Tag Archives: YD Talks

Amid leaks and rumors, Samsung’s new ‘Galaxy Fold 2’ begins taking shape

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Same design. Better cameras.

Well, I certainly have a few reservations on the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Fold 2 based on pretty credible leaks, but I’ll get to that later on. These leaks come from Ross Young, the founder of the Display Supply Chain Consultants, who says that the new Samsung Galaxy Fold 2 (Samsung has two folding ranges – the Fold and the Bloom) may be the first folding phone to have a 120Hz refresh rate, a feature that makes the screen appear smoother and the phone faster. The handset, according to Young, is rumored to be slightly bigger than its predecessor, and to have a hole-punch camera on both the front display as well as the main display, eliminating the massive bezels we saw in the earlier edition. If these tip-offs are true, the phone will sport a significantly bigger camera bump on the back too, much like the S20 series, and will be compatible with Samsung’s S-Pen. Now that we’ve got the specifications out of the way… let’s get to those reservations.

First off, the very presence of leaks indicates that Samsung is working on an edition #2 of the Fold… something that seems natural, but I wonder if Samsung even sold enough of its previous models to justify giving this upgrade. Another aspect of the Fold 2 worth addressing is the fact that Samsung isn’t treating this as a concept. The Fold is pretty much a Samsung flagship, so here’s my question. With a camera bump that probably packs 4 lenses and a time-of-flight sensor, and with large screens that boast of 120Hz refresh rates and hole-punch cameras, what will this rumored phone cost? And more importantly, given the current economic freefall we’re in, will the price even be worth it? It’s difficult to rationalize the need for a fancy folding phone that may cost upward of $2K, and more importantly, may not last beyond a year given how fragile these phones tend to be. That being said, as a tech nerd, I have to give props to Samsung for working on the tech even through a pandemic. The concept, which I visualized based on these rumors, and a few reference images from Ben Geskin, looks pretty cool, and still packs a fingerprint reader which definitely feels like a good direction given the times we live in… and since we’re probably going to be working with a mobile setup more often now, that folding phone turning into a miniature laptop does seem like a pretty neat USP! And if people seem put off by the tone-deaf price-tag and nobody eventually ends up buying the Fold 2, at least Roberto Escobar will have a new model to add to his catalog…

Designer/Visualizer: Sarang Sheth

How to make an old, ancient, rusty metal in Keyshot using the Material Graph

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Keyshot’s Material Graph offers the ability to go beyond simply tweaking a material’s color, roughness, or refractive index. If Keyshot’s material library is a restaurant menu-card, the material graph is literally the most versatile salad bar you’ve ever seen. You can pick and choose various aspects of different materials, creating a visually gorgeous mishmash of nodes and blocks to ‘build’ a material that looks stunningly real. I’m probably making it sound complicated, but here’s the truth – it really isn’t. All you need is a little patience and the ability to spot how your material reacts when you make changes to it in the material graph. Combine them and in no time, you’ll have a material that behaves exactly the way you want it to… because it was designed to!

Read further to see how to build this aged, oxidized, grungy material in Keyshot’s Material Graph. You can use this technique to make all sorts of material variants, like rusted iron, oxidized silver, or even aged bronze that’s turning green around the crevasses.

UNDERSTANDING THE BASICS

Imperfections form a major part of what makes a render photorealistic. Scratches, dust, fingerprints, dirt accumulated in tiny corners, signs of aging, all this plays a heavy role in making the eyes believe what they see. You seldom see a phone without some smudges on its screen, or a table without a bit of dust or scratches, or a leather bag without patina. Imperfections are what make life real and embracing them is a great way to make your 3D renders feel “life-like”.

The best way to look at this complex material is by splitting it into its subsequent parts. If you look at the image above, or the material graph below, you see two broad materials. Material 1 is an old, aged, dirty brownish metal, Material 2 is a shiny, golden/bronze metal. Once you create these two materials, it’s just a question of adding them together in a way that allows the right metal to show up in the right place. I’ll explain how we do that, but first, let’s create the two materials.

Before we begin, I’ve set up my scene using a model of the Bearded Man, downloaded for free from Three D Scans. Fun fact, the model is a scanned historic artifact titled ‘Portrait of a Bearded Man’ made in Marble back in the Hellenistic Period in 150 B.C. Greece. It’s perfect for our aged material because it has a stony texture with a stunning amount of detail that causes the material to look incredibly realistic. Remember that your material will only be as good as your model. A model with real-world imperfections will result in a material that’s believable and realistic.

Once you’ve set the scene up with the model, start by opening the material graph and making the old metal first. The key is always factoring imperfections into the model, so rather than just using the same color and roughness throughout, we’ll use texture maps to make sure the color and roughness of the old metal are inconsistent. Similarly, drop a texture into the Bump section too (with a low bump height) to create that undulating imperfect surface. The material interprets these texture images as data to control its properties. Depending on the whites and blacks and greys in the texture maps, the material has high or low roughness, or a higher or lower bump. Play around with the values to get a dark, rough-ish metal with barely any reflectivity… and then make Material 2, which is just the opposite.

Since Material 1 is the base material, Material 2 will sit on top of it as a layer… or in Keyshot parlance, a Label. Right-click in the empty space and create a new metal material, with image maps controlling its color, roughness, and bump. Apart from the bump, which essentially stays the same in both materials, the color and roughness are fundamentally the opposite. Where Material 1 is rough and dark, Material 2 is shiny and golden. Once you’ve made Material 2, link it to the Final Material Node using the Label option. What you now have is a shiny metal ‘coating’ sitting on top of a dirty, rusty metal. Now we control which parts of the model appear dark and rusty, and which parts appear shiny and metallic!

EXPLORING THE MATERIAL GRAPH’S CURVATURE NODE

If you’ve ever taken a walk in the mud with sneakers on, you’ll notice something interesting. The mud gets right into the gaps of your sneaker’s tread pattern. The surface of the sole may stay clean, because it’s constantly rubbing against the ground, but the mud that gets into the negative spaces of your sneaker sole stays there until you clean it out properly. Interestingly enough, that’s exactly what we’re doing with this old, aged material too. We’re sort of keeping the ‘outer surface’ clean and shiny, while allowing the dents, cracks, gaps, and holes to be dirty… and we’re doing this using the Curvature Node.

