Soup is a liquid food, generally served warm, that is made by combining ingredients such as meat and vegetables with stock, juice, water, or another liquid, according to Wikipedia. Warm soups are popular as a type of comfort food in the world.
People have their own favourite ingredients for soups, and different meats are welcomed in different countries. For instance, in Japan, I have seen many flyers promoting 100-yen ($1) “pork” soup. In Canada, “chicken” soups are highly common. Is this because different meats are priced differently in different countries? Or, more importantly, do Japanese people actually like pork although they are perceived to like fish, and Canadians actually like chicken although they are viewed to like beef? We *might* have developed a wrong belief what ingredients make dishes from different cultures distinctive. 🙂
I came to know Louis Kahn at the Design Museum, London. This little museum held an exhibition called the power of architecture and introduced him and his work.
Louis Kahn (1901-74) was one of the most influential architects of the twentieth century. With complex spatial compositions and a choreographic mastery of light, Kahn created buildings of archaic beauty and powerful universal symbolism. His work impacted many of his contemporaries and still serves today as a model and measure among architects, expecially those of the younger generation.
Kahn’s acclaim is based on a small number of buildings that were elected over a short time period of just 25 years. While his early work focused on housing and urban planning in his home city of Philadelphia, he started to gain a worldwide reputation toward the end of the 1950s as an architect of public buildings. Kahn designed museum, laboratories, schools, churches, synagogues, and even a national parliament. For a long time he was exclusively active in the USA, yet his later work took an an increasingly global dimension. Consequently, two of his most important projects were executed in India and Bangladesh – the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad (1962-74) and the National Assembly building in Dhaka (1962-83).
Valentines’ day is one of the most “commercially successful” holidays in Asian countries such as Japan and Korea. According to Wikipedia, this holiday was first introduced in Japan in 1936 when a company ran an advertisement aimed at foreigners.
Later in 1953, it began promoting the giving of heart-shaped chocolates; other Japanese confectionery companies followed suit thereafter. In 1958, the Isetan department store ran a “Valentine sale”. Further campaigns during the 1960s popularized the custom. The custom that only women give chocolates to men may have originated from the translation error of a chocolate-company executive during the initial campaigns. In particular, office ladies give chocolate to their co-workers. Unlike western countries, gifts such as greeting cards, candies, flowers, or dinner dates are uncommon, and most of the activity about the gifts is about giving the right amount of chocolate to each person. Japanese chocolate companies make half their annual sales during this time of the year.
Nowadays, many students around me complain expensive, poor-quality chocolates. However, some want to take this opportunity to express their feelings to others and make their own chocolates. Certainly, very few succeed in creating “the only” chocolate for their friends, colleagues, or significant others.
Recently, I met a clever solution at a Japanese department store: a do-it-yourself kit for chocolate. This is probably the best solution for those who do not want to waste money on buying ready-made chocolates but want to voluntarily invest an adequate amount of effort to create only one.
We used a combination of qualitative research and CET to understand why consumers participate in creative activities and the conditions under which they enjoy these experiences… Respondents consistently noted a motivation for personal accomplishment, which was achieved by satisfying the needs of both autonomy and competence… Importantly, this study also provides insight into the influence of external constraints (e.g., target outcomes, instructions) on consumers’ creative experiences. Indeed, the pros and cons of these creative products (e.g., kits, models, patterns, recipes) highlight the tension between consumers’ desire for instructional guidance and their need for individualism. Hobbyists value the feeling of competence that creative products provide, and they create their own strategies to overcome the constraints that such products impose on both the creative process and the outcome. (Dahl and Moreau 2007, pg. 367)
Who knows? We may see a lot of chocolate-only chefs in the near future who do not follow given instructions but use their own ingredients to develop new chocolates!
From cooking kits to home improvement shows, consumers are increasingly seeking out products that are designed to help them be creative. In this research, the authors examine why consumers participate in creative activities and under what conditions these experiences are the most enjoyable. A qualitative study explores the diverse motivations for undertaking creative tasks and identifies the role of constraints in such endeavors. Then, the authors conduct two experimental studies to understand the importance of constraints (e.g., instructional guidance, target outcomes) in facilitating a balance between perceived competence and autonomy for consumers involved in a creative task. When consumers engage in creative activities with a sense of both autonomy and competence, they enjoy the experience more. The authors discuss implications for managers and provide opportunities for further research.
