Design Confidential

Welcome to Design Confidential. You’ve heard the word design before but its meaning or meanings still remains ambiguous to most people. My objective in setting up this portal to is to give non-designers a peak behind the curtain. I truly believe that design is invisible to most people yet it affects everyone’s life in one way or another. Incidentally, if you are a design professional, you’re welcome also.

Added to today's posting is a short trailer about this blog.

So what is design? A few years ago I participated in a program to teach design to Grade 2 students. For that course I defined design as the bridge between the imagination and reality. Every product, building, interior space, etc., starts with a concept, thought, market need or opportunity, inspiration or idea, in other words something abstract. Design is the process by which that notion takes shape and is developed into something that is real and three dimensional. My design specialty is industrial design. I spend my time working on products, mainly transportation and furniture but I’ve also designed bathtubs, clocks, dishware, office equipment, garbage bins, signage and handbags.

My blog will feature posts based on my areas of specialty but also insights, anecdotes and travel stories on places and things that I’ve found compelling. Why am I doing this? Well, I believe that many people in North America have not had the opportunity to get a true look at this industry. The mainstream media never covers design and when they do feature a work of design, it rarely states its author. My goal is to bring the human side of design to people. To show that while the buildings and objects we use everyday might have been planned using a computer or built by a robot, its process of creation and development was nothing short of human.