Simply put, the Curvature Node splits your model into three types of surfaces – Convex surfaces, Concave surfaces, and Flat surfaces. When you connect this node to Material 2’s opacity, what you’re basically doing is making Material 2 visible in certain parts of the model, and invisible in other parts. The Curvature Node comes with three primary controls. One for Negative Curvature or concaves, one for Zero Curvature or flats, and one for Positive Curvature or convexes. What we want is for the shiny material to be visible on all convex surfaces, and the dirt to sort of be lodged into the tough-to-clean concave surfaces. By assigning the color white to the Positive control and the color black to the Negative (and even the Flat) control, you effectively control Material 2’s opacity, making it visible only in convex parts like the tip of the nose, the eyeball, etc. Everything else immediately appears dark and dirty, thanks to the underlying Material 1. You can periodically click on the Curvature Node and press the C key to toggle the preview of the black and white colors instead of the old and new materials.

The Curvature Node also has other controls that let you tweak the output. The Cutoff control basically determines how Keyshot treats the flat surfaces. If there’s a surface that’s almost flat, a high Cutoff value tells Keyshot to treat it as flat. Similarly, if your cutoff is at 0, Keyshot looks at every polygon accurately with no tolerance. Similarly, Radius controls clusters of polygons. A larger Radius value blurs the gap between the blacks and whites, while a smaller radius allows the difference to be sharper. Meanwhile, make sure you un-check the Radius In Pixels box. (That allows the radius to change depending on how much you zoom in or out, and we don’t want that)

Add some dramatic lights and Voila, you’ve got yourself an aged, old metal! If you followed along and built your own version yourself, that’s amazing! If not, just tinker around with the file we made by downloading it here. You could also watch this video by Esben Oxholm who uses this technique to make rusted iron. Similarly, you can use this process to make aged variations of materials yourself, like oxidized silver, greenish oxidized bronze, or your very own rusted metal. Scroll down to check out some results below, and hit us up on Instagram if you’ve got any suggestions for other materials you want us to make tutorials for!

Click Here to Download the Material!

YD Talks – How to stay productive while working or studying from home

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Believe it or not, I have a decent amount of experience in this field. Ever since I began working full time at YD, I’ve done it from all parts of the world… but 99% of the time, I’ve done it from my home.

Working from home is boring, un-productive, and is filled with distractions. I won’t lie. Being alone at home every day can sometimes affect your mood, and that tends to undermine one’s productivity. You’re less likely to report to work exactly on time, and under the lack of supervision, chances are you’ll have Netflix or YouTube open in a browser window right beside your work. To be honest, remote work isn’t for everyone, and just like it takes time to get into the rhythm of a new job, it takes time to adjust to the new experience of working from home. The good news is that this shift, for the most part, isn’t permanent. It’s a phase that’ll soon pass, and recognizing that really helps you work/study better.

This Is Covidiculous

Given the threat posed by COVID-19, a majority of companies and schools around the world are shutting their doors and instituting temporary ‘stay-at-home’ policies to prevent the risk of spreading the virus. Several colleges on the east coast are telling their students to stay at home, while larger institutions like NYU are shifting to online-based courses as a stopgap solution. Companies like Google and Washington Post have shut their offices too, and I can only imagine what living in parts of China, Italy, South Korea, Japan, and Iran feels like, where the situation on the ground is even more serious.

If you’re a designer or student who’s being told to work/study from home, here are a few ways to avoid the stay-at-home blues and actually be productive and get stuff done.

Separate your Work Life and Home Life

The biggest problem, or complaint rather, with working from home is that it undermines the sanctity of your home being your place of zen, to escape work. People prefer keeping their work in the workplace, and not bringing that stress back home with them… so when you have to reply to emails, make powerpoints, or attend conference calls from the comfort of your bed, that boundary gets blurred.

If you want to effectively work or study from home, un-blur that boundary by separating your workspace from your home space. Fix a designated spot like a desk or the dining table for your working or studying rather than opening your book or laptop in bed. Being productive is a state of mind and needless to say, being in bed won’t help you reach it.

Take breaks / Stay Social

Nobody ever works or studies non-stop for 5-6 hours. Every couple of moments, you feel inclined to stretch, talk to the person beside you, or convene near the water-cooler for some chit-chat. When you bring work home, it’s important to bring that work culture home too. Keep in touch with friends or colleagues via chatting apps. If you’re more of a lone-wolf at work or school, try surrounding yourself with chatter by listening to music or a podcast. If you like reading articles, I recommend checking out Read2Me, a website that does a pretty amazing job of reading out articles to you.

Reward yourself by setting goals

Sometimes (if you’re a little like me) those breaks become a little longer than usual. A 10-minute coffee run perhaps stretches to half an hour long. You promise to watch one YouTube video suddenly you realize you’ve wasted half a day. The best way to hack yourself into being productive is to use the carrot and stick tactic. Start looking at that break as a goal you need to achieve by completing a task. Rather than just getting up to grab a coffee at a certain hour, allow yourself the coffee only after having completed a task or a chapter. That way, the break feels more deserved, so taking a few minutes extra won’t matter either… because you got work done in the process!

Learn a new skill / Work on a passion project

Here’s where working/studying from home is truly a blessing in disguise. It gives you the independence and freedom to actually focus on stuff you wouldn’t be able to at work or in college! Try learning new software, reading a book, building or updating your portfolio, or working on self-initiated projects! You could finally carve out a few hours in the week to take part in one of Instagram’s many designing and rendering challenges, or better still, work on an idea for a product you’ve had in your head for a while now. And when it’s ready, send it over to a design competition, or submit it to us and maybe it could get featured on a design blog!

The absence of a boss’s supervision or a college’s rigorous schedule can be exploited to achieve amazing things!

