they developed the fishing net, Um, and, you know, tried to think about other places where they could start to, to get their still, you know, get profit, but, but still looking at where sourcing things in a better way and stuff like that. So, um, some, some of those things happened while I was there and that was, that was exciting, but, um, In the start of the pandemic, I had a chance to– I left OtterBox at that point and then found out I was also going to be a dad at the same time. Same day, in fact. Oh, wow. For me, I really had to investigate, okay, well, I'm a dad. I'm going to be a dad now. What kind of life do I want to provide for him? What type of person do I want to be? And am I going to be that– guy who says one thing and does another. Right. Um, I can't, in some ways I can't preach about, you know, ecological, um, challenges and, and making good decisions while at the same time making products that I can't, I can't feel good about. Right. So, um, at the same time I did, I have an offer to work with, um, the university. We, um, We actually started a nonprofit to create PPE for hospitals called Make for COVID. And we were able to fly stuff all over the country and I shouldn't say all over the country. It was around Kansas and some of the reservations and places that had extreme need that were nearby. So we used Civil Air Patrol to work on that. But that got me in kind of a network of people who were looking more at the social impact scene. And that's where it comes to today, right? So they saw my skills that I'd worked on and all these other types of things. of design and I really was eager to use those skills, but in this social impact way, like how do we improve other people's lives? And one of the projects you just mentioned, right, is that homelessness one. We were approached, the university was approached to create a systems map.

SPEAKER_01: 27:37

If I can interrupt just for a minute, Dan. Yeah, yeah. So I just want to take a step back for a minute because I think there's a lot of misconception about, no, no, no problem whatsoever. I think you're making my point about this statement. And it's that, you know, I think there's a large misconception in the vocation of industrial design about what industrial designers do. And for me personally, I've had trouble describing to someone who may not know the industry in a random off-the-cuff conversation what it is I do because to your very... linear, or not linear probably, but your very path and everything that you've created. Everything that you've had your fingers and mind into, I'm very much similar, but it just goes to show the power of industrial design, the understanding of the driving forces of how to create are the core elements essence of design in and of itself. And so, you know, I just want to put that out there to any of the listeners and people who are questioning, you know, the, the maybe even going into industrial design or are already out of industrial design thinking it's just building or creating a physical object you hold in your hand, or it's just this, uh, a piece of furniture or lighting, which are, which is an amazing book category to be in, but you can also branch out into these human centered, um, areas to really create an impact. And I think you're driving to this point about impact and designer's role within society. And I really appreciate hearing that particular, just hearing your story and how that's

SPEAKER_00: 29:33

coming out. Well, I think I'm always driven towards solving bigger problems, right? So as a pinstriper, I was driven towards like, I want to design the car, not just decorate the car right you know and then I got to went through industrial design school and I'm like well I want to And, you know, the reason I didn't go into furniture lighting was because I went to the International Contemporary Furniture Fair and I met a lot of those really amazing designers. And frankly, they were a lot of jerks.

SPEAKER_01: 30:07

There are. And yes, I think you're kind of alluding to some of the clicks in the category as you get to a certain area or level. Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 30:16

Yeah. I mean, I just looked at what was being done there and I thought, man, there's so many problems in the world. And this table is like$1,500 and it's going to sit in somebody's third house. And they're, you know, I just

SPEAKER_01: 30:32

felt like... And like your name, you may or may not be mentioned when someone is kind of entertaining in the room.

SPEAKER_00: 30:38

Yeah. And even then, if I am mentioned, like, you know, then the table isn't really getting used that well. You're just talking about it. Exactly. It's just a museum of furniture, right? Exactly. So I... For me, I've been drawn to those bigger problems and that I've continued to try to level that up in each stage of like, well, how can I take on bigger things? How can I use design in bigger ways to help more people or to make bigger impacts? So I'm still learning. It's a daily grind. I'm, you know, I've got... Stacks of books around me, stacks of books behind me. And I'm constantly buying more and learning more. And, you know, I've got a million tabs open on my computer where I'm trying to learn about new things, you know. And as a designer, you've got to care about people. more than just your design and what you're bringing. You have to think about who it's benefiting, who it's helping. And that's where I've started to like see a different way than maybe we were taught, right? We had some great instructors and people that we learned from, but this wasn't necessarily a focus of industrial design, or at least it wasn't emphasized nearly as much, right? So I think that the lines of where industrial design stops and where other traditional industries begin has really blurred a lot. UX design, I've had a chance to design some apps now. I've had a chance to work on services. I've had a chance to just look at a space and then try to understand it and then quantify it so that I can explain that to other people. It didn't involve a product at