Yido is a widely-known premium pottery brands in Korea. It was found by Yi, Yoonshin, a ceramic artist. She successfully established herself in the business world not only because her work reinterprets traditional Korean ceramics in refined contemporary design but also because she paid attention to the two marketing lessons.
First, she listens to market. Recently, Yido launches a new collection called Cera/Mano. Differently from other collections which has four pieces of bowls for a family of four, this newly launched collection consists in only one piece designed for single family buyers.
Creative entrepreneurial ventures are characterized by uniquely personal branded offerings with enormous potential for profit, combined with huge market and execution risk. What differentiate creative entrepreneurial ventures from that of technology ventures are their dependency on a few individuals’ intangible breakthrough ideas. The absence of process control and metrics for evaluating cost, risk and required time commitment makes Return On Investment (ROI) impossible to assess.
Consequently, private investments are virtually unattainable. The subsequent extreme financial pressure combined with ineffective processes leads to destructive behaviors. Traditionally, three independent and mutually supportive approaches exist to mitigate risk and increase profit in creative ventures. These are: (1) Education: Providing market and executions knowledge and experiences through schooling, internships and apprenticeships, (2) Funding: Government and/or trade association backed with coaching and financing, and (3) Collaboration: Pooling of resources and creative talent to leverage individual talents and mitigating risk.
We propose using Design Research, Design Thinking and technology venture insights to develop methods and tools for sustainably running creative entrepreneurial ventures. First, we will identify best practices, by qualitative research within the creative fields of design, music, game, movie and art in the cultural settings of Los Angeles, Copenhagen and Seoul. Secondly, we identify knowledge transfer opportunities and conduct brainstorming sessions to synthesize new methods and tools. The outcome will be a creative portfolio management matrix, outlining how to best take ideas from concept to commercialization as a function of market and execution risk for the examined creative disciplines.
A gigantic sculpture standing in front of the MBC media center is called Square M-Communication. It looks like two people touching their hands. According to Young Ho Yoo who made this sculpture, the red frame represents media and two human sculptures represent the contemporary people who actively interact with media. This artwork represents the meeting between media and people symbolically. Some advances interpretation and saying that this work represents the ambition that media should not abuse its power as a big brother but aims to communicate with people as a friend.
I have been to the 1933 Shanghai, the last slaughter house on earth. Although the interior and the exterior of the building were impressive, I was fascinated by a cutting-edge vending machine in this building. Different from typical vending machines, it displays the virtual image of the beverages and snacks on the right side.
I first wondered why the virtual image is redundantly provided given that physical products are clearly displayed. However, I soon realised it has several advantages. First, it shows additional, detailed information about the beverage including its ingredients, effects, side effects, and price. Since most Chinese beverages and snacks were new to me, this additional information helped me choose the right one. Second and more importantly, it recommended me several items by putting eye-catching virtual icons on them, suggesting these beverages and snacks were popular or discounted. Indeed, virtual image can guide our behaviour toward physical products.
Absolut Vodka has offered many artists with a wide variety of collaboration opportunities. Now it has a long list of colors and shapes with much artistic flavour. Recently, it even introduced Absolut Colors saying that;
We are proud to once again dress our iconic bottle in the pride flag, originally designed by San Francisco-based artist Gilbert Baker in 1977, just before Absolut Vodka was born. For Absolut, we believe in the right to expression yourself in any way possible, which includes being able to love whomever you want to love. Creativity has always been at the core for Absolut, and diversity go hand in hand with that. A world where everybody is the same would not be any fun at all, but rather a quite boring place. That’s why Absolut is happy to have been celebrating a colorful world ever since 1979.
Interestingly, motor cyclists in Bali buy “petrols” in the Absolut Vodka bottles. These original bottles are prototype and seem to be the most appealing to many people there.
Umbra is a Canadian design company. I have bought a few home decorative items including its signature garbage cans (Later I learned it is called Skinny Can and was designed by Karim Rashid and David Quan). Interestingly, Umbra is not an expensive brand. Its affordable price allowed me to try several products. The products I have tried satisfied me. The website says,
We are a Toronto-based homeware design company born over 30 years ago when graphic designer, Paul Rowan, couldn’t find a nice window shade to hang in his apartment window. So, he made one and people liked it. He soon teamed up with childhood friend, Les Mandelbaum, and Umbra (in Latin, “shade”) was born. Les and Paul began reimagining everyday items into modern ware.
