Merel Karhof has a knack for harnessing breezes and turning them into fun, sustainable goods we can use.

Merel Karhof has been using the breeze as muse for years, finding new ways to spin airflow into creative gold. Most notable, perhaps, is the London-based designer’s Wind Knitting Machine, which united a metal mill and loom to make one-of-a-kind scarves. Her ongoing Energy Harvesters series (I, II, III, and IV) underscores her continued fascination with the invisible force. And her latest project, a furniture collection, is not only ingenious but it’s the most ambitious yet.

Karhof sited the project in the historic Zaanse Schans region of the Netherlands, an industrial milling hub dating back almost 300 years. These days, it provides a stark glimpse back at the traditions that helped establish the region. On-site, Karhos harnessed whooshing gales and used original, still-functioning machinery in a three-fold process to make the furniture: a sawmill cut the wood that provided the structure for each piece, a color mill ground the pigment used to dye the yarn, and Karhof’s own knitting machine transformed those colored fibers into mini pillows to upholster the stools, benches, and seats. And much like she did with the scarves, whose length corresponded to time it took to make, each cushion is sized relative to how long it took to produce.

The concept alone is enough to make this one of the coolest design endeavors in a while, not to mention a thoughtful approach to sustainability. But the pieces are, frankly, quite fine looking. They have nicely minimalist forms and soft hues. We hope she’ll make more soon.

via FastCompany

The year is drawing to an end, so it’s time for my annual branding post. This year, I’m presenting the worst and best together, because that makes it easier to draw lessons from both. Needless to say, these rankings consist of my own opinion; I’m certain that other writers would come up with a very different list.

REBRANDING

Rebranding involves changing the logo, tagline, or packaging of a product that no longer seems to represent the qualities a firm would like customers to envision when they think of the brand.  Most of the time, rebranding efforts are fairly “meh” but here are two cases where rebranding has made arguably a difference. 

Best: Cheer (Procter & Gamble)

P&G often seems to have more brands than it knows what to do with. As such, its rebranding efforts tend to be, frankly, a bit dull. Not so with P&G’s rebranding of the venerable Cheer line of laundry detergent.

Most companies, when rebranding a product that was wildly popular in the Mad Men era would go for some kind of retro-theme. P&G went in exactly the opposite direction, turning Cheer into something that actually seems, well, cheerful.

Worst: Windows 8

In the autumn of 2012, Microsoft launched a complicated operating system product strategy that attempted to maintain both backward compatibility to previous products (Window 8 and a new future in a new product category (Windows RT).

You’d think that since Microsoft is trying, with Windows 8, to hold onto its installed base, they wouldn’t tinker with the branding. Instead, the company launched a monochrome logo that has the “look and feel” of a freshman design project.

NEW BRAND NAME

Best: Pussy Riot

Imagine you’re a feminist punk-rock band in Russia. Imagine you want everybody in the world to know the name of your band. Could anybody possibly come up with a brand strategy that would be more likely to achieve that goal?

With a brand name like that, all that’s needed is a marketing tactic to propel the brand to the forefront, which the band accomplished by managing to royally annoy the world’s most powerful “elected” dictator, Vladimir Putin.

Worst: Pink Slime

Any company or industry who thinks that “Lean Finely Textured Beef (LFTB)” or “Boneless Lean Beef Trimmings (BLBT)” make great brand names are just asking for a popular alternative brand name to emerge.

While the meat products industry tried desperately to fend off the fear, the ammonia-treated concept of “pink slime” encapsulated every consumer’s worst nightmare about food that’s not fit for human consumption.

BRAND ADVERTISING

While brand is primarily a result of the quality of a company’s products, brand advertising (i.e. ads about brands rather than products) can alter people’s perception of a company and its products. At its best, brand advertising turns brand weaknesses into strengths. At its worst, it simply reinforces negative perceptions.

Best: Chrysler (“Imported from Detroit”)

It’s been decades since Chrysler was “cool,” if indeed it ever was. As far as brand image goes, the company is probably more famous for almost going bankrupt than for any of the products that it’s made.