SPEAKER_01: 32:25

all. Yeah, this brings me to, yeah, one of the things that I've been thinking about a lot lately, and I know you had mentioned off camera, so to speak, about meta design. I want to get into that, but real quick, this reminds me of something I've been thinking about a lot lately, the title of industrial design, its provenance dating back to where mass produced goods was the was the kind of the ultimate goal of the industrial designer knowing the manufacturing process knowing the how things go together and working with engineers on parting lines and such we've come to a day and age now where everything boils down to an interaction if you have the the core basis and knowledge of how a thing is built you can design it however to design the right object you have to understand the interactions of your target user. And so I want to dig in a little bit with you around, you've been kind of dancing around empathy. I like to dance. Yeah, yeah, right. Yep, absolutely. Nothing wrong with being on ladder feet and moving on the dance floor, I tell you. You know, yeah, so can you talk a little bit about the evolution of your understanding of empathy and the correlation of better products and services and goods as you've kind of evolved with that understanding?

SPEAKER_00: 33:55

Yeah, you know, this is just, you know, looking at companies like IDEO, right? In many industries and in many places, that was like the first time people had heard about, you know, Using design in a way that helped just benefit the, you know, help benefit the user. Right. But that had been around for a long time. Right. Participatory design had been around since, you know, Buckminster Fuller in the 40s and 50s. And that process was. Well known. And even before then, you know, we just made things that we needed. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So, you know, before the industrial age, we we we made things that we needed and we purchased them from people who could make them well and that we enjoyed. And and that was that was that. Right. So, yeah. I don't put any special magic potion behind design thinking or that idea of thinking about the user. We've always had to do that as humans. But many times we get distracted by the finances. We get distracted by making more money. The timelines. Yeah, or the timelines or a lot of other things get in the way that prevent us from– Really looking at that core and that distraction is, you know, we've seen as designers, we've seen where that gets creates terrible products. It creates problems. It creates waste. And yes. And frankly, for me, I was definitely responsible for some of that waste and some of the projects that I did. and not thinking about, you're hyper-focused on the problem and the problem is very small. It's very small compared to, even though I'm working for the user, which might be a marketing company or a product company or whatever, we're working on this problem and it's intoxicating as a designer to get a good problem that you can solve. But when you start to pull out, and pull out and pull out and really look at you know what is the what's the time how long is this going to be used where is it going to end up afterwards where's the material coming from that that is being you know that is being sourced to make this product what countries are being made in right um what processes what really nasty processes supply chain of this thing yeah yeah so yeah As I've gone through this, I've become more exposed to the bigger parts of the longer chain of events on the front end and the back end. In working with tooling companies and working with sourcing materials and things, you start to hear the story that no one person generally has that information. They're focused on their part of it. They move it down the conveyor line and the next person works on it. But I think for me, I'm starting to see the big picture in some of those things. And then it's not about the user anymore. Right. It's not about the company's need anymore. It becomes bigger than that at some point. And not everyone has the luxury in their jobs to look at that. Right. At the big picture.

SPEAKER_01: 37:26

Yes,

SPEAKER_00: 37:27

that's right. We are all we're all working for someone. Right. And there's all always value that we need to bring in order to to keep our jobs and to do the fun, you know, to do the cool thing that we we've developed. But the more you look back at those things, you know, and now with the digital information age and, you know, we know more about where our products come from and the long tail effects than ever before. And our consumers are starting to learn those things too. And they're starting to make decisions based on that. They're starting to make decisions based on where companies put their money, what political things they source, how much petroleum they're invested in, all these kinds of things. And I think our consumers are becoming more informed. And at the same time, industrial designers, designers in general, people responsible for creating things, we have a bigger responsibility. So that empathy has to go beyond people and humans. We have to look at the planet, right? Because a lot, I mean, I know that you've probably worked on products that were made or sourced in other countries, right? And we're just creating a garbage pile in another part of the world that we may never see. Not necessarily, you know, oh, well, it was made in China, but we never saw the effects, right? We never saw the... the challenges or the industrial waste that might have been created from that. So I think we have a bigger responsibility these days to look at not just how we're helping a person, but how we are affecting our planet. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 39:09

Yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree more. The world has gotten much smaller, even in the past few decades. I mean, I don't see it getting... any larger by any stretch of the imagination. Meaning, yeah, as you dive farther and farther down the design rabbit hole, you know, the nuances of a feature are amazing to suss out of a verbatim or something on a qualitative test. But at the end of the day, if you have the opportunity to drive design intent across a team and you're speccing CMF, and working closely and tightly with engineers, you know, even to the daily serendipitous, you know, bumping into them in the shop or what have you, you know, I think to me that's kind of where it begins as far as creating an opportunity to make the shift as a designer working with other people because you can spec, All these fancy new materials, these green materials. The problem is, you know, the bottom line, right? There's margins on these things and there's reasons why a company may or may not choose to go that route, unfortunately. And a lot of times there's just not a big enough supply chain or pipeline for that material.

