Copyright © 2012 by LUNAR Design, Incorporated. All rights reserved.
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To the memory of an insanely great family Robert, Ana-Maria, Samantha, and Veronica
Acknowledgments
The principal source for what I know about design comes from an exceptionally fortunate career that I
have had at LUNAR working alongside some of the most amazingly creative and brilliant people in
the world of product development. Jeff Smith and Gerard Furbershaw founded and built a singular
firm that is as amazing for its creative output as it is for its ability to retain employees. Few
companies engender the kind of loyalty that LUNAR does, thanks to the commitment of Jeff and
Gerard to an organization that values people and relationships as much as creative excellence and
financial performance. I have worked for and with them for two amazing decades. Thanks, guys, for a
company worth the years.
Jeff Smith also deserves credit for articulating the beauty–ingenuity–charisma framework that I
write about in this book, with input and help from many superb contributors, including Prasad Kaipa,
Jeff Salazar, Ken Wood, Becky Brown, Nirmal Sethia, Roman Gebhard, Matthis Hamann, and me.
My thanks to the crew of early Apple employees who helped me reconstruct the formative days of
the company and the genesis of the Apple design culture: Randy Battat, Mike Looney, Clement Mok,
Joy Mountford, Larry Tesler, and John Zeisler. Special thanks to Bill Dresselhaus, one of the first
product designers at Apple and a client and colleague, for his help in this effort and his interest in me
and my career over the years. Many people helped me understand the design process and culture of
design at Apple in more recent years, including Tony Fadell and a number of others who asked to
remain anonymous.
Thanks to Josh Handy at Method Products and to Albert Shum at Microsoft for your openness in
discussing what design means to your companies. Uday Dandavate helped inform and expand the
ideas about design research. Thanks to John Paul for the rich discussion on managing functionality,
quality, and schedule and to Ken Wood, Misha Cornes, and Nathan Shedroff for helping me frame this
book and encouraging ideas along the way. Thanks to Helen Walters for motivating me to tackle this
project in the first place.
This beautiful book would not have been possible without my colleagues at LUNAR who created
the outstanding design, led by art director Kenny Hopper and book designer Mary Shadley. Thanks to
Kevin Wong who devised the cover art concept, and to designers Anna Kwon and Gritchelle
Fallesgon for collecting and creating imagery used throughout the book, and to Carly Lane and
Jonathan Cofer for the design of the project website. Danielle Guttman was invaluable in researching
and coordinating a surprising array of logistics.
My writing partner, Ernest Beck, has been a crucial critic during the prototyping and refinement of
this book, an optimistic guide when I've had my moments of panic, and a tolerant colleague during my
eleventh hour obsessing. Thanks. And much gratitude goes to Richard Narramore and the consummate
professionals at John Wiley & Sons, Inc., who entrusted me with this book and remained patient
throughout the process.
To my family, friends, and colleagues, thank you for tolerating my absences, both physical and
emotional, during the many hours of devotion to this project. Everyone at LUNAR has been
extraordinarily supportive while carrying the extra load—and some have gone the extra mile.
Thanks to Mark Dziersk for stepping into my empty shoes and for reading the manuscript. Erik
Hansen deserves a shout-out for the many years of friendship through a number of life challenges and
achievements, including this project. Special thanks go to Frank and Terry for your persistent support.
This book would not have been possible without my family. For taking up the slack and for
believing deeply in me, my wife and best friend, Megan, deserves the lion's share of credit and
recognition for this book. I love you. Jack, for your bottomless stores of playful creativity, and Olivia,
for your commitment to living life large—you are my muses and inspiration. May you each find and
embrace your own creative spirit throughout your lives. And finally, thanks go to my parents for their
encouragement of me to do the same.
Introduction
Apple, design, and Steve Jobs.
It's safe to say that you have probably had a firsthand experience with an Apple product or service—
and that you have had a deeper experience over the past three decades with a succession of products
created by one of the world's most valuable companies. It's also safe to say that you have visited an
Apple Store—many times perhaps, to buy or browse or just to gawk in wonder—or have logged onto
the Apple website.