Chrysler’s “Imported from Detroit” series of ads are therefore all the more impressive, because they not only improve Chrysler’s image, but even the battered city where its corporate headquarters are located.

Incredibly creative stuff from Portland, Oregon-based Wieden+Kennedy.

Worst: Godaddy’s (Body Paint)

Godaddy‘s risqué superbowl ads were charmingly trite when they originally appeared a decades or so ago. However, this is one case where repetition has weakened the message (whatever that was) beyond the point of self-parody.

Such ads no doubt appeal to the kind male techie who’s yet to be kissed by anybody other than his mother, there are plenty female webmasters (webmistresses?) who are likely to find these ads tedious and annoying.

OVERALL BRAND MANAGEMENT

Brand management is all about taking a good brand and making it better. When it’s done right, it reinforces the positive feeling that people already have about the brand. When it’s done wrong, it causes people to question those feelings. These two huge firms respectively burnished and tarnished their brand in 2012.

Best: Apple

Apple is perennially among the most respected brands but with the death of seminal CEO Steve Jobs last year, it was unclear whether consumers would feel the same about the brand, or whether the company would be able to sustains its fabled “cool.”

While the company experienced a hiccup with its mapping application, it released a string of products that continues to put relentless pressure on its competitors and dominate key growth categories of consumer electronics.

As a result, BrandDirectory moved Apple from 8th to 1st in 2012 and Interbrandnamed Apple it’s “top riser” for the year, with an increase in brand equity of a whopping 129%.

Worst: Facebook

While Facebook had become, to a certain extent, the “face” of the Internet, it (and CEO Mark Zuckerberg) often seems to be doing everything possible to alienate both users and investors.

The Facebook IPO, for instance, was an unmitigated disaster, from Zuckerberg’s apparent inability to take it seriously (wearing a hoodie to an investor meeting) to theeventual scandal and lawsuits.

What’s worse, Facebook continues to generate massive complaints about changes in privacy controls and its user interface. One is left with the impression that, despite its successes (or perhaps because of them), Facebook is stumbling.

via Inc.

Execs and investors from Pandora, Ideo, Andreessen Horowitz, Soundcloud, and Kleiner Perkins, among other masters of disruption, share the wisdom they’ve gathered on the way to the top.

Looking at the success trajectories of today’s disruptors–from Pandora cofounder Tim Westergren to Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales–it’s easy to think that they had everything figured out from a young age. But many of today’s success stories learned lessons later in life that they wished they had known as they were beginning their careers. The eight investors and entrepreneurs below share the advice they wish they had gotten in their early twenties.

Tim Westergren: Avoid the risk of not trying and the regret of wishing you had.
Tim Westergren, the founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Pandora, said if he could offer his younger self one piece of advice, it would be to realize from an early age that it’s far more haunting to live with the regret of having not followed your instincts–even when those instincts required a diversion from the beaten path–than to have followed your gut and failed. Luckily for Westergren, he was one of the few who did follow his passions and that pursuit led him to found a company with a market cap of $2.5 billion.

“Be sure to ‘notice’ ideas when you have them. Stop. Take the time to consider them seriously. And if your gut tells you they’re compelling, be fearless in their pursuit,” Westergren said. “For most people, the idea of chasing a personal passion or being entrepreneurial is simply something they don’t think of themselves doing. We’re so programmed to walk well-trodden paths. But, we live life only once. So, rather than avoiding the risk of trying, avoid the risk of not trying. Nothing is more haunting than thinking, ‘I wish I had…’.”

Jimmy Wales: Spend wisely early in life so you can achieve the financial independence to follow your dreams.
Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia–which according to its own Wikipedia page is a collaboratively edited online encyclopedia–said the advice he would share with the younger generation is to be strategic and thoughtful with expenses at an early age so that you can afford to pursue your passions.

