design

The red text is mine.

You're right, he is quite an interesting character, with lots of interesting ideas

I have to disagree.
To say that philosophy is about "elevated and complex" things is elitist and pompous.
I'm Joe Public, and I have a lot of philosophical ideas and principle that guide and inform my life and I'm hardly alone in that.
Pretty much every company that has a stand-out product or image has a visible or identifiable design philosophy that drives them. Whether that is deep or shallow is irrelevant.
Ducati makes everything red and loud, puts wood in your pants. So does Ferrari. Toyota makes stuff super-reliable, but rather dull. You put your faith in them, but the wood stays home.
Billabong and Guess cover everything in their own logo, all the time, which I find irritating and shallow, but it works for them. Oddly, Billabong makes great products which sell themselves despite the constant barrage of the Billabong logo in it's many forms. Guess makes generic crap which sells anyway because they own an image which they don't let go of.
Meyerhoffer clearly likes to design stuff outside the box.
Whether that stuff is any good is another matter, and it's probably important that some of it is total crap, because if it was not, it would mean that he was not really trying very hard.
Progress depends on people breaking the rules.

hey dave, i understand you are not traducing designers. (geez i had to look that word up)


hey ken,

"it's probably important that some of it is total crap, because if it was not, it would mean that he was not really trying very hard"

bingo!

i gotta say though, i don't mind branding things with their name all over them. especially if it's really over the top or forms something more complex like dot art does. look at RRD. they completely rebelled from the boring graphics most board makers were using. RRD have really done it for me. bold and stylish all in one go. i'd love to spend a day with roberto.


Hi Gybesports,

it's interesting the 6 degrees of seperation in windsurfing. Dan even sounds like he's walking a similar path as amac at KA. both put function first, both design moth sails, both spend a lot of time in HK...... it would be good if the joe average sailors got to talk with these guys. like what the guys found in hawaii talking with the NP designers it puts a completely new spin on the sport when you get to have a one on one with the designers. see the passion in their eyes. i thought it interesting when myerhoffer referenced the automobile industry. KA grahpics obvious connection there also.


anyways, i'm excited with the direction of the sport.

I think there's a difference between being a good designer and trying to look like one.

You may have blown your own trumpet Nebbs but Ric Mayall couldn't use a word of it.
You'll have to go to posing school I'm afraid.

See, just cos wiki says it does not make it true.
Further, I would argue that we are presently having a robust philosophical discussion, yet we are not solving the mysteries of life.
I would contend that the famous philosophers did not either. They just drank a lot of booze while arguing about stuff and a lot of the argument was facetious. Have you never heard of the Sophists ?
We are no closer to solving those mysteries now than ever, at a philosophical level. I feel we have actually come a long way at a scientific level.

As soon as debate starts raging about web design, philosophy, the definition of philosophy, and references to the apple/adobe flash debate

... in a windsurfing forum

It's time to say boobs (.)(.)

Lets see, a bit of design, a bit of smart marketing and a heap of moxie.

Talking about it appears to be philosophy

dave, it's design philosophy, not philosophy, anyways.....

i've tried to avoid the debate that's moved it away from windsurfing but unfortunately have been dragged back in.

so here is my final take.

I think experienced designers stop short of criticising other peoples work.

they know it's a slippery slope.

they also know they are not informed of all the facts, ie the brief!
and that at some point someone is going to ask, so where's your work?

they typically try to look forward and celebrate the work that inspires

they also know it's a never ending journey and mistakes need to be made and there are always opportunities.

and at the end of the day they try not to listen too much to critisism and hold onto their beliefs and their design philosophies.

or in chocos case a box and a pair of limoncello boobies.

alright, one more post then.

i'm not politicing. i just don't think we should critisise someone who has won international awards multiple times.

not to say everyone isn't entitled to their own opinion.

p.s. did you watch the lautner doco last night?

You're a gentleman. That's your problem.

Didn't catch the Lautner doco. Wasn't he into modern school curvy stuff. I'll have to look him up. I saw something about Robin Boyd last night. Boy that took me back. But no, "the past is a foreign country". I don't like to go there any more.

Uber designers are like a cult that is supported by the publishing industry which needs to create stories that the design magazine/book buying public is willing to pay for. These design “stories” usually follow a particular story arc, designer is born, designer has unusual arty difficult upbringing, designer produces early work which is commented upon, celebrated by, the publishing industry. The celebrity designer is always male. It’s all very Harry Potter.

In reality design evolution is much more fractured usually the best designs come from small companies who are willing to take risks and try new things as they try to erode the market leaders. The market leaders are quick to see these changes in the market, they haven’t kept their position by being slow adopters.

Being large companies with a lot at stake they employ celebrity designers who are good at appropriating designs and repackaging them, winning awards, creating publicity and so on.

1. This cult of celebrity is slowly breaking down as new forms of media and communication replace the old ones.

2. This cult of celebrity is being reinforced as the amount of information that the market leaders can collect is increasing exponentially.

Al Planet = Shoe Salesman

I thought builders built things and engineers gave us the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. :)

Interesting stuff, Ken, but from what basis can you say that "people are essentially very conservative"??? To say that people are "very conservative" or even "conservative" can only be done by placing people somewhere on a scale that runs from utterly rigid and terrified of change, all the way to completely terrified of anything staying the same.

If you look at the history of the world, and even the typical person of the 21st century, the modern Western individual seems to stand out as someone who is certainly NOT conservative, but actually suffering from a massive case of ADD. We are living in a world where change is arguably happening faster than it ever has before.

You only have to go back to the '50s, at the dawn of modern advertising, and you can see that people were much more "conservative" than we are today. Who can say that we are "very conservative" when we throw away so many devices that would keep third-world families in food for a decade, just because this year's model is faster and comes in the colours that are in this year?

And even matters like how often one wants design to change is affected by things like education and socio-economic status, which underlines how subjective it all is. There are, of course, people who have been at the forefront of development in one area who love old-fashioned stuff in another area (ie Jim Clark of Netscape etc is also fervently fond of old designs like his replica of a 1930s J Class yacht, or perhaps Laird Hamilton). Are they "too conservative" one minute and "just right" the next?

And, of course, if you work 9-5, have kids, and are "un-conservative" enough to take part in several sports and other activities, one may actually be able to "perform" better at sport and have more fun if you don't change gear every weekend.

BAsically, what is "too conservative"? How long do you have to buy a new board before you become "too conservative"?? Is someone who buys this year's radical new board (and therefore has to work longer hours to afford it) "too conservative" because they don't buy this month's radical new board? Do they have to buy a new board each month or week to be "just right"?? Or is the only person who is not "too conservative" the one who sells the kids to the white slave traders, invests the money in becoming a crack dealer, and buys 10 brand-new boards every morning?

Obviously the example is over the top, but surely being "too conservative" or not is completely subjective.