CAD Monkeys, Dinosaur Babies, and T-Shaped People: Inside the World of Design Thinking and How It Can Spark Creativity and Innovation

by Warren Berger

Overview

An illuminating journey through today's fascinating world of design.

What can we learn from the ways great designers think-and how can it improve our lives? In CAD Monkeys, Dinosaur Babies, and T-Shaped People Warren Berger, in collaboration with celebrated designer Bruce Mau, revolutionizes our understanding of design and unlocks the secrets of the trade. Looking to the creative problem-solving work of design professionals, Berger reveals that design is a mindset, a way of looking at the world with an eye toward improving it. The practice of design-thinking opens readers to their innate capacity for reimagining the world around them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143118022
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	12/28/2010
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Warren Berger is an award-winning journalist and author who has written for The New York Times Magazine, Wired, GQ, Reader’s Digest, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, Business 2.0, and New York magazine. His work appeared in the 2001 Best Business Stories of the Year. He is the author of Advertising Today, Hoopla, and co-author of Nextville and No Opportunity Wasted. He is also the creator and editor of One, an acclaimed national magazine focusing on advertising and design.

Table of Contents

The Briefing 1

Section I Universal

1 Ask stupid questions 21

What is design? Who is Bruce Mau? And, by the way, does it have to be a lightbulb?

2 Jump fences 45

How do designers connect, reinvent, and recombine? And what makes them think they can do all these things?

3 Make hope visible 70

The importance of picturing possibilities and drawing conclusions

Section II Business

4 Go deep 99

How do we figure out what people need-before they know they need it?

5 Work the metaphor 126

Realizing what a brand or business is really about-then bringing it to life through designed experiences

6 Design what you do 155

Can the way a company behaves be designed?

Section III Social

7 Face consequences 183

Coming to terms with the responsibility to design well and recognizing what will happen if we don't

8 Embrace constraints 211

Design that does "more with less" is needed more than ever in today's world

Section IV Personal

9 Design for emergence 239

Applying the principles of transformation design to everyday life

10 Begin anywhere 267

Why small actions are more important than big plans

The Glimmerati 293

The Glimmer Glossary 301

Resources 309

Notes 315

Acknowledgments 329

Index 333