I want to say just a few words about aesthetics in the context of
commercializing. Design, and this is going to be.
Largely in the context of product development, product design.
So this is strictly optional but for those of you who are interested in
commercialization, I would just want to make a few additional comments.
This example is of the S2 framing hammer that was designed by Adam Design for Vonn
and Bushnell, which is a, a high end tool manufacturer.
And it's hard to imagine a, an artifact that is more purely functional than a
hammer. And yet,
even in this case I think that applying. Deliberate attention to the aesthetics of
the artifact is, is really important. And there are two main reasons for that.
One is, I think that the, there's some. The, the, the beauty of this object
attracts attention to it and allows the user, or in this case the customer in
this commercial context, to spend some more time.
It, it attracts the user to spend some more time investigating what this is all
about. And even things like the use of the
contrasting color for the shock absorbing rubber elements.
And the way the fasteners are detailed. That attention to detail and care in the
aesthetics of this object contribute to making it.
Contribute to its commercialization, that is, attract the user to spend some more
time investigating it. And also, even in a purely functional
category like this, your users often take great pride in
their tools, and the products they buy. And they think of them as objects of
beauty. And so, if, if you, as a producer, can
also impart some beauty to these objects, you'll have better commercial success.
So I guess the, the bottom line on this point is there, there probably is no
object so purely functional that it doesn't benefit from some explicit
attention to the aesthetics of the design.
The second point I want to make is I, I want to, let me just pose a, a
thought experiment which is, which of these two laptops is the better design.
One is a ThinkPad and one is a MacBook. It's.
One is the Apple MacBook Air and the other is the Lenovo ThinkPad.
And, they have similar prices, they have
similar functional performance is, is one of them the better design.
Now some of you might argue because of the media and because of the consumer
attention that the apple product is the better design.
Actually have that apple product, it is a beautiful design unambiguously its a
beautiful design. But I would argue that the ThinkPad is an
equally good designed, it just a different design.
And it's a design that is working For the company in a different way than the
Macbook Pro design is. So the, the, the Macbook Air in this case
is a, is an elegant tool for the creative professional.
And that's the way it's positioned. And it also, I suppose is, is positioned
for the freethinking consumer. Those are kind of the, that's what Apple
is trying to do with this design. The Thinkpad, on the other hand.
Is positioned as a powerful tool for the business elite.
So imagine yourself on an airplane travelling to some business meeting and
the, the creative professional pulls out the Macbook Air and the hedge fund
manager pulls out the ThinkPad. Those are perfectly consistent product
choices for those two different people. And it would be a mistake for Lenovo, the
maker of the ThinkPad, to try to mirror what Apple is doing with this product
because they have very different positions in the market.
Incidentally the Thinkpad, the first Thinkpad was designed by Richard Sapper,
who is a very prominent designer, icon really of contemporary product design.
And he wrote of the Thinkpad, or said of the Thinkpad, that I designed this to be
a power tool for the business elite. I dressed it in an evening suit complete
with a red bowtie. And if you look at the dress of this
product, it is very much a tuxedo or an evening suit, and it has this nice
accented red bowtie. So,
well I personally quite like my Mac Book Air.
It's a mistake to think that, in a commercial context, there's a single
style that's better than another style. Two designs can be equally well executed,
and position their products very differently, as is the case here.
And both can be great design. The third,
comment I just want to make about commercialization is and, and product
design really is, is two points about this example.
This is an example of the Fallochi electric motor bike that my brother and I
designed as part of the, the company we describe, described in one of the other
modules, Nova Cruise Products. This was not a particularly elegant
design in terms of the aesthetics. We had to do this very cost efficiently,
with a lot of off the shelf products. It's a pretty purely functional design.
It didn't, we didn't have a lot of money we could spend on complex shapes and
molds and dyes for complex shapes. Now the point I want to make here is
that, it's really two points. First of all, even a purely functional
object, that is an object that is designed with almost pure,
pure function. If you demonstrate care and craft in its
design it can be quite beautiful, it can be quite beautiful in an elemental way
and here we did put, we did use a red accent color which is going to be an
inexpensive trick in order to give a little visual interest to the product
but. Pretty much this is, this is a almost
purely functional machine. And it's still, can be quite beautiful if
there's a lot of care and craft that's applied to it.
The second point I'll make about this example is.
That great photography can make even a sort of mundane product quite beautiful
so The photography here is really amazing.
This was done by a very good professional product photographer.
And you can see that he's got almost perfect illumination, even down into the
pockets of the swing arm here. He's, he's done a beautiful job of, of
getting the contrast and exposing the detail.
And you know, the reflections are perfect.
The background is perfect. The lighting is just, is just amazing.
And that photography makes the product look.
In effect better than it actually does in, in live.
And so when you're trying to commercialize a product, you, you, you do
your best on the design. But then don't skimp on the photography.
Because the photography is what makes your product pop off the screen, or pop
off the page of the brochure when you go to commercialize.
Karl T. UlrichVice Dean of Entrepreneurship and Innovation