Give yourself something to look forward to

Some people love working from home, some people don’t. That’s just how the cookie crumbles. If you’re the latter, just remember that setting goals helps you get to them. A footballer without a goalpost is just a person kicking a sphere (I made that up myself!) The best way to get through the day is to look forward to something at the end of it, like a movie or a game. Looking forward to a plan at the end of the day is a great way to get through work/studying without the blues getting to you… and while you’re at it, remember three things. Remember not to slip into bad habits like randomly opening Instagram every few minutes to check for messages, remember that this is just a temporary phase and you’ll be back at work or college before too long, and most importantly, remember to wash your hands! Stay safe, YD fam!

YD Talks: Coronavirus will spur the growth of freelance designing and in-house prototyping

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“Dear Sarang,
Let the mood take a vacation, park, to feel the fresh breath of nature, to listen to the news of flowers bloom and fall, wish you a wonderful weekend, relax and happy.

Kind Regards,
Jack Huang | Rapid Prototype Manager”

I often receive heartfelt emails like these from Jack who runs outreach for a China-based rapid-prototyping company… ask any industrial designer and they’ll surely tell you about how they too have rapid-prototypers reaching out to them… but it’s been months since Jack has contacted me, wishing me a wonderful weekend, or that the winter sun’s gentle warmth brings me good fortune, or that he would like to connect with me on LinkedIn. Ever since the Coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan around the Chinese New Year, there’s been a significant drop in email pitches I’ve been getting from Chinese rapid prototyping companies. I’m making a segue into the next paragraph, but I’ll get back to Jack in a bit.

Coronavirus, more accurately referred to as COVID-19, has caused a pretty noticeable slowdown both globally and locally, be it economic, communications-based, or even in travel. Apple is warning its customers of a severe shortage of global inventory in upcoming months because of halted production. Meanwhile, Foxconn, one of the iPhone’s leading manufacturers in China, is busy making protective masks instead. The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, which was scheduled for the end of February, was called off amidst fears that an international event would lead to the spread of the disease, causing other events like the Geneva Motor Show, Salone del Mobile, the Game Developers Conference, SXSW, and even the Summer Olympics to consider cancellation or postponement.

It wouldn’t be too farfetched to say that the epidemic, which has caused over 3000 deaths globally, is definitely disrupting industries, jobs, and lives. Visas are being canceled, travel is seeing a massive slowdown, people are becoming more wary of large gatherings, and companies are reviewing work-from-home policies. What does this really mean for the design industry? And how is our profession, which literally deals with ‘problem-solving’, solving or working around this issue?

A quick recap on what the Coronavirus really is…

Now I’m no medical expert and this isn’t a scientific journal, so I’ll just link you to articles that may better explain the virus and its origins (at the bottom of this editorial), but the Novel Coronavirus is likely to have originated out of Wuhan from a wild animal trade market. The virus shares similarities with the SARS and MERS viruses as well as the common influenza virus – the difference being primarily that the virus hasn’t been studied in detail by scientists, leaving quite a few unknowns.

What we DO know, however, is that the most prevalent symptoms include fever, pneumonia, coughing, and shortness of breath, and that the virus primarily spreads through contact or an exchange of fluids.

If you’re reading this with Amazon open in a tab nearby with the search results for a face mask, here’s something worth knowing. That face mask isn’t going to prevent people from getting the virus, but it’s surely going to prevent people from spreading it. Doctors claim that the virus can enter your body, even through the eyes, so while a mask definitely offers a certain degree of protection, staying away from people (especially those who are coughing) is far more effective. Health experts also recommend you keep your hands away from your face and be wary of touching objects that are likely to be infected like door handles or escalator armrests, constantly wash your hands thoroughly with soap, and avoid social gatherings and large crowds as much as possible. In short, it’s a good time to be an introverted germophobe.

Is it as bad as it sounds?

The minute you have a crisis that halts production, productivity, and travel, it doesn’t take long for the effects of the halt to show. Factories routinely shut shop in China for the Lunar New Year, but the sudden insurgence of the virus prevented them from opening immediately after the holiday season. In just a matter of weeks. China’s priorities shifted rapidly to containing the virus. Government-mandated factory shutdowns, quarantines, and the focus on building medical facilities have effectively put a halt on production in the world’s biggest manufacturing hub.

Up until a few weeks ago, the situation seemed pretty stable until South Korea, Japan, Italy, and Iran began reporting a major spike in Coronavirus cases too, prompting a lockdown on international travel. This slowdown has forced organizations to call off mass events like the Salone Del Mobile, Mobile World Congress, Geneva Motor Show, which see a majority of international attendees. Facebook and Google have put the kibosh on their developer conferences (and are probably moving to an online-only event), and Apple is reportedly considering doing the same for its March event. On the other side of the world, the Japanese government is seriously considering postponing the Summer Olympics… and arguably the most popular museum in the world (and home to the Mona Lisa), the Louvre, pulled its shutters down at the beginning of this week.

The toll on public health aside, yeah… it’s pretty bad.

Coronavirus – What it means for the design industry, productivity, and prototyping…

The two most obvious retaliations to the Coronavirus on the global industry have been by far A. Spreading out the workforce, and B. Being infrastructurally self-reliant. While it isn’t really ‘business as usual’ for most companies, we’re slowly adapting by redefining how we see the ‘workplace’ as not a physical building filled with employees, but rather a state of mind. It shouldn’t be long before work-from-home policies become more of the norm, and before having a ‘home office’ or ‘home studio’ becomes standard practice… especially in a gig/freelance economy that’s increasingly moving towards one.

It’s probably what freelancers are exactly looking for – having more freedom and control over their work environment, work hours, and clients. Meanwhile, it surely bodes well for companies to hire freelancers given that they’re cheaper since freelancers don’t get bonuses or medical coverage. Freelancers also are relatively high-productivity, low-commitment, since they can’t unionize or take paid leaves… plus it’s easier for both parties to get out of contracts without worrying about notice periods or severance packages.

