Ged Carroll

Category: design | 設計 | 예술과 디자인 | デザイン

Design was something that was important to me from the start of this blog, over different incarnations of the blog, I featured interesting design related news. Design is defined as a plan or drawing produced to show the look and function or workings of a building, garment, interfaces or other object before it is made.

But none of the definition really talks about what design really is in the way that Dieter Rams principles of good design do. His principles are:

  1. It is innovative
  2. It makes a product useful
  3. It is aesthetic
  4. It makes a product understandable
  5. It is unobtrusive
  6. It is honest
  7. It is long-lasting
  8. It is thorough down to the last detail
  9. It is environmentally-friendly – it can and must maintain its contribution towards protecting and sustaining the environment.
  10. It is as little design as possible

Bitcoin isn’t long lasting as a network, which is why people found the need to fork the blockchain and build other cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin uses 91 terawatts of energy annually or about the entire energy consumption of Finland.

The Bitcoin network relies on thousands of miners running energy intensive machines 24/7 to verify and add transactions to the blockchain. This system is known as “proof-of-work.” Bitcoin’s energy usage depends on how many miners are operating on its network at any given time. – So Bitcoin is environmentally unfriendly by design.

On the other hand, Apple products, which are often claimed to be also influenced by Dieter Rams also fail his principles. They aren’t necessarily environmentally friendly as some like AirPods are impossible to repair or recycle.

  • Dimensions of luxury

    Dimensions of luxury as a post came together thinking about fictional influence account Gstaad Guy, Horizon Catalyst’s New Codes of Luxury report and Sense Worldwide’s Future of Luxury report.

    IMGP0699.JPG

    Dimensions of luxury breaks down into three areas which Catalyst calls:

    • Traditional luxury
    • Contemporary luxury
    • Personal luxury

    Nowadays, most luxury brands won’t fit neatly into these classifications. For instance the Swiss watch brand Blancpain would be considered to be traditional luxury, but the Swatch x Blancpain collaboration which borrows the design language of the 50 Fathoms dive watch is very much contemporary luxury. Part of this has been driven by many brands being part of large combines:

    • LVMH – depending when you look at the stock price, Europe’s largest company by value run by Bernard Arnault. Related to L Catterton private equity fund which has been financed deals such as Birkenstocks.
    • Kering – LVMH’s rival best known for Gucci. It is currently run by François-Henri Pinault
    • Richemont – Swiss listed group focused more on jewellery and watches than rivals. It has a range of brands including Dunhill, Montblanc and Panerai.
    • Swatch Group – which owns most of Switzerland’s premier watch brands
    • Fosun – China-based multi-sector conglomerate which owns a hodge podge of western heritage and luxury brands including Ahava, Folli Follie, Lanvin, Sergio Rossi, Silver Cross prams and St John knitwear.

    Notable independents include The Rolex Trust and Hermés.

    Traditional luxury

    Unsurprisingly this is the kind of luxury that most people would think of. Timeless style, heirloom designs and peerless quality are likely to be the kind of language that springs to mind. When the luxury industry talks about sustainability and the circular economy, the lives of these traditional luxury products come into focus, since they are often passed down. The influencer behind Gstaad Guy in an interview with the FT talks about his favourite item of clothing being a Loro Piana vest that was his Grandad’s.

    What we think of as ‘traditional’ luxury brands came out of businesses with heritage that are known for their quality

    • Loro Piana and Zegna were both high end fabric manufacturers before becoming ‘luxury brands’
    • Rolex made high quality reliable tool watches, as did Omega and Panerai.
    • Louis Vuitton made high quality robust trunks for travellers.
    • Zero Halliburton and Rimowa made cases that were ideal for air travel and protecting sensitive instruments and camera equipment. The Halliburton in Zero Halliburton actually refers to Halliburton Company who are famous for providing oilfield services.

    Contemporary luxury

    Contemporary luxury is where the greatest controversies of luxury tend to lie. Horizon Catalyst tend to tie up premium brands like AirBnB and Apple together with the luxury sector. It includes values like innovation and sustainability. But it doesn’t discuss what Dana Thomas calls the massification of luxury, with traditional European brands being more often being ‘Made In China’. This has driven a drive for brands to try and ‘shortcut’ their way to success. Luxury brands have adopted the techniques of streetwear brands were scarcity and limited drops fuel the ‘hype’. What Sense Worldwide called ‘Supremification’. Chanel is opening special UHNWI only boutiques. And ‘Made In China’ allowed China to develop its own ateliers.

