IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 55

Colophon
Designers Bud Rodecker/3st and Taek Kim/3st
explain the graphics in this issue.
The Innovation Insurrection
The title page features a graphic that spells out
innovation and abstractly represents the idea and
inspiration of innovation. Those patterns and
textures work their way throughout the article.
Lens Flare
This piece puts the emphasis on the photography,
making photographs as large and uncropped as
possible. The lens flare graphic takes its color from
the images and accents the page layout.

TECHNICAL

TYPOGRAPHY

Software and tools used

Body Typefaces

Adobe Creative Cloud
Photoshop
Illustrator
Indesign
Bridge
Acrobat
Dropbox
Google
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Word
Trello

DIN
by Albert-Jan Pool
1995-2009
From Wikipedia: FF DIN is a realist sans-serif
typeface based on DIN-Mittelschrift and
DIN-Engschrift, as defi ned in the German standard
DIN 1451. DIN is an acronym for Deutsches Institut
für Normung (German Institute of Standardisation).
FONTSHOP.COM/FAMILIES/FF-DIN

The Serif
by Lucas de Groot
1994

The Once and Future King of Commerce
We created a title page that contrasts the future
we're going to see with the mall of the past.

From LucasFonts: The Thesis superfamily was fi rst
published in 1994 as part of the FontFont collection,
and became part of the LucasFonts type library
in 2000. The family was conceived as a versatile
typographic system of ambitious scope. It grew out
of a dissatisfaction with the limited range of good
typefaces available for corporate identity projects.
Thesis aims to fi ll that gap by providing the user
with three compatible styles - TheSans, TheMix,
and TheSerif - in an optically harmonious range of
eight weights, including real italics for each weight.

Point/Counterpoint
The post it note, the symbol of collaboration in
innovation consultancies, gets the digital
treatment for a conversation about in person or
digital collaboration.
All Around the World
As technology makes working remotely easier, the
borders of the world are warping.

LUCASFONTS.COM/FONTS/THESERIF

Px Grotesk
by Nicolas Eigenheer
2013
From Optimo: Px Grotesk is designed after the
rendering of typographic curves on screens. At
smaller sizes, pixels sometimes simplify the shapes
brutally. From this antagonism, Nicolas Eigenheer
has designed a typeface that embeds the screen
parameters into a classic linear drawing. The result
is hybrid as the shapes combine formal solutions
from the pixel grid and a linear drawing. The
signature of the pixel is kept on the typeface and
creates a contradictory relation between a grid and
a linear drawing. It is particularly visible in letters
such as 'a', 'f', 'j', 'r', 'y', '1', and in the counterforms.

The heyday of the enclosed shopping mall may have passed, but rumors of its
death have been greatly exaggerated. Perspective examines how interior design
teams are creating in-demand retail hubs and placemakers that gracefully
merge art and commerce for a new era.

By Holly Eagleson

30

PERSPECTIVE

31

OPTIMO.CH/TYPEFACES_PX-GROTESK.HTML
This revamp was designed with the help of IDEO,
a San Francisco-based "global design" firm. Marriot
hired the firm in 2008 to help overhaul their
900-plus Courtyard properties. The hotel chain saw
they had a problem-they were losing market
share to some stylish upstarts, such as Hyatt Place
and the W's Aloft hotels-but they didn't quite
know what the problem was. After talking to
customers, observing how they behaved and then
surveying employees, IDEO drafted plans for
transforming the lobbies into places where people
might want to linger, not merely pass through.
After a successful rollout in a few properties, this
reboot has spread throughout the chain, earning
positive feedback from customers and boosting
sales in food and drinks.

Prensa
by Cyrus Highsmith
2003

BOTTOM LEFT

European Holiday
Inn Express,
Image courtesy of IDEO

Other hotels have begun to follow Marriot's lead.
In the past seven years, IDEO has reimagined the
rooms at every European Holiday Inn Express,
helped plan the public floors of Palo Alto's first
4-star boutique hotel, and recently partnered with
Lufthansa to "redesign the international business
class travel experience." (The company even claims
to have "redesigned sleep", in collaboration with
Tempur-pedic.)

Perspective

Often seen as the granddaddy of innovation
consultancies, IDEO's shift into interior design and
architecture seems to be part of a trend. Similar
firms are increasingly designing spaces and
experiences, selling clients on a process that is
user-driven, customer-focused and experimentbased. But what makes these firms different?
What is driving this "innovation insurrection"?

An Empathetic Approach
ABOVE & LEFT

North Carolina State
University Hunt Library,
Images courtesy
Snøhetta with Clark
Nexsen

Fall/Winter 2015

Companies that promise a new way of rethinking
space are most commonly found in industries that
are experiencing the greatest flux. Retail, offices,
financial services, outpatient health care: these are
all spaces that are being disrupted by technology.
To create a better experience in these environments,
designers need to understand the shifting
demands of users. This requires thorough research,
from observing how people work and shop to
asking them questions about their needs and
feelings. Innovation consultancies make an
"empathetic approach" to design a central part of
their process.
This approach also has a way of putting clients at
ease. Innovation consultancies take care to let
different stakeholders feel heard and understood.
They are also savvy about speaking the language
of business, with references to things like brand
identity, user experience, and the relationship
between sound design and better performance.
"If you're a big brand that doesn't know what you
want, this process is very comforting, very
inclusive," says Cliff Kuang, author of a
forthcoming book about user experience (to be
published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux) and a
design editor at Fast Company.

14

Carolyn Argentati, the deputy director of libraries
at North Carolina State University, says working
with an innovation consultancy played a key role
in creating the award-winning Hunt Library on
campus. The university wanted to build a premiere,
high-tech learning environment-"the best in the
country"-with space for students of all disciplines,
and storage for over 5 million volumes (not
including electronic books). "We had unique
constraints and ambitions," she says. "There was no
existing building that we could point to and say,
'We want one like that'." The university tapped
Snohetta as the lead designer, and they brought in
DEGW, a design-strategy firm now known as
Strategy Plus, to facilitate meetings and
conversations with library administrators, staff,
students and faculty. This approach was essential
for figuring out how to meet the needs of everyone
involved. "A lot of different stakeholders and
constituencies had to be appeased. So going
through a systematic process with a facilitator
that listened to everyone was very valuable to us,"
says Argentati.

PERSPECTIVE

15

From MyFonts: Spanish for press, Prensa is a new
series from Cyrus Highsmith. He arrived at this
family's character through his process of
"wrapping outside curves around the inside,
deliberately creating tension between the two,"
a technique epitomized in Electra, a 1935 bookface
by twentieth-century master W.A. Dwiggins. This
tension really appears in the italics,which stray
from the traditional forms to balance simplicity
with vitality. Among other uses, Prensa is
recommended for Newspaper, Magazine, Book
and Corporate use.
MYFONTS.COM/FONTS/FONTBUREAU/PRENSA /

ADVERTISERS IN THIS ISSUE
Architex International
GlobalShop 2016

CV4
7

IIDA

3

IIDA

11

National Terrazzo & Mosaic Association

CV3

Tarkett

CV2
PERSPECTIVE

55
http://www.FONTSHOP.COM/FAMILIES/FF-DIN http://www.LUCASFONTS.COM/FONTS/THESERIF http://www.OPTIMO.CH/typefaces_px-grotesk.html https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/fontbureau/prensa/
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015