SPEAKER_00: 40:36

Or consistent enough,

SPEAKER_01: 40:38

right?

UNKNOWN: 40:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 40:39

Exactly. The consistency is tough, too. How many units are you going to make in X amount of time? And if your supply chain manager comes back and says, I can't get X amount, it'll drive whatever, then forget about it. However, that's kind of the... the unfortunate side of the wheel. But on the fortunate side where you have the power to control these things, I think what you're leading to is educating yourself. You talk about all the books you're reading and such. Yes, I mean, never stop learning as a designer. I think it's important to drive your own curiosities outside of work, outside of making the beautiful shell of the thing. And And continue to inject the thoughts of sustainability into your organization, however you see fit. Because there's a lot of team dynamics involved, right, across different organizations. I'm sure you've seen it.

UNKNOWN: 41:40

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 41:40

Absolutely. And yeah, like I mentioned, you know, I've definitely been responsible for working on products that weren't responsibly done, weren't done in a way that, you know, that I know worked. None of these things are fertilizing plants and making them grow better, right? They're not helping the planet generally. So I'm definitely just as guilty as anyone when it comes to that. But I think designers have a responsibility to really respond to the needs. whatever they might be, how they're demonstrated. So that might mean that we are keeping ourselves informed about ways to do things better and different. It might involve us looking at those long chain effects and maybe educating our client, educating our company about what those things should be or could be done differently, right? Yes, it might mean the bottom line, but I know greenwashing is a thing and I know that that's used a lot to make things artificially seem good. But what's wrong, we're constantly working in the future. All of our products are not, we're not making them real time. We're making them for two, three, four years in the future. And as we go, materials, processes, things that we did easily in the past are gonna start going away. And that's already happened in many types of processes, right? Like electroplating, it's really difficult to get done a lot of places because it's a pretty nasty process. Using certain types of chemicals off the table, right? You can't do that anymore. So that's just going to continue to happen. And either we're ready for that as designers and we think about what can be and how we can improve upon that, or... we leave ourselves out of that conversation and we just get used, we let the market direct us and we just are forced to react, right? As opposed to being proactive.

SPEAKER_01: 43:45

Yeah, can you offer any tools or places to go to do research on kind of the forefront trends or the shape-shifting that you're mentioning in different areas of product design? Are there any that you go to now?

SPEAKER_00: 44:03

Hmm. That's a good question. To be honest, I'm still learning about how to do that better as well. I'm constantly looking at some of these more theoretical approaches. I'm looking at some of these long-term effects. When you're starting to look at the political climate as well, you have to start designing around it. I mean, I think this pandemic has shown us more than anything that when we are dependent upon one society or one culture for our products to be made in, we are really, really putting ourselves in danger. So I think that's... Understanding how those things happen, how they affect, and then how do we not just go to Vietnam? How do we not just go to the Philippines? How do we not just go to the next country that will provide cheap labor, right? How do we really think about how to improve that situation? And I don't have one source, unfortunately. I do enjoy looking and thinking about this process. And I think you mentioned earlier about meta-design. And, you know, that is definitely looking at things from outside of our planet, almost, right? Looking back down at our entire planet and how the effects that we're creating. It's very difficult. It's not cost effective in many

SPEAKER_01: 45:35

ways. It's not a course you can just drop some knowledge on in a semester. It's a lifelong kind of learning process. I agree with you.

SPEAKER_00: 45:45

Yeah, it is. It is. And we have to continue just being alert and looking at these. And like I said, being proactive, right? Being proactive and looking at how things are made, what our responsibility is in that, and can we Can we inject a new way? Can we inject, besides the pretty drawing, can we also add something to the process? Can we also add something to the value that we're bringing back to not just our user, but the planet itself?

