Landor is a brand consulting firm founded in 1941 by Walter Landor, who pioneered some research, design, and consulting methods that the branding industry still uses.
Teddy Ruxpin is an electronic children's toy in the form of a talking bear-like creature known as an 'Illiop'. The toy's mouth and eyes move while he tells stories about his adventures played on an audio tape cassette deck built into his back. While the character itself was created by Ken Forsse, the talking toy was designed and built by Forsse’s Alchemy II, Inc. employees, including Larry Larsen and John Davies. Later versions have a digital cartridge in place of a cassette.
Ryohin Keikaku Co., Ltd., or Muji is a Japanese retailer which sells a wide variety of household and consumer goods. Muji's design philosophy is minimalist, and it places an emphasis on recycling, reducing production and packaging waste, and a no-logo or "no-brand" policy. The name Muji is derived from the first part of Mujirushi Ryōhin, translated as No-Brand Quality Goods on Muji's European website.
William Grant Moggridge, RDI was an English designer, author and educator who cofounded the design company IDEO and was director of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York. He was a pioneer in adopting a human-centred approach in design, and championed interaction design as a mainstream design discipline. Among his achievements, he designed the first laptop computer, the GRiD Compass, was honoured for Lifetime Achievement from the National Design Awards, and given the Prince Philip Designers Prize. He was quoted as saying, "If there is a simple, easy principle that binds everything I have done together, it is my interest in people and their relationship to things."
Worlds of Wonder (WoW) was an American toy company founded in 1985 by former Atari sales president Don Kingsborough, and former Atari employee Mark Robert Goldberg. Its founding was inspired by a prototype that became its launch product, Teddy Ruxpin. In 1986, it launched Lazer Tag and filed an IPO which Fortune magazine called "one of the year's most sought after stock sales". WoW partnered with the young Nintendo of America as retail sales distributor, crucial to the landmark launch and rise of the Nintendo Entertainment System from 1986 to 1987.
Co-creation, in the context of a business, refers to a product or service design process in which input from consumers plays a central role from beginning to end. Less specifically, the term is also used for any way in which a business allows consumers to submit ideas, designs or content. This way, the firm will not run out of ideas regarding the design to be created and at the same time, it will further strengthen the business relationship between the firm and its customers. Another meaning is the creation of value by ordinary people, whether for a company or not. The first person to use the "Co-" in "co-creation" as a marketing prefix was Koichi Shimizu, professor of Josai University, in 1979. In 1979, "co-marketing" was introduced at the Japan Society of Commerce's national conference. Everything with "Co" comes from here.
Naoto Fukasawa is a Japanese designer, author, and educator, working in the fields of product and furniture design. He is known for his product design work with the Japanese retail company Muji, as well as collaborations with companies such as Herman Miller, Alessi, B&B Italia, Emeco, Magis, and HAY.
Core77 is an online design magazine that covers the field of industrial design.
Product-service systems (PSS) are business models that provide for cohesive delivery of products and services. PSS models are emerging as a means to enable collaborative consumption of both products and services, with the aim of pro-environmental outcomes.
Ammunition is a San Francisco, CA, design studio founded in 2007 by Robert Brunner. The current managing partners are Robert Brunner and Matt Rolandson. Ammunition was formed after it parted ways from Pentagram .The company designs hardware, software, and graphic identities for many companies, including Adobe Systems, Beats by Dre, Polaroid Corporation, and Square Inc.
Teague is a global design consultancy headquartered in Seattle, Washington. Established in 1926 by Walter Dorwin Teague, Teague is known for its design contributions through the disciplines of product design, interaction design, environmental design, and mechanical design. The company is privately held and is particularly recognized for its work in aviation and consumer goods, done for clients such as The Boeing Company, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Samsung and Panasonic.
Ravi Kumar Sawhney is an American industrial designer. He is the founder and CEO of RKS Design, co-founder of RKS Guitars, and Chairperson of the IDSA/Business Week Catalyst Case Study Program. He was named a Fellow of the Industrial Designers Society of America in 2009.
Jacob Jensen was a Danish industrial designer best known for his work with Bang & Olufsen. Jensen designed numerous popular high-end consumer products, developing a functional minimalism style that formed a prominent part of the Danish modern movement. In 1958 he founded the Jacob Jensen Design Studio. Jensen designed for other brands including Alcatel, Kirk, Boform, General Electric, International Gift Corporation, JO-JO, Labofa, Rodenstock, Rosti, and Stentofon. His works have been featured at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, and have received numerous design awards.
Curve is a magazine about industrial design and product design. Published quarterly since 2002, it features interviews and profiles with designers, product developers and manufacturers, as well as coverage of new materials, technologies and trends in industrial design.
Gamevice, Inc. is a Simi Valley, California based tablet and tablet peripherals manufacturer specializing in gaming products.
A modular smartphone is a smartphone designed for users to upgrade or replace components and modules without the need for resoldering or repair services. The most important component is the main board, to which others such as cameras and batteries are attached. Components can be obtained from open-source hardware stores.
Slice Inc. was founded by T.J. Scimone in 2008 and is headquartered in Miami, Florida. The company mostly manufactures small hand-held cutting tools, including box-cutters, knives, and scissors.
Extreme Characters is a methodology used within user-centered design in order to represent edge case users of a product, brand or user interface. Extreme Characters also fits under the umbrella of market segmentation within marketing as it formulates design solutions for both average users and extreme, brink users. The concept of creating extreme users has been adopted heavily into the concept user-centered design and human-centered computing, and has led to its wide adoption both within online and offline applications, along with its placement within marketing communications.
Lego Icons is a series of Lego construction toys aimed at a demographic of adolescents and adults. Beginning in 2000 without an established logo or icon, Icons features models such as aircraft, sculptures, and world buildings, selling as exclusives with numerous specialized elements and complex building techniques. Icons is considered a challenge to both the target audience and Lego designers. All Icons sets are classified into specified sub-themes; however, the entirety of Icons is classified as a sub-theme of Lego Creator.
Anne Swainson (1888–1955) was an American product and graphic designer who became the head of design at the national retail company Montgomery Ward in Chicago, which was second in size only to Sears, Roebuck & Company at the time. There, she founded the company's Bureau of Design, which she ran from 1931 to 1955. It was believed to have been the first corporate industrial design department in modern American history.