“I think one of the things that most 21-year-old people should do is to recognize now that you can make life choices which control your expenses, and that controlling your expenses is one of the most crucial steps toward the kind of financial independence that you need in order to follow your dreams in the future. Whether it is a change of job, or an entrepreneurial dream, the less you NEED to spend each month, the easier it is to follow those dreams. There are several rules of thumb that can help with this, but one of my favorites is to never go into debt to finance any kind of luxurious consumption. Only go into debt if necessary for some kind of investment, like student loans, for example.”

Bill Ready: Surround yourself with great people and be fearless in pursuit of game-changing ideas.
Bill Ready, the CEO of Braintree–the mobile payments platform for online and mobile commerce that counts companies like Uber, Airbnb, and Fab as clients–shared two key pieces of advice that he wish he had known when he was younger.

“There are two main things I wish I had known when I was 21,” Ready said. “Back in the late 1990s when I was a 19-year-old engineer at Netzee–much like other bright, young, ‘hot-shot’ engineers today–I had this sense that I knew everything, and I didn’t realize the importance of really listening to those who were more experienced. What I have realized since then, is that one of the most important things you can do is to surround yourself with great people, and to listen to them. The second piece of advice I would give is to be fearless. Don’t be afraid to pursue revolutionary ideas, and don’t hold back simply because you’re going up against seemingly unconquerable competitors in your market space. At Braintree, many of our competitors are huge, established companies in the market with market caps in the billions–but we’re not afraid of going after them.”

Alexander Ljung: Realize the power of simplicity.
Alexander Ljung, the cofounder and CEO of SoundCloud–the popular audio platform that has raised more than $63 million in venture funding, according to CrunchBase–shared the importance of learning the power of simplicity in today’s complex world.

“In recent years, T.S. Eliot’s reported quote–‘If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter’–has stuck with me when making numerous decisions specifically around leadership, design, and product. The advice I would offer my 21-year-old self is to remember that it takes more mental (and sometimes physical) bandwidth to create something simple or communicate something complicated in basic terms, but ultimately, that’s a lot nicer for the user experience,” Ljung said. “It’s not about building every feature or understanding everything the first time around. It’s about creating the best, tailored experience for your community and company. I’d remind myself of the importance to leverage design as a decisive advantage and to not be afraid to challenge people to break down their knowledge into easily digestible, clearer statements.”

Philippe Courtot: Focus on what makes you truly happy.
Philippe Courtot, the CEO and Chairman of Qualys–the enterprise cloud security firm that went public last year–emphasized the importance of doing what makes you happy; pursuing what actually makes you happy ensures that you’ll put the needed energy, time, and resources behind your work.

“If I had one piece of advice to give my younger self it would be to stop doing what makes you unhappy and focus on what makes you truly happy,” Courtot shared. “This philosophy, strongly advocated by the Dalai Lama, seems simplistic but its power lies in the fact that it forces you to reflect on what is really important to you and not be distracted by what other people think. If I could give myself one more advice it would be to not be afraid of trying. This builds on the first piece of advice, as we can only learn what makes us happy or unhappy through our own experiences.”

Bing Gordon: Work as hard as you can, and then work harder.
Bing Gordon, a General Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers–who counts Twitter, Spotify, and Path in his portfolio of investments–was frank in his advice. Ultimately, hard work is what is going to make you successful. That, and the added benefit of having an influential mentor to help guide you on the path to success, is the combination that will get you to where you want to go.

“I’ve always regretted that I didn’t start working in business until I was 28 years old,” Gordon shared. “After decades of hiring college grads, I’ve learned that the people who get the most opportunities also start fast. They overachieve from the very beginning. They ask the best questions and always seem to have good ideas. As one Hollywood producer once said, ‘Work as hard as you can and then work harder.’ But the number one piece of advice I would share is to recruit a mentor. Find someone you admire who is at least one generation older, and has no direct authority over you. Lack of context and perspective can cost you months and years–with a bad career choice, an unwise relocation, short-term negotiating posture, and, generally speaking, sophomoric thinking. Jeff Brenzel, Dean of Admissions at Yale, has the best advice on how to recruit a mentor: ‘All professors desire acolytes; so carry their favorite book of theirs under your arm, and go introduce yourself with a question about their book.’”