    Personal luxury

    Catalyst defines personal luxury as subjective in nature, individual to each person and having a deeper connection with personal values. It could be items that might be considered treats like having their groceries delivered. Their discussion of everyday luxury would be familiar to marketers in terms of the ‘Lipstick effect’ familiar from Juliet Schor’s work during recessions. But it’s interesting that luxury is being defined by consumers and followed by brands. The classic example of this would be brands from Nike to LVMH getting on board with NFTs, following consumers and creators.

    Further information

    Best of Tatler Hong Kong: The price of viral fashion | Tatler Asia 

    Luxury Brands | Cultural Shifts | Horizon Catalyst 

    Future of Luxury | Sense Worldwide

    Deluxe: How Luxury Lost its Lustre by Dana Thomas

    Louis Vuitton, Supreme: streetwear & luxury brands | renaissance chambara

    Gstaad Guy, the man who turned a lifestyle parody into a luxury brand | FT How To Spend It magazine

    Something New For The 1%: Private Chanel Stores | Highsnobriety

    The Overspent American by Juliet Schor

  • CX research + more things

    CX research

    IPSOS conducts CX research on an annual basis. They surveyed 1,000 CX (customer experience) specialists around the world about the current state of CX in their businesses. The IPSOS CX research painted a complex picture of organisations. Key take outs of the CX research:

    • 82% of respondents believed that CX investment will provide a competitive edge, but only 52% were expecting an increase investment over the next 12 months.
    • 28% of respondents admitted that their organisation’s CX was worse than promised and only 15% of respondents consider their organisations ‘CX leaders’.
    • Only 52% have CX governance policies in place.

    At the present time the majority of CX leaders have data integration issues and 46% now have to integrate AI as well, adding to their business challenge.

    Beauty

    Hailey Bieber Fulfills Glazed Donut Promise, Announces Rhode x Krispy Kreme Collaboration – Fashionista – via BBH Singapore’s Culture Bleats newsletter

    Business

    Games Workshop: model maker represents the best of Britain | Financial Times

    China

    Foxconn offers higher hourly rates for workers in Shenzhen at its Huawei production unit than its iPhone operation | South China Morning Post – Foxconn’s FIH unit manufactures handsets and electronics devices for Huawei and other smartphone firms. Although China remains its most important production centre, Apple has been diversifying its supply chain amid rising geopolitical tensions.

    China denies claims of iPhone ban, but leaves vague hints | DigiTimes

    China’s coming lawfare offensive | Financial Times 

    Consumer behaviour

    By far the biggest risk factor for suicide is being male | Of Boys And Men 

    Culture

    The news report that drove mainstream interest in the new romantics or blitz kids as they are sometimes known.

    Economics

    Omdia: Semiconductor Industry Reverses Downtrend, Achieves 3.8% Revenue Growth in 2Q23

    CALM highlights the financial worries of the nation and its affect on mental health | Creative Moment

    The rise of surge pricing: ‘It will eventually be everywhere’ | Financial Times – this will drive inflation as it maximises revenue more efficiently

    Ethics

    Environmentally friendly clothing brand Patagonia gets called out about the ‘greenwashing’ design of its buffalo work boots by the Rose Anvil YouTube channel who specialise in analysing boot and shoe design.

    Finance

    $56M in London property tied to alleged China crime ring — Radio Free Asia 

    Health

    Juul got young people hooked on nicotine—Blip wants to help them quit | Fast Company

    How to

    Project Gutenberg Audio books – thanks to our Matt

    Ideas

    John Lanchester · Get a rabbit: Don’t trust the numbers · LRB 21 September 2023

    Innovation

    MEMS builds tiny space thruster that runs on water | EE News Europe – Researchers at Purdue University showed a water-based thruster for nano satellites in 2017.

    No-hands driving | Axios – on ADAS

    Thermoelectric Cooling: Paving the Path to AV Safety – EE Times 

    Luxury

    Timed out! Rugby World Cup 2023 referees not wearing watches due to sponsor dispute | Stuff.co.nz – in some ways Tudor are very much like their big cousin Rolex. This move came across as petty, the problem is that Tudor seems to have made mistakes in its sponsorship and doesn’t have the gravitas of Rolex.

