In order to have a clear vision about the new product development process, companies today are in greater need to write a creative brief. This is due to the nature of global markets in terms of infrastructure, teams, and competition. Companies are now able to connect through new communication methods that allow them to reach clients […]
Freelance vs Full-time Design Jobs: Making the Right Decision
Many designers ask me the common question; is it better to search for design jobs or become freelance designers? Many of the design projects can run remotely without restricting to a specific workplace. this encourages companies to outsource their projects to freelance designers. Designers on the other side see the freelance as a way to […]
Why Some Companies Reject Design Thinking and How to Handle it
As designers, the design thinking is part of our daily habits even if we don’t have any background about its different stages. We research for information about the project before jumping into the design process. We tend to sketch or prototype to visualize our ideas. For us, the design thinking process fills the gaps with […]
Tips to Learn Design Without Going to a Design School
Didn’t get the chance to attend a design school? You’re not alone as many barriers can stand between students to achieve their goal to learn design by getting a design degree. Amongst these barriers, the high tuition costs and lack of local design schools are considered the most challenging obstacles that prevent many students from […]
No Good Service Design Without Good Storytelling
The Human Being used stories since the dawn of civilization to as a method for communication, amusement, reflecting emotions, and telling their experience. Stories are a great tool to visualize information through words and human expressions and were always used as one of the education tools for children in different education levels. In service design, […]
5 Myths About The User Experience Design Process
The user experience design aims to put users in the heart of the product development process by addressing their everyday needs and solving their problems. Achieving this target can help creating a desirable and usable product that people can use to make their lives much easier, which subsequently leads a market success. However, this isn’t […]
What Designers Think About Design Education in the Middle East Region
Over the course of understanding the challenges that face design industry in the Middle East and North Africa, we established the Design MENA section where we try to address the issues related to design in this area of the world. According to a previous study that I wrote for the Design Management Review, Barriers Facing […]
Which is Good for Start-ups, Incremental or Disruptive Innovation?
Today’s companies are faced with increasing challenges in terms of competitiveness and their ability to sustain business success. In order to survive these challenges , there is an agreement between both practitioners and scholars that business needs to grow in order to maintain its success in the market. This can be achieved through different types […]
4 Service Design Tools to Focus on Consumers' Needs
Service design aims to improve both commercial and social services by putting the consumer in the heart of the process. Therefore, organizations that aim to achieve success and higher market position should consider improving their service through building a better understanding to their consumers. Similar to the product development process, the service design thinking follows […]
5 Successful Open Innovation Examples
Both large and small companies have agreed that innovation and creativity are essential tools to sustain business success and improve market competitiveness. However, the traditional "closed" innovation model faced barriers and in the top of them is the lack of new idea generation among the internal company team. Open Innovation model was first coined to […]
10 Productivity Tips for Designers
Many designers complain about a large number of tasks they have every day comparing with the time required to achieve it. If you are a freelance designer, the problem becomes, even more, worse as there is always a time with a heavy load of work, while there are other times with merely one project in […]
Service Design Thinking: Putting Your Consumer First
The design process involves multiple disciplines starting from the emphasize phase to the final product delivery. However, achieving a desirable design experience extends the borders of the product development to include the service design. Unlike the physical product design, the service design focuses on the communication between consumers and the organization during the process of […]
What Designers Need to Learn Aside from Their Design Education
In a conversation with one of my friends about the problems that designers face in their professional life, she highlighted that while designers may get good design-related skills during design education, they lack other skills that are needed in the typical work environment. For example, designers may only think of their tasks without considering the […]
5 Common Myths About Design
"Designers only do Photoshop work," "They only think about colors," " Design only adds more cost to the project," and other comments are common to hear if you are a designer working in a company that doesn't really understand what you do. As a designer, those words frustrate me the most simply, because they aren't […]
SWOT Analysis for the UK’s Brexit Decision to Leave the EU
Last week, the UK decided to leave the European Union after more than 40 years of membership. The national referendum results were 51.9% to leave, while 48.1% to stay. The decision was not only shocking for many people: it has also shocked the British and global economy. Anyone who knows how to invest in stocks […]
Guide for 3D Printing Technologies
3D printing technology is one of the rapidly growing fields that has been involved in different industries including, but is not limited to industrial design, product design, and medical implementations. The affordability of 3D printers, plus their easy installation and usage, make it a very appealing technology for designers to visualize their ideas in the […]
Exploring Design in the Egyptian Creative Market (Infographic)
There is an agreement between both scholars and practitioners about the important role of design and creativity in the following three fields: education, organization, and government. In a previous article, “Leading Economy Through Design: Applying National Design Policies”, we explored how different countries such as the UK, Germany, Japan, India, and China adopt design policies […]
10 Product Design Icons from the 20th Century
Following the product design timeline during the 20th century, we can observe that design has evolved to focus on the function rather than the form which dominated 19th-century design movements. Design schools such as post-modernism and Bauhaus contributed to focus on the function of the design and how it serves people’s needs. The product design […]
10 Time Management Tips to Improve Innovation
Design and innovation are one of the fields that require a long time for investigation and brainstorming in order to formulate a new creative idea and evaluate its viability in the market and suitability for the consumer. According to design thinking process models, the investigation and ideation phases are almost 50% of the process that […]
Applying Design and Innovation Framework in the Syrian Refugee Crisis
Many European organizations have started looking at design tools to solve societal challenges such as integration of new migrant intakes. The solutions range from creating products, services, and toolkits to education and training. Fortunately, we are beginning to see a great deal of adaptation of human-centered methods into political and societal problems, and the expansion […]