If you're like many people, you talk about the product, whether a Mac, an iPod, an iPhone, or an
iPad, and the experience with Apple itself as if they were an important relationship. There is a reason
for that.
The iPhone 4S brought voice recognition and smarts to life through Siri—another Apple innovation
that makes technology feel more human. Image: Apple Inc.
Whether you're a trained creative professional or someone without even a passing interest in the
world of design, you will have noticed that everything Apple does has an approachable simplicity
and purity that sets it apart from most other technology companies in the world. There is a discipline
and consistency in everything Apple creates and a relentless drive toward innovation. How iPads or
iPhones function and interact with the user, and how easily they operate, is just as noteworthy as the
refined look, the attention to details, and the touchability of their surfaces. For all this, you can blame
design.
In other words, what you are experiencing when you turn on your iPhone is the power of design.
You can see and experience design in the product, and, as I will explain in this book, you will see and
experience design in the company itself. Design is everywhere at Apple and infused in its culture.
From his earliest days at Apple, Steve Jobs set the standard that all products should be “insanely
great.” For me, as a designer and a customer, that means these products always embody the highest
level of performance, function, and beauty. Then they reach an even higher rung of achievement: they
go beyond simple sufficiency to the realm of surprise and delight.
It is easy to draw a direct line linking Apple's tenacious commitment to design and its unparalleled
commercial and financial success. Great products boost the bottom line. But it's also important to go
deeper to examine the design processes and practices that Apple uses in its management and
organization. By exploring the strategic role that design plays in Apple's corporate culture and
structure, I will make observations and extract key insights that business leaders and designers from
any industry can use.
If you're a manager with a business degree and haven't had too much interaction with the concept of
design or with your company's design department—if there is one, that is—you might be thinking that
this book isn't for you. I would argue otherwise. Design isn't just a discipline taught in design schools.
It isn't a tool or strategy unique to Steve Jobs or to Apple or to design firms. You might not realize it,
but design infuses just about everything we interact with, from toothbrushes to clothes and cars and
computers. In that sense, design is part of the material world and myriad products and services that
companies create and that we buy. Some companies have used design from the very beginning,
whereas others have discovered design along the way and have integrated design into their culture
even after management structures and operational frameworks have been established.
In my mind, design is more than just the way a product looks or functions. It is a way of thinking
about the world and how it works. By utilizing the main elements of design and how designers think,
any company can leverage design the way Apple does. I know this is possible because as the front
man for my internationally recognized global design firm, LUNAR, I speak with hundreds of
businesspeople every year about how to grow their companies with innovative and exciting new
products and services. More precisely, I speak with them about the future. Inevitably, these
discussions about the future lead to design.
“We want to be the Apple of our industry.”
Over the past two decades, the increased focus on design in the popular media and culture and in
business and management schools has drawn attention to how exceptional design can help companies
exceed their corporate goals, even if the company doesn't have a history of design or its management
doesn't have a design background. I see this shift in thinking every time a business leader looks me in
the eye and emphatically tells me, “We want to be the Apple of our industry.”
I hear that all the time. But what does it really mean?
Sometimes, even savvy managers have only a vague notion of what design is, and that is often
rooted in a number of myths about Apple's corporate design culture. Design and the broader creative
approach go way beyond cool products that consumers find addictive. Apple sees design as a tool for
creating beautiful experiences that convey a coherent point of view down to the smallest detail—from
the tactile feedback of a keyboard to the out-of-the-box experience when a customer opens an iPhone
or an iPad package. Much attention has been focused on those packages because design at Apple is
part of a continual company-wide innovation process that doesn't stop at the design studio door. As I
explain in this book, when design is the foundation and essential component of everything a company
does, the package is as important as everything else.
Apple isn't the only company that has so passionately embraced design. It is a great example but not
the only one. Design is happening at companies in every conceivable industry and sector. I see design
becoming part of the conversation everywhere I look and not just at our firm or at the Stanford design
program where I teach or because I am a designer. I hear design talked about in corporate
boardrooms and among strategists and product development departments whether the company makes
automotive parts or scooters for kids or video games.