Meanwhile, this brute-force shift towards a digital workspace (rather than a physical one) will probably change productivity forever. A lot of the industry’s focus is shifting towards seamless cloud collaboration (video conferencing platform Zoom has seen a significant spike in its stock) and we may just enter a future where working from home will be as productive as working in an office among colleagues (even though the current consensus is quite the opposite). You can read more about remote working on Magda Sowierszenko’s Remote-how Blog or sign up for her upcoming free webinar on Emergency Remote-work Setup Preparedness scheduled for Tuesday, 10th March.

It also probably means depending less on Jack (remember Jack from before?) for tasks like basic prototyping. While it’s cheaper to rely on a singular hub like China for manufacturing, that low-cost comes at the price of high risk. Apple’s inventory for fast-moving electronics like the iPhone is running low, which is even worse considering they’re rumored to launch a new iPhone and iPad in March, and on a smaller scale, hundreds of Kickstarter projects are being affected by the disadvantage of having all their infrastructural eggs in the China basket. Now would probably be a great time to consider building more than one manufacturing hub, but more importantly, being self-reliant when it comes to minor manufacturing and prototyping tasks. It’s a shame that the guys at Makerbot missed this moment by four years when they pretty much shut shop in 2016, but I’ll go out on a limb and predict that 3D printing (on both domestic and international levels) will see a much-needed growth spurt. In the meantime, all we can do is hope that the scientific community and governments of their respective countries are doing everything they can to keep the virus at bay… plus, a personal reminder to be extra particular about your health and hygiene, and if anyone hears from Jack, do let me know if he’s okay.

Further Reading
Coronavirus Updates
World Health Organization – Information and Guidance regarding Coronavirus
What Scientists say about the Coronavirus

The 2020 iPad Pro may have an iPhone-style 3-lens camera… Is Apple’s brand of innovation predictable?

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Let’s for a second look past these renders and consider the place they come from. Created by Steve H. McFly (better known by his Twitter moniker OnLeaks), these are the renders that best describe what the upcoming iPad Pro may look like. The tablet is due for a version update in Apple’s springtime keynote in 2020, and these renders are a result of informed insider leaks… they aren’t a fan-made concept like the circular Apple Smartwatch we covered a few days ago.

Over the past few years, these leaked renders have almost always been spot-on, which proves that insider sources can be reliable, but also fundamentally proves one more thing… design predictability. Nobody predicted the cheesegrater Mac Pro or even the dustbin-shaped Mac Pro before it because Apple chose to break the mold by taking on a radical design approach. With its more popular devices like the MacBook, iPad, and the iPhone, there’s a distinct departure from that radical thinking. A feature that appears on the iPhone will soon make its way to the iPad. The iPhone got TouchID, then the iPad got it. The iPhone got Apple’s ARKit, then so did the iPad. The iPhone migrated to a FaceID system, and in 2019, the iPad followed suit. A similar process was followed with the removal of the headphone jack. These renders by OnLeaks come after multiple tablet case manufacturers out of China are showing what happens to be a square-shaped cutout near the camera, which pretty much indicates that the iPad will get a 2 or 3 lens camera, just like the iPhone 11 or the 11 Pro. There’s speculation regarding whether Apple will ditch the aluminum frame for a glass back as it did with the new breeds of iPhones, but that decision was fueled by the need to bring wireless charging capabilities to the iPhone. It’s extremely unlikely that Apple would ever expect us to wirelessly charge a massive tablet on a tiny puck-shaped charger, but OnLeaks decided to showcase both variants anyway.

The 2020 iPad Pro sticks to its two size offerings, the 11-inch and the 12.9-inch… yet another page that was borrowed from the iPhone playbook, which for the past 5 years has seen the launch of Regular and Max variants. It’s difficult to say what Apple’s realistic roadmap for the iPad is. The tablet was developed to be a powerful machine capable of competing with laptops, armed with an Apple Pencil that makes the iPad Pro a true boon for artists. The camera has never been the iPad’s shining feature, and somehow adding three lenses to the new iPad Pro seems a lot like innovation for the sake of it, so that Tim Cook can climb onto the stage and say “this is the most advanced camera we’ve ever put on a tablet” amidst a cheer from the keynote audience. This game plan somehow makes me wonder what really goes on in Apple’s board rooms, and whether the iPad’s R&D department depends heavily on hand-me-downs from the iPhone department.

Either which way, I’d like to see what spin Cook puts on it. The iPhone 11 Pro’s camera is truly game-changing, and that would definitely be a great addition for the iPad, but honestly, it would be similar to making the iPad waterproof… it sounds like innovation, but one would argue if it was truly necessary for the tablet category. Nevertheless, these renders are all we have for the moment and I’ve got little reason to challenge them. Apple’s yet to announce the date of its Spring keynote, but some websites are speculating an event in the end of March. The company’s currently facing major problems with its supply chain due to the Coronavirus outbreak in China. Apple has mentioned that it may lead to a significant shortage of inventory in its stores across the world, and it’s hard to judge the scale of impact it may have on any future launches. Fingers crossed, until then.

Designer/Visualizer: OnLeaks for iGeeksBlog

What Designers can do to design irresistible products

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Hi, I am Kelly from Knack, where we help mobility brands make their products irresistible. I’ve come to realize that designing irresistible products feels elusive. High hopes and good intentions pour into one end of the product development pipeline and mundane products squirt out the other.
You see plenty of seductive product designs on Pinterest and here on Yanko, so you know it’s possible. But what exactly do the designers of these products do differently in order to achieve irresistibility?
If you want to elevate your products out of the sea of obscurity and into the pond of “gotta have it”, you need to do these five things:

1. Don’t Believe The Brief

Unless you were involved in writing the brief, you should never take the brief as truth. Instead, set the brief aside, ignore the scope, and first get to the heart of the problem you’ve been asked to solve.
How on earth do you do this? It’s quite simple actually. Listen. Listen and then ask why. Then, keep asking questions until you reveal the root of the problem.
As designers, our first job is to investigate. As Chris Do states, “Your value is determined by the quality of questions you ask.”
Imagine going into a surgeon’s office complaining of chest pain. When you tell him that you probably have a clogged artery, he says “OK” and wheels you into the O.R. to begin operating on you.
Wait, what?! There’s no way you’d go for that.
You expect the surgeon to ask you some probing questions, run a few diagnostic tests, and consult with other doctors to either validate your self-diagnosis or discover the true cause of your pain.
Just as you are not the healthcare expert, your client isn’t the design expert. Why are you letting them diagnose their own condition and then write the prescription?