    Daring Fireball: Hermès Still Sells Leather Apple Watch Straps, But Only Through Their Own Store – which is very different to the impression that Apple gave during their autumn keynote ‘Wanderlust’ event.

    Standard Model: The Chanel J12 Eclipse Set – LUXUO – interesting, particularly given the manufacturing problems that Rolex has had with dual colour ceramic bezels. Chanel has managed to master this and master it across the whole watch. Matching bezel and case divisions.

    Interesting analysis on supercar prices.

    Profile of Lacoste.

    Marketing

    A few days of lunch time viewing from the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) media planning and strategy summit. Interesting mix of presentations and case studies.

    Really interesting case study on McDonalds and how the brand has evolved over two decades in the UK.

    KFC’s Colonel Sanders in Street Fighter 6 is finger breakin’ good | Yahoo! News – has also transformed wardrobe with a Loro Piana look.

    The Unspoken Truth About CMO Churn | AdWeek 

    Online

    Labs | Last.fm – I have used last.fm for 20 years and still love their experimental data visualisations.

    China Sows Disinformation About Hawaii Fires Using New Techniques – The New York Times – using LLMs to generate misinformation materials.

    How social media killed the protest | Financial Times 

    New emoji launch in association with Unicode which goes into how emojis became mainstream.

    Security

    Inside The Ransomware Attack That Shut Down MGM Resorts and more here: MGM, Caesars File SEC Disclosures on Cybersecurity Incidents | Dark Reading. 

    China’s de-risking strategy predates US, EU efforts | Quartz – it goes back to the 1980s efforts of China.

    Saab buys into unicorn AI startup | EE News Europe – the focus includes use of autonomous vehicles (land, sea and air), electronic warfare and surveillance capabilities.

    How I got to know Westminster’s ‘Chinese agent’ | The Spectator and China trying to headhunt British nationals in key positions, UK says | Reuters. Sunak admits UK needs more investment to combat China’s security challenge | Financial Times – it’s going to have to get smart soon.  

    Lithuania gets called out: Revealed: The Country that Secretly Wiretapped the World for the FBI | 404 Media.

    Software

    Centaurs and Cyborgs on the Jagged Frontier | One Useful Thing – on AI futures

    Style

    The evolution of sneakers from functional kicks to high-value commodities – ABC News

    Taiwan

    Taiwanese civilian drone suppliers are tapping into the defense sector | DigiTimes

    Technology

    Huawei’s Kirin 9000S chip made by SMIC is only a breakout, not a breakthrough


    What This Year May Well Bring for the eFPGA  – EE Times     – embedded FPGAs allow for in-life product upgrades

    Telecoms

    How two SATCOM companies are responding to Starlink’s dominance 

  • September 2023 newsletter – the difficult 2nd album

    September 2023 newsletter introduction

    The September 2023 newsletter time came around quickly. As I write this, it’s almost the end of September and it feels like no time since I curated the last edition. If you’re reading this, and it’s your first time welcome! If you read the pioneer issue; I hope that this isn’t the newsletter equivalent of the difficult second album.

    Strategic outcomes

    If this continues to go well I will put one out each month. You can find my regular writings here and more about me here. 

    Things I’ve written.

    Rolex Submariner 5512
    Rolex Submariner 5512
    • Analysis on the Bucherer acquisition by Rolex – which shook up the luxury sector in the run up to the end of August.
    • Psychotherapy and culture. How psychotherapy has been mainstreamed via culture, and in turn influenced culture.
    • Digital abortion clinics. How tele-health businesses are trying to address the challenges posted by US state abortion bans and how these services should be doing a better job protecting their patients, in particular their privacy.

    Books that I have read.

    • The Code by Margaret O’Mara. O’Mara’s work like my last month’s recommendation Chip War is a history of Silicon Valley. The key difference is that O’Mara approaches the history through the lens of the American political environment, whereas Miller’s Chip War considered it more in terms of global geostrategic politics. You can read more of my take on The Code here.
    • Deluxe – how luxury lost its lustre by Dana Thomas. Thomas’ book came out in 2008, but much of it is still relevant today, particularly around what my friend Jeremy dubbed the ‘Supremification’ of the luxury sector. You can read more of my take on Deluxe here.