SPEAKER_01: 46:16

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you know, there's a couple of, you mentioned biomimicry earlier, and I always like to throw out this in the conversation when it comes up and sustainability, whatnot. And, you know, asknature.org is a great source for checking out, you know, it's a search engine, right? And you could say, I'm looking for an adhesive and you type in, you legit type in adhesive and then it populates like a whole list of animals in the wild that create some sort of adhesive materials. For instance, mollusks in the sea produce like this particular enzyme, protein enzyme that sticks at sea temperature on a rock. Anyway, that's a random example, but there's like, you could type in something like a turbine or propeller or uh anything like that and it gives these really cool interesting anecdotes of of creatures out there and and um

SPEAKER_00: 47:20

like a maple seed almost

SPEAKER_01: 47:22

right

SPEAKER_00: 47:23

like yeah i'm just messing around yeah i remember your project no

SPEAKER_01: 47:28

no yeah yeah yeah nice um Yeah, that's good stuff.

SPEAKER_00: 47:34

I've used that website for courses that I taught on innovation on the topic of design by analogy, right? So, you know, learning like the, I think that was it, the Shinkansen train was based on, I think, a kingfisher's beak. Yeah. You know, the design. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01: 47:55

it's amazing. And it was because it created a, not a sonic boom. Yeah, sonic boom. Yes. It was creating a sonic boom. Oh, yeah, when it came out of the tunnel. Yeah, yeah. It was in and out of the tunnel, right? Right. Because,

SPEAKER_00: 48:08

yeah. So that actually helps, yeah, reduce the tension of the, you know, as it's exiting to prevent the sonic boom. But, yeah, that type of thinking, right? You know, these are long-term things that have evolved into use, right? And we try to skip there really quickly, maybe within a few weeks or a few weeks. A few months of a design. But nature really refines that and takes it to a different level that we can certainly learn from.

SPEAKER_01: 48:43

Yeah, 3.8 billion years of evolution. I mean, there's got to be a couple of... A couple of tricks up their sleeve. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Well, while we're on the subject, do you have any... Any books or recommendations on reading or researching that has sparked your inspiration lately?

SPEAKER_00: 49:05

Well, I'm reading a lot of stuff that's really related to projects that I'm working on, but I've tried to look more at communication and thinking about how you communicate with people and stuff like that because it's easy when you're in the design space to just– you know, you hunker down or, you know, you get in front of your computer and put the headphones on and you do, you do your thing. But, um, but really that connection to people is where, you know, where you really, um, if you're not, if you don't start out good there, then anything you do after that is not good. Right. So, um, I always tell, um, students and clients people in general who are engaged in this i'm like we can make anything right humans we can do anything we're really really fantastic at making and creating things but we have to make the right thing so um for me that that key part of of talking to people understanding things at that at the level that we need to is so crucial um I'm like I said, my head's kind of down. This book just arrived the other day, but it's like journeys out of homelessness. Right. And it's about lived experience. Right. A lot of a lot. And I'm working in the disabled community trying to work on some projects there. And, you know, their their approach to design or anything that's created for that community is nothing about us without us. They're used to being condescended to with design. Same thing with homeless. They're used to trying to just adapt with the way society deals with them. There's a lot of people who really care about doing good things in that community and are doing a great job, but Until you talk to people, until you understand the challenges, we're really not going to get to the heart of those issues. One of the things in that space specifically that I have to keep coming back to again and again is the system that we're in created the situation. People fell through the cracks of the system that exists. And we can't just throw them back into the system that they fell out of and expect them to survive or do well. So it's really made me have to reinvestigate some of those pieces. This might seem super nerdy, but I look a lot at sci-fi and the way people reimagine the future as a space for inspiration. Right. Thinking about these idyllic societies or, you know, there might be, you know, post apocalyptic or whatever. But, you know, it helps me to kind of see different types of ways of thinking and ways that our society could go, would go, might go. And that helps me to look at things in a little bit kind of. tangential way if that makes sense yeah um so that's what i do for fun but i also try to bring it back to design when i can um there's there's a quote from an isaac asimov book that i was just reading and it was this uh the scientist in the book was saying that you know um hyper hyper specialization cuts cuts knowledge at a thousand points bleeding And I was like, whoa, that was like the most, yeah, that was like the most design thing I could have said. Profound. Yeah, I'm like, when you're hyper-focused on this thing that you're trying to create, you are not looking at any of the other outcomes or effects all around it. And I was like, man, that's a perfect thing for students, designers coming into the industry, all that to look at is like, you can be fantastic at this one little thing, but if you don't understand this, you don't understand this, this thing isn't going to be valuable. Yeah. So, um, I, I think, um, maybe you're in the same, in the same boat, but I don't necessarily find inspiration just like within my industry. Right. I don't usually see a design that someone else created or, or something. And then say, Oh God, wow, I'm going to go make another one of those. Just like you said with Ask Nature, looking at other spaces, looking where you can bring value from other industries, other ways of thinking, those have been really valuable to me. I don't find that... I find... Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 53:58

