A pretty good article concerning the trend in Silicon Valley towards using more industrial designers to make their products look better, less geeky, simpler, friendlier. It’s a good concept and something that has been part of most of my purchasing decisions for some time, if it looks like shit I don’t buy it.
The problem with what they are saying though is that although they use two fantastic design shops as examples—Ideo and Frog Design—they also talk about the many tech companies—such as HP—who use in-house teams. That and the fact that I think most decision makers care about designs means that yes, products are curvier and come in 2-3 different colors but they are still mostly the same from company to company and more often then not are just knock offs of designs from real design pioneers.
The first step, being aware of design, has been taken now how about actually using it for something else than cheap copies?