2. Cut Out The Jargon

Now imagine you roll into a tire shop with a flat. You ask them to repair the tire you already have, explaining that your budget is tight and you are in a hurry to get back to work.
Instead of following your orders directly, they take a minute to look at your tire and the mechanic says, “A plug? You want a plug? It’s going to take me thirty minutes to dismount, submerge and inspect. I’ve got a low-mileage replacement. Do you want that instead?”
…Huh?
What if instead, the mechanic had explained to you that rather than repairing the tire, they can replace the flat with a used tire to get you back on the road twenty minutes sooner? While the replacement will cost $15 more, the used tire will last much longer, saving you money in the long run.
We have to educate our clients on the proper design process. We do that by first speaking their language (not ours), aligning what we are saying with their goals (why should they care?), and being available to answer their questions.

3. Just Walk Away

A hot project opportunity pops up in your inbox and you’re stoked. You jump on a call with the potential client and in response to your thoughtful questioning, the client exclaims, “Everyone is our customer!” You explain that knowing who your specific target customer is and having a deep understanding of them is the difference between a product that drives demand and one that flops.
The client cuts you off mid-sentence to tell you that they are short on time and need to start the design work right away. They don’t have time for research and just need you to execute the design vision that they have in their heads.
If you’ve genuinely listened, thoughtfully explained to your prospect the best way to solve their problem and they still insist on cutting corners, it’s your job to say “no, thanks.”
Don’t make an exception, don’t lower your standards, just walk away. Stand up for yourself, the design process, and what’s best for the client… even if they disagree.
Designing good products requires saying no to bad projects.

4. Stop Thinking Design Is Everything

At the end of the day, design makes up less than 10% of the entire product launch process. Instead of assuming that design trumps all, you must understand the big picture of the product launch battle your client is up against. Acting like design is the only thing that matters will actually hurt the final product.
Instead, we must strive for a more frequent and seamless collaboration between all of the product development teams. Compromise is inevitable, so if your team members can deliberately pick the compromises that are in the best interest of the overall product strategy, you’ll be on your way to irresistibility.

5. Push It

Now that you’ve recognized that you’re just one piece of a massive endeavor, you must make sure that you are delivering an unparalleled contribution. In other words, mediocre ain’t gonna cut it. Heck, excellent might not even be enough to achieve an irresistible product.
Bring the heat and do everything in your power to push the design to be the best it can be. Take a break and then find a way to improve it one step further.

Use these five tools to lay the groundwork for an irresistible product. If the proper foundation can’t be set, walk away and go find an opportunity that’ll embrace your superpowers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kelly Custer is the Founder + Design Director of Knack
Pairing her transportation design education from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan with over 8 years of design consulting experience in consumer products, Kelly has built a strong passion for mobility. She founded Knack in 2014 and leads the studio to deliver irresistible simple mobility products.
When she’s not in the studio, she can be found on a mountain bike trail, trying to keep up with her husband on her dirt bike, or exploring the Tennessee river on their vintage stand-up jet skis.
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Lenovo made a genius move by building a folding tablet first, and not a folding smartphone

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You’ve got to learn to walk before you learn to run. While that handy proverb wasn’t initially crafted for leaps and bounds in technological advancement, it holds exceedingly true for the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold – a tablet PC with a flexible folding display.

I imagine the first thoughts I had when I saw the ThinkPad X1 Fold were vastly different from Lenovo’s when they first conceptualized this folding beauty. Lenovo’s video talks a lot about design and engineering, about durability, and about how Lenovo set out to, in 2015, bend the part of the laptop that would never bend. In quite a few ways, the video is a lot like Samsung’s video, or Motorola’s video. It talks about cutting edge innovation, company values, a new sort of technology and construction, and about how the product was designed for the average consumer. The video, however, doesn’t talk about what a sensible idea it was to launch a folding tablet before you launch a folding smartphone (if that even occurred to them). The ThinkPad X1 Fold, even if unintentionally, is a great way to beta-test folding displays, and even though Lenovo isn’t in the phone business, the lessons it will acquire from building, launching, and observing people use this tablet, will be incredibly valuable to the smartphone industry and to the end-consumer. Here’s what I mean.

1. A small audience is a better audience.

Tablet sales aren’t as high as smartphone sales in any given quarter of any year. Since less people are buying tablets than they’re buying smartphones, Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Fold has the advantage of being released to a far smaller, more focused group of people, making it ideal for testing the market without potentially making losses in millions if something were to go wrong. The avid consumer doesn’t change tablets as often as they change smartphones too, so Lenovo has the comfort of knowing that someone who buys the X1 Fold will use it for at least 3-4 years instead of buying a new one after a year. This prolonged usage cycle allows Lenovo to really see if any issues develop over years of use.

2. We’ve reached peak smartphone size. The tablet, however, can expand.

Remember the term phablets? Remember the massive smartphones Samsung used to launch in the 2011-14 period, that looked absolutely weird when iPhones weren’t more than 3-4 inches in screen size? Phablets are a normal thing now. We just call them XL phones, and most users will still testify to how difficult it is to reach the top left corner (or the back button) while using only one hand. Smartphones, and this is purely my opinion here, don’t really need to expand beyond a 6-inch screen, but tablets can, because the tablet has always been a two-hand device from the get-go. A bigger screen makes it great for multitasking (something that tablets can do VERY well) and for watching media (something people inevitably use tablets for). Given that tablets are often considered laptop replacements, the tablet screen can very easily expand up to 15.6 inches without proving to be a hassle. And this leads me to my next point.