Paul Bennett: Take the time to listen.
Paul Bennett, the Chief Creative Officer at IDEO–the highly creative global design consultancy that has done work for clients from Samsung to GE–said the one piece of advice he wished he had known in his early twenties, was to focus on listening rather than rushing to come up with a quick, yet uninformed, response.

“Listen more,” Bennett advised. “For most of my twenties I assumed that the world was more interested in me than I was in it, so I spent most of my time talking, usually in a quite uninformed way, about whatever I thought, rushing to be clever, thinking about what I was going to say to someone rather than listening to what they were saying to me. Slowing oneself down, engaging rather than endlessly debating and really taking the time to hear and learn is the greatest luxury of becoming older.”

Scott Weiss: Surround yourself with leaders in your field.
Scott Weiss, a Partner at Andreessen Horowitz–who counts Platfora, Quirky, and Skout in his portfolio–emphasized the importance of learning in the workplace, and pointed out that smaller companies are great places to learn and grow.

“Whatever vocation you decide on, track down the best people in the world at doing it and surround yourself with them. Aim high and be ridiculously persistent. Your happiness is at the intersection of your passions and learning from great people. Working at a big company sucks–avoid it. Smaller companies are 10 times better for learning. Be generous with your time and money–it has an amazingly fast payback. Be in the moment with everyone you love–and this frequently means tuning out work completely. And drive slow in parking lots.”

via FastCo Design

Following the immense success of its first competition, the e-commerce site announces its second, to coincide with the international contemporary furniture fair.

Fab.com may be the web’s fastest growing e-commerce site, but its ambitions don’t stop there. The real aim, its founders have said, is to grow Fab into a global design brand–a stylish alternative to giants like Amazon and Wal-Mart–and the company has already designed over 3000 original products to that end. In March, Fab announced another initiative for expanding its offerings: a crowdsourced competition, calling for designers around the world to submit their ideas for the company’s next big product. Now, they’ve narrowed the field down to 12 finalists–two of which you can see here for the first time–and announced a second competition, coinciding with this year’s International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York City.

The first Disrupting Design competition, which was held last month in Milan, drew submissions from over 150 international designers. Though the company had initially intended to select three winning designs to sell on the site, the strength of the submissions was such that the judges, including Yves Behar, Rob Forbes, and others, ended up shortlisting 12 to put into production.

One of the finalists is a simple metal end table by Urbanize, a Belgian studio comprised of recent graduates Pieter Dauwe and Joachim Van Durme, that cleverly combines a flat surface and a v-shaped storage slot into a single lightweight piece. The second is a set of pastel candle holders by designers Gemma Roper and Sophie Borch-Jacobsen, who work under the name Nice To Be Nice Studio. All the finalists will share revenue with Fab for the sale of products they designed, and Fab’s currently ironing out contracts with the other ten winners, who will be announced later this month.

The winning designs all embody the Fab ethos,” says Shellhammer, Fab’s founder and chief design officer. “Each one solves a problem. Each design has a great story. Each one has an interesting material or form. Most have a sense of humor, a sense of whimsy. And most importantly, I think they’d all be appreciated by the Fab community of 12 million design lovers.”

But for Fab, which recently opened its first brick-and-mortar store in Hamburg, Germany, the crowdsourcing won’t be a one-off experiment. Building on the success of the first competition, it’s announcing a second open call for up-and-coming designers, coinciding with ICFF later this month. Designers are encouraged to pre-register their proposals by emailing designforus@fab.com; presentations to the jury will happen at the Javitz Center in New York City on May 21, between 1 and 3 p.m. This time around the judges include acclaimed New Zealand-based designer David Trubridge and Eames Demetrios, director of the Eames Office (and grandson to Charles and Ray), among others.

via FastCo Dessign