Hi, I'm Phnam.
Hi, I'm Mardis.
And we're the hosts of Future Future, where two designers talk about the future of everything.
We're in the business of turning science fiction into reality for a better future.
And today, we're going to talk about LEI, or logic, experience, and intuition.
So why are we talking about this subject?
Over the years at Nonfiction we have worked on bigger and bigger projects
and realized we can't use the same methodologies for designing a small electronic product
and a complete system, like a school for example.
And so we wanted to explore new ways of getting very creative, very productive,
as well as mitigating risk and shortening the timeline.
And much about this is being more creative, getting away from those standard forms,
those expected forms that we see in the marketplace so many times,
and really pushing the boundaries on all levels.
Yeah, no more squircles, no more white, grey, black, same fifteen materials.
We're bored of that.
There are a lot of developing countries that are becoming big consumers, and they want stories.
They want color. They want texture. They want meaning.
So, the reason why we're talking about logic, experience, and intuition is that we recently started using this
in a very large project designing the educational system of Singapore.
What was wonderful about it was that we realized that we had a lot of things in us.
We all went to school, we all were children, we all hated certain classes.
And we started overlapping all of these facts about ourselves in order to create something that was not only great for the future of children,
but also is something that we wish we had when we were kids.
So part of this was setting aside research while we're designing.
And this is actually really important to the creative process because often when you're going in deep to understand and research something, you get a little too deep.
And maybe when you're creatively designing something, you're going to repeat those mistakes that you've seen in the past.
So we try to really break away from the constraints of existing paradigms
and really look towards something fantastic and unique and never seen before.
So how are we going to save money, save time, and be more creative?
The good thing about it is: all those tools are already within us.
So let's talk about it!
Yes, let's start with logic.
So you might make the assumption that everybody's logical, or everyone uses the same system of logic.
Well, just go online and read a bunch of comments and realize how wrong this is.
Everybody was educated differently, listens differently.
And because of that, all of our objectives in life - all of our desires - are different.
And we can't apply the way we think about logic onto other people without listening to them.
You can't have one product that works for everybody.
It has to be personalized in a certain way, or it has to really understand people's behavior in order to track behavior change.
So logic's all about critical thinking. It's absorbing the world and critically thinking about what's going on,
making connections to disparate things, and then coming up with something new.
And this is extremely valuable for the creative process.
And you have to be extremely aware of assumptions.
We all have biases, we all make assumptions about how the world works today, and how it will work tomorrow.
As designers, it is our job to design things that don't exist yet in a world that doesn't exist yet.
So assumptions are very great if they're correct based in a logical world, a logical way of seeing things.
So, check in with people around you, with your team, with technical people,
with marketing people, with whoever may have a different opinion,
and really listen to what they have to say in order to refine your story.
One last point about logic is that one of the greatest skills of designers is the ability to zoom in and zoom out,
and back and forth.
So, zooming in, you really solve tiny little problems - the alignment of two parts,
how it fits the components, where the wires are, all those very tiny things
that the consumer is not even aware the we worked on.
And then when you zoom out and you really answer the questions, "why am I doing this?"
"What is the meaning of this?"
"What kind of home is this going to go to, and what kind of life is it going to change?"
So go back and forth and really check in within yourself, with everybody else,
to make sure the product makes sense from A to Z.
And next is experience.
Why is experience so important?
Because we see the world around us.
We interact with people and cultures and different economic statuses.
There are so many different textural qualities to life.
And this is really important to bring to the creative process.
Here at Nonfiction, we actually have a really diverse team of people from all over the world doing completely different disciplines,
everything from science to computational design to traditional design and architecture.
And these people have really rich experiences that lend themselves to the creative process in many ways.
All of this is about storytelling.
What kind of story can I bring from my past experiences,
from the experience I have living here, for example,
to enrich the story of the product we're designing?
Because we can design boxes all day long, but that doesn't sound fun.
What if I brought the experience of traveling to a country twenty years ago
and having a smell, a texture, a color, and making it meaningful
not only for myself but for everybody who will experience it in the future?
So we encourage you to go out and live a really rich life and bring that richness and textural quality back to your creative process and apply it.
The last point we wanted to cover was intuition, which is my personal favorite.
And what's great about intuition is that you can make very, very big decisions very quickly, on the turn of a coin.
You can do it individually, you can do it in a group.
It's about this communication in your brain that says,
"this feels right, this doesn't feel right. I know immediately, let's move onto the next step."
So the most important things about intuition - especially when you're practicing it in a group - is communication.
You have to communicate extremely clearly what you mean
and what is in your head and what are the different steps you want the user to go through.
And that can be done through sketches, which we love to do on white boards.
That can be done through storytelling, that can be done through little mockups, or putting certain materials together.
As long as it connects with the person in front of you, you're communicating.
And from there, you can use intuition together.
So the takeaway from this episode is that logic, experience, and intuition already lies within all of us.
It's how we tap into that.
A great example are children.
Children are fantastic.
How many times have you seen a child walk up to an adult and say, "I don't like you," or, "I do like you."
It's that funny moment...but they don't have a whole lot of experience with this love-hate relationship.
This comes from deep inside of them.
They can sense people really well.
And how can they do that?
Well, they haven't been given thirty, forty, fifty years of filters throughout society
and filters and constraints and being told they can do something,
they cannot do something. It's innate. It's part of them.
It's how they tap into this logic, experience, and intuition specifically.
So with that, we encourage you to try out this methodology.
And tell us how it's worked out for you in the comments below.
So thank you for joining us on this creative journey today, and we look forward to seeing you next time.
Thank you.
Bye bye.