    Things I have been inspired by.

    • Lately I have been listening to Kurena an album by Japanese jazz musician Kurena Ishikawa. I reviewed the album here. 
    • The Korean Cultural Centre in London has a series of rotating art exhibitions. I got to see Audible Garden by Jinjoon Lee. Lee is a multimedia artist. The exhibition usesculptures, drawings, a wall painting, prints, videos, and directional sound installation to create an experience that blends inside and outside landscapes. If you’re involved in creating experiences you’ll want to see it. The exhibition is on until October 13, 2023.
    • My friend Natalie Lowe runs The Orangeblowfish with her husband in Shanghai. One of the projects that they worked on was helping media agency Mindshare rethink their office space and employee brand through the power of comics.
    • We talk a lot about the benefits of neurodiversity in business thinking. But a less explored area is that of cognitive diversity. While Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is an imperfect measure, this work by UCL and Sense Worldwidehighlights the benefits of cognitive diversity in envisioning new possibilities. 
    Cognitive diversity
    • Swatch Group continues with its Mondelēz International -like brand mash-ups (a la Cadburys Dairy Milk x Ritz crackers), this time Swatch x Blancpain. I wonder what this does to luxury brand caché? I imagine that there will be a short burst of hype tempered by existing customers concern about paying $800,000 for a watch from a brand that also puts its name on plastic tat. Omega were a well known premium watch brand, often seen as a cheaper alternative to Rolex. Blancpain is the oldest brand in Swiss watchmaking with the longest most storied history of horology. It is a brand for die-hard watch fans, they made the first automatic self winding wrist watch and still make sophisticated complications like the 1735 Grand Complication and the highly regarded Fifty Fathoms range which pioneered modern dive watches. The company slogan has been:

    Blancpain has never made a quartz watch and never will

    Blancpain
    swatch x blancpain

    It seems the resale value on these watches on secondary market platforms has dropped almost immediately after launch.

    Finally Alzheimers Research put out a fantastic animated film to illustrate the impact of dementia on a life.

    Things I have watched. 

    Moving on from the French new wave works of Jean-Pierre Melville that I viewed in August, this month I revisited works from the Hong Kong new wave. Chow Yun Fat’s performance in the John Woo-directed film The Killer blew me away when I first watched it on VHS tape and still moves me today, more on that here. I followed this up with John Woo’s second best well-known film Hard Boiled. Watching it for the first time in several years, gave me a slightly different perspective on the film – I can see obvious influence it would have had on 1990s Hollywood – in particular the Die Hard series; but the ‘new wave cinema’ elements felt like stylistic add-ons rather than a crucial part of the story. 

    Netflix has a couple of sleeper Japanese language series:

    • Sanctuary is about the journey of a young man from a broken family in the world of professional sumo.
    • Informa is a tale of revenge and assassination played out in modern day Japan highlighting the close links between the yakusa, local politicians, the construction industry and the media.

    Useful tools

    Small fridge magnets

    Working with colleagues who had a fantastic whiteboard, this whiteboard was vast like the rolling door on a freight carriage. Everything was brilliant but for the fact that Post-It notes wouldn’t adhere at all to the surface for some reason. Thankfully, I’d had a run through on the room a few days before and found this out by accident. So I got some fridge magnets that were ideal for using with Post-It notes on the day. I now have three dozen of them in my loadout for in-person workshops.

    Flight Delay Compensation

    If like me you’ve had problems with airline delays and cancellations, Moneysavingexpert have put together:

    • An explanation of your rights
    • Links to tools that make claiming comparatively painless

    More here.

    The sales pitch.

    Now taking bookings for strategic engagements. Contact me here.

    The End.

    Ok this is the end of my September 2023 newsletter, I hope to see you all back here again in a month. Be excellent to each other. Let me know what you think or if you have any recommendations to be featured in forthcoming issues. 

  • The Freshest Kids + more things

    The Freshest Kids

    The Freshest Kids tells the story of early breakdancing. My own attempts at breakdancing were very poor. My moonwalk was closer to John Hurt’s shuffle as part of his portrayal of John Merrick in The Elephant Man. Because of that I have a real appreciation of those people who can do breakdance properly. You can watch it here.

