BYU Design Review

Generating creative solutions to a problem is great—but only if you’re solving the right problems.

Traveling internationally soon, or hope to again sometime in the future? This article provides four principles to help hone your mind-set and turn your international travels into more meaningful experiences for you and those around you.

Most of us who want to become designers at some point pursue a major that we feel will get us to our objective. We say to ourselves “Self, I will attend school and become a great designer.” So, you begin an undergraduate program and start looking for the secret sauce…

Although not everyone designs experiments near absolute zero, performing them can teach us there is no substitute for testing your design in the intended environment.

 Break free of your default settings to beat the blob with this 3D Printing walkthrough.

Cosmo the cougar’s 3-point line dunk was insane, and we are here to tell you all the physics behind it. It’s legit.

When gathering inspiration for your designs, consider doing so from nature. After all, nature is the perfect engineer.

In your design and communication, be aware of the fact that many people have some degree of color blindness. This can potentially affect design features, design outcomes, and evaluation processes. Be aware and don’t disenfranchise up to 8% of your customers.

Ready to explore 3D printing with thermoplastic elastomers (TPE’s) and other rubber-like polymeric materials? Its applications are ever-expanding, from the aerospace to the automobile industry. Learn more and see how you can apply this technology in your designs.

A complicated design can usually be decomposed into lots of smaller design choices. But those individual good choices can add up to an overall low-quality design and experience if the bigger picture isn’t continually considered.

You cannot lead if no one follows.  And no one follows if they don’t trust you. 

Everyone needs a mentor and maybe more than one. One of your mentors might be called Mary, Bob, or Jim. But at least one of your mentors should be called “Failure.”

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a relatively new term and a lot of people have jumped on the bandwagon calling new devices “smart.” But what makes a device smart? And is that even the correct term?

Here’s what the good students seem to know, and that I wish everyone knew.

As is customary this time of year, we often think about goals and resolutions associated with the new year. There is something very refreshing about a clean slate and starting over from scratch at the beginning of January.

The creation of the LEGO Unit was not only a meaningful piece of LEGO history but rather a fundamental player in modern LEGO design culture. It’s no surprise the market loves this toy. It’s proven so by buying more than 600 billion bricks produced to date. Enough for every person on the planet to have 81 pieces.

Stressed? Robert Juvinall’s book Stress, Strain, and Strength talks about how engineered parts hold up under pressure – but there are some interesting parallels that can put your stress in perspective and help you see that you can do hard things, but also that you can’t do all things.

There is a common phrase among design engineers: Design for X. And although you might not be involved in such a high-stakes design activity as Star Wars, yet, you can still embrace some of the principles it took to bring this universe to life.

It takes a little curiosity and engineering to make certain features standard on many everyday things. Take a look at how dimples became one on golf balls.

There are a lot of reasons to seek a unanimous decision. We do it all the time to be or feel united, avoid hard feelings, increase buy-in, etc. But when the stakes are higher, and the decisions are more complicated and multi-dimensional, the last thing you want is full consensus early on in the decision-making process.

To have any hope of success, the following three issues should be focused on simultaneously during and from the beginning of product development. Don’t leave them to chance and don’t ignore them. 

One secret to designing a better life: Self-imposed deadlines.

Sure, the world we live in has three dimensions that we work and live in on a regular basis. But as soon as you face that computer screen, the mind tends to snap straight to its default 2D mode.

Almost all product development is done in a team setting, owing largely to the strongly held belief that the collective thinking of a group outperforms that of “the lone genius."

Pixar has had 14 straight number one releases. How do they do it? How do they go ‘from suck to not-suck’?

A designer in the role of an Anthropologist will take the time to really learn about the customer and everything that impacts the customer. Learn about Tom Kelley’s first face of innovation - The Anthropologist.

Have you ever wondered, “when am I going to have a breakthrough idea?” If so, then maybe the better question to ask is “what am I doing to come up with that idea?”

Without ambiguity, there is no design freedom, no decision-making, and no design. Therefore, we should embrace ambiguity and consider it our job as designers to thrive in that environment. 

Looking for some tips on letters of recommendations? Don’t leave it to chance. Here is a good place to start, make an impact and distinguish yourself from the crowd.

Baseball has always had a culture of data collection and analysis – called sabermetrics. It is amazing in and of itself that someone can throw a baseball over 100 mph, but what makes it even more interesting is that we know the exact day, pitch number, windspeed, ambient temperature that Jordan Hicks threw a ball 104.2 mph earlier this year.

She doesn’t know it, but Bon Appétit pastry chef Claire Saffitz has taught me and my students what I wish all engineers could know and practice. She’s taught us how to approach design problems with the right skill and attitude.

Could it be that the design of equipment, material processes, transportation, and supply chain logistics have become so advanced and sophisticated that unbelievable things are so common that we take them for granted? Check out how a box of pins can change your perspective on the supply chain and engineering.

Many innovations have come from Additive Manufacturing like Invisalign and companies like Shapeways. If you are ready to accept the challenge of designing for Additive Manufacturing, here are a few thoughts to keep in mind!

American Ninja Warrior is a TV game show testing athletes who excel in physical abilities. Each year they invite the public to compete in designing new obstacles. These are our thoughts on what would make a good design.

A list of some of our favorite podcast, why we love them and suggestions on what to start listening to.

Explore TRIZ, an inventive way of problem solving invented by Genrich Altshuller.

The Hype Cycle is a high-level model of the trajectory many technologies experience before full adoption by a group, an organization, or society. It hasn't been demonstrated to exist  scientifically but it can be useful as an abstract tool to discuss the perceived progress of technology.

The Wright Brothers weren’t just in the right place at the right time - they deserved to be the first to fly by practicing key attributes.

SCAMPER, an acronym for 7 ways to change a product or a concept to create derivatives.

Many of the things we design are not going to work the way we thought they would at first. There are just too many unknowns until we try it. In anticipation of this, great designers always have a back-up solution.