Today, companies realize that in a competitive global marketplace it is imperative to know much
more than which styling features or color options will make their product more admired and desired
by customers. Executives are coming around to the idea that they must create experiences and meaning
that go beyond the product. To me, this is clear evidence that the influence of design is expanding and
changing as managers accept that operational excellence is not the only way to grow a business. They
see that design is not an afterthought but rather a way to differentiate their products from those of
competitors. They understand that what you really need is a better product rather than more ads or a
more famous or notorious celebrity pitch person.
My interest in design dates from my youth. My father was an engineer for General Electric, and my
mother was a math major with a great interest in the arts. Because of their influence, I felt equally
comfortable in a science museum or an art museum. I have always spanned these two worlds—or, as
Jobs described it at the launch of the original iPad, the intersection of Liberal Arts Street and
Technology Street—in my professional and personal lives and in private pursuits.
This merging of the creative and the analytical, the artistic and the technical, is a theme that has
followed me to this day. I studied mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, but
after working for a couple of years in this field I knew that a purely technical career wasn't enough for
me. So I enrolled in Stanford University's Joint Program in Design, so called because it was truly a
collaborative effort sponsored by the departments of mechanical engineering and art.
Since graduating in 1993, I have had the great fortune to teach a number of classes in product
design, the undergraduate version of my graduate studies. I love teaching creativity to some of the
smartest students in the world, who have spent much of their time focusing on critical rather than
creative thinking. The coursework in the program should not be confused with an industrial design
program. It is rooted in engineering while also giving students the tools to explore creative
alternatives. It teaches them how to prototype in a workshop with machine tools and laser cutters and
also to appreciate aesthetics. Many of these ideas and concepts about the coming together of liberal
arts and technology and its impact on design are discussed in this book.
Demand for this program at Stanford has grown dramatically over the past years. More than ever,
students are aware of design as an academic and career pursuit much earlier in their lives. Perhaps
this is why you picked up this book. As a culture, we are thinking, talking, and writing about design in
new and exciting ways. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to buy anything today that hasn't been designed
—or at least intentionally considered—even if not to the highest standards. Looking for a vegetable
peeler? What was once an undifferentiated bent-metal tool is now available in a wide range of colors
and materials, each with its own take on providing more comfort and status to the customer. The fact
is that good design has led to products that change the way we see the world and interact with it.
Because of this increased awareness of design, companies are looking to design to augment their
competitive advantage, and they are looking to design firms to help them. We speak with clients about
their products and potential products, and we listen to their stories and figure out which design
strategies might better express their brand voice, solve their technical challenges, and connect on a
deeper level with their customers. My main motivation in writing this book is to help businesspeople
codify the advice we provide to our clients every day and to help designers understand how to
broaden their roles inside business. Much of what you will read here is based on the insights and
experiences gleaned from my involvement in the design world, working with many different clients,
as well as my experiences interacting directly with Apple and interviews with Apple veterans and
industry leaders in design and technology.
Throughout the book I talk generally about “managers” and “designers” as if they were always
separate and entirely distinct categories within an organization. I do this for efficiency's sake, as a
kind of shorthand, because in fact I know many managers who are incredibly creative, and I've also
encountered many designers and creative types who run thriving and profitable businesses. But as a
rule, when I talk about managers, they are leaders from strategy, marketing, engineering, and
operations who have demanding roles that traditionally lean heavily on analytical capabilities. By
contrast, when I speak of designers, I more likely think of people whose talents and roles are
grounded more in creative strategies and solutions.
In this book, I use my experience as a design professional to unravel how Apple and other
companies use design to their best advantage and how Apple and other companies sometimes fail to
do so (yes, even Apple can falter)—and why. I want you to come away from reading this book with a
good idea of what design is and what it can do for you and your organization. I provide a series of
management tips and advice to help you steer your organization in the direction of design or bolster
an existing design capability to its fullest potential.
I hope readers will be intrigued and inspired to apply these lessons at their own businesses,
regardless of their positions in their organizations. I wrote this book to champion design and to
encourage everyone in an organization to appreciate the power of design and to use it as Steve Jobs
did at Apple—to create “insanely great” products and attain outrageous business results.
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