3. A folding tablet’s hinge is more favorable than a folding smartphone’s hinge.

On average, people look at their smartphone 110 times a day. The average number of times someone unlocks their tablet is 20, which means a folding tablet’s hinge would be used over 80% less on a daily basis as compared to a folding smartphone. You’ve got to learn to walk before you learn to run.

Even though tablets are often used for longer periods of time (if you’re working or watching a movie) than a smartphone, that hinge would easily go through MUCH less abuse on a tablet. Besides, tablets don’t need to be as thin as smartphones… You never carry a tablet in your pocket. It’s much more socially and personally acceptable to carry a slightly thicker tablet than it is a thicker phone. Put a folding display on a tablet and you can afford to build a stronger, thicker hinge that will undoubtedly last longer because more people accidentally drop or sit on their phone than they sit on a tablet. Whether Lenovo did this deliberately or by accident, they gave the folding display a much better home.

4. Semantically, a folding tablet looks like a book

Given its larger size and proximity in shape and form to an actual book, the folding tablet makes an incredibly good e-book reader. The spine of the tablet literally resembles the spine of a book, and the fact that Lenovo includes a stylus with the ThinkPad X1 Fold just makes it a great electronic notebook, giving it a much more defined sense of purpose than a folding smartphone… So even if the ThinkPad X1 Fold doesn’t sell as much as the Galaxy Fold or the Moto Razr 2019 (and as I mentioned at the beginning of my article, it won’t), if Lenovo’s built a device as great as they claim, their users will be vastly happier than the guys who lined up to pay over $2,000 for a folding Samsung mobile phone.

Designer: Lenovo

YD Talks: (A little more than) Ten Podcasts for Designers to listen to in 2020

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I wasn’t really ever a fan of podcasts up until last year. You see, working from home comes with its perks, but also with its fair share of loneliness. I like being the king of my castle and working in my pajamas, but for most of the time I spend working, I stay alone. I’ve been listening to YouTube videos in the background for a while now, but I only installed my first podcast app in 2018. Over the last two years (primarily 2019), podcasts have been my way of surrounding myself with informative (and sometimes comedic) chitchat. Podcasts are a great way to pass time while you’re sketching, or searching Pinterest for mood-board images, or selecting multiple edges and faces of a solid to apply a complex variable fillet on. I personally love listening to them as I eat, travel, edit images I need to add to my articles, or while tinkering around with design software. They keep me engaged, entertained, and constantly aware of what’s happening in the world of design, culture, tech, politics, and more… so I decided to handpick a few carefully-curated creativity-boosting podcasts that are perfect for the designer looking to broaden their horizons while in the middle of a long workday.

1. The Honest Designers Show


The Honest Designers Show ranks high on my list of recommended podcasts for designers. Rather than dealing with in-depth interviews, it feels like sitting with fellow designers and literally talking about design. Hosted by Tom Ross, Ian Barnard, Dustin Lee, and Lisa Glanz (all accomplished designers in their own right), the podcast never fails to tackle relevant topics and deliver some key insights to designers about various things, from working with creative blocks, to using social media to your to propel your portfolio, determining your value as a freelancer, and even working effectively with your clients. Use the links below to add them to your list!
Website – Apple Podcasts – Spotify

2. Pivot


Pivot is my mandatory go-to every Tuesday and Friday. Hosted by ace-journalist Kara Swisher and professor of marketing at NYU, Scott Galloway, Pivot isn’t really a design podcast, but is a great way to keep up with the times. Kara and Scott’s eagle-eye perception of the world of culture, tech, and politics, along with their quirky chemistry makes me literally want to be adopted by them. Amongst insights, predictions, wins, fails, and loads of laughs, Kara and Scott leave you with a more nuanced view of the world and the urge to know more. It’s a good thing the podcast recently went from a weekly to a twice-a-week format.
Website – Apple Podcasts – Spotify

3. TheFutur Podcast


Led by TheFutur team and Chris Do (who recently launched a book too), TheFutur Podcast is literally like going to design university for free. Chris Do is one of the most prolific design gurus of our time and offers excellent advice on common design problems, whether it’s what to charge as a designer, to whether you should follow your passion or paycheck. TheFutur Podcast swings between insightful debates to meaningful interviews with designers in the industry who share their own tips and tricks to ‘making it’ in the diz-biz (that’s what I’m calling it from now on). They have some great videos on YouTube too.
Website – Apple Podcasts – Spotify

4. Working


The greatness of design is that its goal lies in helping uplift other industries and fields. Being a designer often means working with (and often looking at the world through the eyes of) people from a wide variety of professions, whether they’re businessmen, scientists, doctors, engineers, celebrities, etc. Working is a podcast that dives into how different professions work and how professionals in these fields go about their day. With over 200 episodes and counting, Working interviews a complete gamut of people, from curators at MoMA, to husbands of influencers, coders at NASA, firefighters, and even a few designers too. A great way to understand how professions work, how systems function, and even to help spot areas of intervention in these systems for creative problem-solving.
Website – Apple Podcasts – Spotify

5. Song Exploder


Recommended even by Michael Hendrix, global design director and partner at IDEO, Song Exploder asks musicians to break down their creative process. Hosted by Hrishikesh Hirway, each episode is a conversation with a musician about a hit song they made. Given that the creative process behind composing music is often a mystery, and that each track is just a treasure trove of bits and pieces of stories and experiences (and often collaborations) gathered from all over, Song Exploder helps demystify the incredibly intricate and often gut-driven creative process of making your favorite songs, from your favorite artists all around the world.
Website – Apple Podcasts – Spotify

6. Designed This Way


Designed This Way is the east’s answer to Design Matters with Debbie Millman. Hosted by Kawal Oberoi, a graphic designer and brand consultant from India, Designed This Way lets you be a fly on the wall as Kawal has candid conversations with leading designers from India and even outside the subcontinent. The podcast helps uncover “not just the stories of courage, hard work, and success but also the stories of mistakes, rejections, and doubts.” A great podcast to listen to if you want to know more about a country that is only just discovering the power of design, and more about the people leading the way.
Website – Apple Podcasts – Spotify