Today, Umbra is recognized all over the world for bringing intelligent design to everyday items. An in-house team of international designers allows us to come up with original design that speaks universally and personally to a broad customer base. The journey that started in Toronto continues—our designs can be found in over 120 countries.
Recently, I had a chance to pay visit to its flagship store located in downtown Toronto. This store welcomed visitors to enjoy Umbra items. In particular, I had a brief meeting with Paul Rowan, one of the co-founders of Umbra. He is approachable, funny, and lively. We discussed a design competition held in 2014 in Seoul. He also introduced me a Korean designer who is currently working at the in-house team of international designers.
With a lot of curiosity, I visited the Umbra design studio located in Scarborough the next day. I met with Sung Wook Park. He graduated from OCAD (Ontario College of Art and Design) University and joined Umbra about 4 years ago. He is now a creative lead for jewelry, photodisplay, and wall decor items. He explained to me the overall history of Umbra and kindly taught me the trend, the popular material in the next couple of years, and several counter-intuitive international sales patterns regarding photo frames and wall decor items (e.g., Canada vs. US vs. Japan). I have asked any business issues his design team faces as well while introducing numerous successful design items to the global market. Meeting with Paul and Sung Wook gave me a glimpse into the life of the North American designers.
Ubud is a small town on the Indonesian island of Bali. “Eat, Pray, Love” was filmed in 2010 in this town. IMDb explains this movie;
A married woman realizes how unhappy her marriage really is, and that her life needs to go in a different direction. After a painful divorce, she takes off on a round-the-world journey to find herself.
Although not everyone needs to find himself or herself like a person in the movie, Bali is a perfect place to enjoy a mind wandering (taking a break involving an undemanding task) and to be creative. Indeed, in this town, many European visitors read and write books at cafes enjoying rice field views (to my surprise, rice fields can be scenic!). Some even go to a co-working space called Hubud and start their own businesses. I find many do undemanding tasks. Since residents are friendly, meals are delicious (Babi Guling at Ibu Oka), and guest houses are inexpensive, Bali is one of the destinations for those who need creativity.
Although anecdotes that creative thoughts often arise when one is engaged in an unrelated train of thought date back thousands of years, empirical research has not yet investigated this potentially critical source of inspiration. We used an incubation paradigm to assess whether performance on validated creativity problems (the Unusual Uses Task, or UUT) can be facilitated by engaging in either a demanding task or an undemanding task that maximizes mind wandering. Compared with engaging in a demanding task, rest, or no break, engaging in an undemanding task during an incubation period led to substantial improvements in performance on previously encountered problems. Critically, the context that improved performance after the incubation period was associated with higher levels of mind wandering but not with a greater number of explicitly directed thoughts about the UUT. These data suggest that engaging in simple external tasks that allow the mind to wander may facilitate creative problem solving.
Since we spend most of our time in buildings, we are literally surrounded by fire extinguishers. It consists of a hand-held cylindrical pressure vessel containing an agent which can be discharged to extinguish a fire (Wikipedia). In general, we do not pay attention to them until needed. For me, I have never used any fire extinguisher in my life and have no interest in it. Interestingly, designers have noticed their problems and came up with two fairly different but equally interesting solutions.
Typical fire extinguishers have two critical problems. First, they are often ignored and difficult to be located. Even though they are red colored, fire extinguishers merely stand still and fail to grab our attention. Further, they do not go well with walls or interiors.
Recently, I found a series of eye-catching fire extinguishers at a store. In order to solve the first problem, some designers changed the appearance of the fire extinguishers. They painted skins to make them visually appealing and to make them go well with the walls. Some of the newly painted fire extinguishers look so nice that I even wanted to buy them for home decor.
The second problem is that typical fire extinguishers are difficult to use in emergency situations. Therefore, instruction manuals are prepared. A practice session runs for those who want to try to use them in advance.
Recently, I found another, newly designed fire extinguishers in a building. Designers changed the size and the container material so that the shape “says” how to use. Now, we do not have to spend time on learning how to use them; instead, we can simply pick up one or a few water-bottle shaped fire extinguishers and throw them on a fire.
These two fire extinguishers teach me what designers do for us. Designers change the appearance of a product; alternatively, they change the way we use it.
Louis Kahn (1901-74) was one of the most influential architects of the twentieth century. With complex spatial compositions and a choreographic mastery of light, Kahn created buildings of archaic beauty and powerful universal symbolism. His work impacted many of his contemporaries and still serves today as a model and measure among architects, expecially those of the younger generation.