    RAYS Engineering

    I have a thing for manufacturing videos that shows how a product is made. RAYS Engineering alloy wheels are famous as providers of high quality after market wheels, particularly among fans of Japanese import vehicles. Their manufacturing process is unique. The forging process provides their wheels with superior properties to normal cast alloy wheels.

    Anjihood pop-up book

    Anjihood is the 32 square kilometre development (less than 3% the size of Hong Kong, or over 100 times bigger than Canary Wharf in London) outside Shanghai. It looks to blend the benefits of urban living with a more green environment – a 21st century analogue to the Victorian garden city concept. They commissioned Shanghai creative agency The Orangeblowfish to create a pop-up book that would convey the concepts behind Anjihood and the emotions they hope the development will evoke.

    Innovation in Japanese hospitals

    Japan is using a mix of robotics and machine learning tools to help assist staff in its hospitals cope with its aging population. NHK World goes in-depth in how a mix of commercial off the shelf solutions are being used in concert with each other.

    No to obsolescence

    Porsche Netherlands did this film to show no matter how old you’re Porsche, if they don’t have the relevant part available. They will go back to the original design drawings and remanufacture it for your vehicle.

    I am not too sure how this would hold up for electronics components which might not be able to get the relevant integrated circuits. But it’s an interesting commitment to make. In a low carbon economy, keeping existing vehicles on the road for longer is as important as a world full of Teslas.

    The Porsche 111 was first made some time in the early 1950s. Porsche only started building sports cars in 1948, but had been building tractors on and off since 1934 under the Porsche brand.

  • James A Micheners Writers Handbook

    Late on in his writing career a bestselling author created James A Micheners Writers Handbook. Now the stuff of thrift shops and the ‘for sale’ trolley in your local library, Michener was a bestselling author for over four decades. His paperback books were the size of doorstops, yet were sold in every airport for holiday reading.

    Writer’s handbook

    At the end of the first Gulf War, George W. Bush quoted one of Michener’s short stories in a celebration of the allied military effort. If you have ever watched the musical South Pacific, that was an adaption of Michener’s first book ‘Tales of the South Pacific‘. Ten of his works were adapted for film by Hollywood and there were a further five TV series or ‘mini-series’.

    Michener died in 1993, but during his life time his books sold an estimated 75 million copies worldwide. There was a distinctive Michener fingerprint to his books:

    • Geography was at the route of everything, the setting was the hero of his books
    • Deep research: Michener would research the culture, history and geology of the setting
    • A common narrative rhythm to his writing
    • Despite running to 1,000+ pages, Michener’s books were easy to read

    The writer’s handbook

    James A Micheners Writers Handbook talks through the process that Michener went through in writing a couple of his works. He talks about using a cut-and-paste methodology, where he physically cut and pasted in paragraphs on to typed sheets. He discusses the move from hot metal typesetting to phototypesetting and its effect on the editorial process.

    Michener’s career saw him move his writing process from mechanical typewriter to word processor and he discusses how this became beneficial to his writing style.

    Michener shows the feedback that he received from the publisher, the editor and even legal review – laying open how once the original draft is submitted to the publisher, creating a novel then becomes a team sport. And that’s even before marketing gets involved.

    This is all laid out including photographs of original manuscript pages and proofing copies in a coffee table book.

    Creating an easy-to-read books was deceptively hard work. The refining process that Michener went through reminded me of creating propositions for a creative brief in my day job.

    At the back of the book is his advice for future writers in terms of paths to getting published. He admitted that getting published had become much harder for a number of reasons:

    • The opportunities to showcase your writing had diminished due to the demise of short story publications
    • Publishers now relied on agents to filter manuscripts on their behalf
    • Writing courses were considered a par for the course
    • Michener recommended a number of careers to kickstart a writing career including working in public relations rather than journalism – which surprised me

    James A Micheners Writers Handbook won’t tell you how to create great stories, but it is a lesson in writing as a multi-stage process of creation, followed by refinement and further simplification of the language. Michener’s idea of simplification is still far more advanced than we write for today in business, in advertising copy or culture.

    The book itself is a bit of a curate’s egg. I would recommend it, but not too sure about who I should recommend it to. More on the book here.

    You can find more book reviews here.