7. Ask A Manager


There are some problems that even designers aren’t really trained to solve. Working with a tough boss? Found out your job isn’t what you signed up for? Or how about dealing with a lazy, incompetent coworker who gets you to do all the heavy-lifting? Ask A Manager looks at the more managerial or bureaucratic side of the design profession. It deals with a host of issues across various levels of experience, whether you’re a prospective employee giving interviews, a current employee, a manager, or even a boss… and there’s a book too!
Website – Apple Podcasts – Spotify

8. HBR Ideacast


Think of the HBR Ideacast as a series of interesting TED Talks, but curated by Harvard Business Review. Revolving around a series of fresh ideas, arguably the very currency of creativity, HBR Ideacast looks at how interesting ideas can help make individuals, professions, and businesses better. Plus it’s a great and free way to access Harvard Business Review’s cutting-edge editorial pieces.
Website – Apple Podcasts – Spotify

9. Thoroughly Considered


Hosted by Myke Hurley of Relay FM along with Dan Provost and Tom Gerhardt from Studio Neat, Thoroughly Considered dives deep into the ups and downs of running a design business. They analyze design news from around the world as well as focus on their own products and processes, alternating wonderfully between professional news and personal learnings. Be ready for some great conversation pieces for you and your design buddies at school, work, or over a cold beer!
Website – Apple Podcasts – Spotify

10. Product Hunt Radio


Coming from the popular product discovery site, Product Hunt, this weekly podcast show has Ryan Hoover and Abadesi Osunsade interview founders, investors, journalists, and makers to discuss today’s products and tomorrow’s topics. Whether it’s in the field of design, funding, marketing, or even of podcasts, the show finds out how people found success in their industries, and what lies in the future for them and the world.
Website – Apple Podcasts – Spotify

Along with the aforementioned ten podcasts, here are few personal favorites I really wanted to add to the list…

This Week in Tech – This is arguably the first podcast I ever found myself listening to. Someone at my internship introduced me to TWiT back in 2012, long before I even knew what a podcast really was. Released every Sunday (Monday if you’re in Asia), the show is hosted by Leo Laporte, one of tech’s first-ever journalists. Leo brings his wisdom and humor together along with a panel of the who’s who in tech journalism. Add this to your list if you like a slice of technology news along with your design breakfast every week,

Minor Details Pod – Hosted by some remarkable designers and friends of YD, Minor Details is a podcast about designers in the big city, sweating the small stuff. New York-based Nicholas Baker and James Connors talk about a variety of topics, sharing their opinions and stories about living and working in the Big Apple. The show was originally on my list of top ten podcasts, but was sadly taken off because it’s currently on an indefinite hiatus.

BBC In Our Time – Hosted by Melvyn Bragg and his honey-coated voice for over 20 years now (long before the word ‘podcast’ even existed), BBC In Our Time is a weekly radio show that takes one single topic each week and has a variety of experts weigh in with their learnings. Covering a wide plethora of topics from the life of Julius Caesar to the content of Saturn’s rings, In Our Time is literally an on-air encyclopedia for anyone who’s looking to expand their mind.

Joe Rogan Experience – The final slot was a close battle between 99% Invisible and JRE. I finally decided to give Rogan a shout-out for just being a remarkably talented host, and for the way he approaches any and every topic without biases and conducts a discussion with his guests in a constructive and productive way. Rogan talks a lot about news, conspiracies, politics, comedy, martial arts, and nutrition, and the show has seen a literal who’s who of guests, from Elon Musk to Bernie Sanders and from Neil deGrasse Tyson to Mike Tyson!

YD Talks: A design critique of the Tesla Cybertruck

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A whole day (and a half) after I called the Cybertruck a Toblerone on wheels, here’s a more detailed breakdown of the Tesla’s launch of the new Cybertruck, and why (as a designer, and not a customer) I still don’t like it. My opinion, if definitely more nuanced, still pretty much remains unchanged in its essence.

The most popular professionally circulated adjective to describe the Tesla Cybertruck has been ‘polarized’. It’s perhaps the most appropriate term to use. You don’t appear for or against the Tesla Cybertruck when you, as a publication, use the words “feedback has been polarized”. I, on the other hand, decided to call it the worst designed truck in recent automotive history. In hindsight, a rather swift judgment on my part. Mea culpa. I was clearly a part of this polarized demographic.

A lot of reflection and analysis later, here’s the problem though… I still don’t like the Cybertruck. It’s perhaps best described as being somewhere between avant-garde and incomplete-looking. You see, path-breaking designs or aesthetic overhauls are often reserved for concept cars (since they have little bearing on current world applications and scenarios) and not production-ready cars meant for consumers. The Cybertruck breaks the mold by being both ‘for consumers’ and outrageous looking and historically, that sort of radical change has rarely worked in any industry, be it tech, automotive, or even fashion. There’s often a sweet spot, an Overton window of aesthetic acceptance, that designers tend to look for when they make something new, trying to reach a stalemate between futuristic and familiar. The Cybertruck blatantly disregards the evolution of a hundred years of truck design to usher in the future, it looks nothing like a truck but still decides to use the word truck to describe itself. Moreover, the use of a strictly low-poly aesthetic tends to come off more as lazy than as revolutionary.

Among things that disappointed was also the Cybertruck’s insipid color choice. The plain sheet-metal grey, coupled with the simplistic sheet-metal design gives the Cybertruck the appearance of being ‘incomplete’ or half-designed. The Cybertruck is made from a special stainless steel alloy that almost completely resists any dents or dings when struck, even violently, by a jackhammer. To preserve (and better showcase) this feat of strength, Tesla missed an incredibly important opportunity in considering a wide variety of paint-jobs for the Cybertruck… because the steel alloy doesn’t scratch or dent, but automotive paint is sure to chip. This particular trade-off is what left me and a lot of other people feeling that the end-product was lacking. I mean even Tony Stark saw the importance of giving the chrome-grey Mach 2 Iron Man suit its signature red and gold paint job.