Sorry, yeah. I find your... assessment on the sci-fi quite intriguing. Um, it takes me a little bit to even looking at, um, you know, lost civilization, not lost civilizations, but like long since past civilizations and extinct. Exactly. Yeah. And, uh, and, and, and kind of thinking through their structures and such, um, you know, whether it's, um, the tribal interaction of an indigenous people, for instance, how there's always a, your value is, multiplied by others participating with you to create a higher level of value. One designer didn't design a thing. There was many other engineers and thought leaders and people behind it to push this thing out, whether it was like a handheld thing or whether it was a community. It's evolved over time. It requires a level of empathy to engage and engineer, develop empathy. But like you said, Einstein said something like, what is it about insanity? Like just doing the same thing over expecting different outcome or something like that. Right, the definition of insanity. I'm butchering it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, you know, it is. And unfortunately, you will forever be captivated in the moment of modernity if you don't step outside the... the thinking that has been imposed upon you your entire life to, to read other, other patterns of thought. Um, that's really, yeah, that's my assessment on it at least. Yeah. I mean, even philosophy, right. Even, even philosophy to some extent to help you engage and ask, ask new questions, different questions, period at a different angle.

SPEAKER_00: 56:04

Yeah. I, um, I, I really looked, I really looked at some, um, and some philosophical thought recently, trying to really think about, you know, well, humanity, right? I always, did you ever see that film about Frank Gehry, Sketches of Frank Gehry, where he's talking to a psychologist and, And they're like, you know, I like normal people who are like, I need to talk to my daughter. I need to figure out how to get along with my wife. You know, my boss is giving me a hard time. He's like, designers, creatives, they want to fix the world, right? Yeah. I find myself, you know, I want to do that. I don't think I have necessarily the capability or the brainpower to do that. But it's something that I long for, something I want to try to do. And I started looking at that. And some of those, you know, the highly idealized ideas about humanity, about what it means to be human and some of those things, you know, I look at those and I'm an idealist for sure. I want everything to be perfect. I want everything to work perfectly for everybody. And looking at those helped me to understand maybe how we've fallen away from some of those ideals, how we maybe have shot for them and then where we went astray. from those ideals, right? We got close on this part and then we took a hard turn, right? But looking at some of those early thinkers in the Enlightenment, right, really, they had some great ideas, but then they were not able to apply them, right? And I think we have to continue reinvestigating. We need to continue enlightening ourselves when it comes to that.

SPEAKER_01: 58:04

Yeah. The book Sapiens by Yuval... Harari comes to mind as a kind of a jumping off point on the development of Homo sapiens and how we've kind of come to a little bit of where we're at now. And then one other book, Beyond Civil, well, Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. And then there's another book he wrote, Beyond Civilization, which is a very tribally focused, tribal focused book. But yes, understanding that vision, understanding path. And as designers, you know, we have the tools to shape this. And I think that's the core. That's the essence of kind of what we're getting at, I think, and what you're getting at here. And the point is to continue to make a beautiful world. and i know we're coming up on time dan oh we you know and i i'd love to keep going i don't want to keep you but uh i this has been an amazing chat i i hope the that uh we can actually do this again maybe uh later and later in the year sometime here how things have been progressing with projects and sure uh yeah This has been an inspiring chat for me. Well, you're easily

SPEAKER_00: 59:25

inspired, Robert. You're easily inspired. Right?

SPEAKER_01: 59:29

We are, right? You set the bar pretty low. What's this? Oh, what's this?

SPEAKER_00: 59:32

No, no. No, well, I really appreciate you having me on, and it was great really catching up. I've always appreciated your work and your sensibility to the work. So, you know, it's interesting to catch up, you know, Is it 15 years later and kind of talk through some of these things and see where each other landed on them. But yeah, always happy to connect and talk more.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:02

Awesome. Well, Dan, again, thanks for your time. This is Designing in the Wild. I'm Robert, your host, and thanks for listening. Hey, what's up, guys? I totally dropped the ball on the outro with Dan. So just to let you know, I'm going to put his contact and where you can learn more about what he's working on in the show notes. And also, what else? What else? What else? Oh, yes. He's going to come back for a part two. We're going to do a deep dive into a couple of projects that are super interesting. And that's coming around the bend. So Anyway, this is Rob. I'm your host. Sometimes I forget stuff. Designing in the Wild. Thanks again for listening. Adios.