Elon’s elevator pitch involved showing three trucks from existing brands side by side and removing their logos to show how similar they look. The Cybertruck was his way of creating something nobody has ever seen before, and if that alone is justification for the truck’s strangely angular design, then so be it. My dislike, purely from the fact that I exist outside Elon’s perceived Overton window, is then justified too.

Make no mistake though… this doesn’t take away from the fact that the Cybertruck is an incredibly advanced automobile. It’s made from the same metal used to make spaceships, and can stop 9mm bullets, drive uphill while towing a Ford F-150 truck that’s accelerating in the opposite direction, and hit top speed faster than a Porsche 911, all while being 100% electric. It has a spacious backbed complete with a shutter-style cover on top and a ramp concealed within its rear tailgate. The backbed even has its own charging outlet that lets you charge Tesla’s ATV right in the back of the truck… The Cybertruck is literally a power-bank on wheels! Apart from the slightly problematic Armor Glass demo (and there’s a wonderful WIRED article explaining with scientific accuracy as to why the glass broke), the Cybertruck is, on paper, a star performer… It just happens to also look less like any vehicle I’ve seen on roads and more like a silver Toblerone on wheels… and since buying a car is also heavily influenced by emotion, the Cybertruck gets a no from me.

Plus, if you haven’t noticed yet, the Cybertruck doesn’t come with any side-view mirrors… a feature so integral to road-safety and consumer-friendly car-design that it alone should be enough to reject the Cybertruck at first glance.

It’s easy to like or dislike the Cybertruck, but when push comes to shove, the only number that will matter will be its sales. More than 1.5 million pickup trucks were sold just this year alone. Will the Cybertruck somehow make its mark in next year’s pickup sales? Will it and its damage-proof outer body smash through the negative feedback and the vast expanse of internet memes? Only time shall tell.

Here’s why the Moto Razr is an absolute success but other folding phones aren’t

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Post today’s launch and amidst multiple hands-on videos, the 2019 Moto Razr could easily be this year’s most desirable phone… which is a pretty remarkable achievement considering the lukewarm response flexible-display phones have been getting on an average. The phone capitalizes on its history of being the coolest phone of the 2000s, along with the fact that it has a flexible folding screen. The phone hits the shelves in January 2020 for a price-tag of $1500 and my guess is it just might be a runaway success. Here are a few things Motorola absolutely nailed, resulting in such a remarkable piece of tech.

1. Phone first, tech later

Here’s probably the biggest reason why the Moto Razr is such a win. Motorola didn’t force its technology onto the smartphone. It saw the technology, spotted an application, and then proceeded forward… unlike Samsung, Huawei, and Royole, who designed their phones specifically FOR the flexible screen. Motorola just got the timing absolutely right, and the fact that they had the Razr brand to revamp. Samsung’s “develop the technology and force it onto a smartphone” attitude is probably exactly why it isn’t as appealing as the Razr, which just already has that swagger.

2. The clamshell format and its perfect size

The clamshell format has historically always worked better than that mini-book format from Nokia’s Communicator series. Besides, a clamshell phone always results in a smaller phone when closed, whereas all of Nokia’s Communicator phones, just like the Samsung Galaxy, remain pretty large even when closed. If you look at the 2019 Razr, it’s conveniently small when closed, and when opened, is just about the same height as the original Razr, albeit with a nice, long portrait display. Moreover, it still FITS IN ONE HAND (learn a lesson, other companies). Motorola’s understanding of sizes, ratios, and formats just gives Razr the upper edge.

3. A longer display is better than a ‘bigger’ display

Given that almost all of our mobile-based content depends on scrolling upwards and downwards, even so much so that content is now being created in portrait mode more than ever (proof: TikTok), we don’t really NEED bigger squarish displays, to be honest. The square display also doesn’t do anyone any favors. You’re still left with pretty large black boxes on the top and bottom of the videos you’re watching, and the only perceivable advantage of the large display is the ability to multi-task, which personally, hasn’t really caught on yet. Besides, a phone with a hinge along the longer edge results in a longer and more visible ‘crease’. Motorola cleverly made a phone that puts its hinge along the phone’s width, resulting in a crease no doubt, but a relatively much smaller crease.

4. No technical snags like the Samsung Galaxy Fold (Plus, they nailed that hinge)

Take a look at how Motorola designed the screen to fold inwards without an air-gap like in the Samsung Galaxy and you’ll realize how Motorola did it right. Admittedly, it’s been just a few hours since the release, but not a single reviewer has complained about dead pixels, bumps, and faults in the Moto Razr, especially given how quickly and carelessly people close that clamshell hinge. Samsung’s Galaxy Fold, on the other hand, required being extremely careful, and even despite that, almost every early reviewer ended up destroying that flexible display. Call it great engineering on Motorola’s part, or just shoddy engineering on everyone else’s part, but hot damn, that phone’s had an absolutely track record so far.

5. That sweet retro app

Possibly one of my favorite parts of the 2019 Razr is the retro app, that gives the phone its classic old-timey interface, complete with that edgy Tron-esque keyboard. Motorola recognized the power of nostalgia, and I’m pretty sure people will be bootlegging this app onto their Pixels and iPhones just for the nostalgia-factor! Good job, Motorola!

6. The price tag

Here’s why I think the Moto Razr won’t just be popular, but will also be a commercial success. It has an incredibly low barrier of entry, with a price of $1500, which is considerably lower than the Huawei Mate X which retails for $2600 and the Samsung Galaxy Fold, which retails for $1980. The fact that it’s better, cheaper, and more desirable than its competition in the folding phone market just means that Motorola’s taken the time and energy to get absolutely everything right, from the phone’s design to its tech, engineering and price… and Motorola knows it has a winner on its hands. I mean, even the theme music in the video above has the lyrics “they don’t make ’em like me no more”.

This article’s pretty much a hat-tip to the guys at Motorola for absolutely nailing this beauty, and a love-letter of sorts to the company from a complete tech enthusiast and someone who’s done his fair share to build the hype for the smartphone *wink wink*. Hey Motorola, if you’re feeling generous, and want to reach out to me with a small token of appreciation, feel free to hit me up via email!