Name what’s working and why. “I like how _____ because _____.”
Name what could go further. “I wish _____ because _____.”
Open a door. “I wonder what would happen if _____.”
Not This
See data in everything
Design the invisible
See a world as data — document, analyze, find insights
Design things worth keeping
Translate a place into something someone else can feel
Articulate your design principles
Design the collaboration, not just the product
Honest iteration — early work is material, not precious
Edit ruthlessly — what you remove matters as much as what you keep
Know who you are as a designer — and show it
Week 8
Catmull — Ugly Baby chapter (killing too soon vs. protecting too long)
Austin & Devin — Artful Making (variation is material, not failure)
Lockton et al. (recommended)
Pixar — “Every Pixar film starts as an ugly baby.” Toy Story rewritten ~30 times.
Dyson — 5,127 prototypes before the first successful cyclone vacuum.
“What Deserves More?” · V2 of your final project
Take the V1 seed you made in Week 7. V2 must do something V1 couldn’t — add a new SEMINAL system, audience, scale, or material.
V3 next week (Week 9). Final presentation Week 10.
Catmull
Creativity, Inc. — Ugly Baby
Austin & Devin
Artful Making
Lockton et al.
Design with Intent (recommended)
Groups assigned in class. Each student reads one.
Every Pixar film starts as an ugly baby — the danger is killing it too soon or protecting it too long. Iteration is not polishing; it is discovering what the project wants to be. Toy Story was rewritten roughly thirty times. The discipline is holding the tension between “this isn’t working yet” and “there’s something here worth saving.”
“Variation is material, not failure.” Start, respond to what emerges, iterate. Austin and Devin argue that artistic making — where you cannot specify outcomes in advance — is a better model for innovation than industrial making. The key move is treating unexpected results as information rather than errors.
Design with Intent explores behavioral change through architectural, persuasive, and cognitive mechanisms. How do you design environments and interactions that nudge people toward different actions? Lockton provides a toolkit of patterns — from choice architecture to errorproofing — that treat behavior as designable.
Reflection assignment: Find a designed thing in the world that represents one of these concepts. Bring it to Wednesday’s discussion.
Pixar — Ugly Darlings
Toy Story rewritten ~30 times
Dyson
5,127 prototypes
Toy Story was rewritten roughly thirty times. The danger is killing the idea too soon or protecting it too long. Iteration is not polishing — it is discovering what the project wants to be. Takeaway: The discipline is holding the tension between “this isn’t working yet” and “there’s something here worth saving.”
James Dyson built 5,127 prototypes before the first successful cyclone vacuum. He didn’t quit after 100 failures — he had a system for learning from each one. He treated early versions not as failures but as material. Takeaway: Iteration is a discipline, not a fix. The system for learning matters more than any single attempt.
Pixar rewrites films ~30 times. Dyson built 5,127 prototypes. Neither treated early versions as failures — they treated them as material. This week you do the same.
“Every Pixar film starts as an ugly baby.”
Toy Story was rewritten ~30 times.
The danger: killing the idea too soon, or protecting it too long.
5,127 prototypes before the first successful cyclone vacuum.
He didn’t quit after 100 failures — he had a system for learning from each one.
Variation was material, not failure.
Design Challenge 8
1. Audit V1 honestly. Catmull would suggest: Kill vs. protect the early idea? Austin & Devin would suggest: Responding to what emerges vs. still planning. What works? What’s not working? What’s the one thing that, if it doesn’t work, people will not understand the value of it? What’s ugly? What deserves more? 2. Be as critical of the idea as you would of a stranger’s if you were busy walking across campus in a hurry. Would it make you stop? What would make it make you stop. Revise your V2 goals accordingly. 3. Build V2 this week. V3 next week. Final presentation Week 10.
V2 of your final project, V1 audit (honest assessment), V1 & V2 side by side (the comparison should be striking), evidence of process (iterations, failed attempts, tool learning), gallery slides (your 3 slides in the weekly shared class deck), and your plan for V3 next week.
What can V2 do that V1 couldn’t? Did the system addition generate a genuine new direction, or is it bolted on? “I polished it” is not enough — V2 must do something V1 couldn’t. Is iteration treated as a discipline, not a fix? Variation is material, not failure (Austin & Devin).
Your WIP Doc — Week 8 section:
Your V1 audit (honest assessment: what works, what doesn’t)
Process photos of iterations and explorations
Your plan for V3 (Week 9)
Concept tags — mark which apply to your work this week:
Week 8: Ugly Darlings · Artful Making · Design with Intent · Iteration at Scale
Week 7: Collective Intelligence · Technology as Teammate · Braintrust · Useful Friction · Candor Without Authority · Service Design Under Pressure
Week 6: Curation as Self-Knowledge · System Clustering · Body of Work
Week 5: Multisensory Design · Frame Innovation · Emotional Design · Obsessive Sensory Attention · Place as Story · Making Invisible Perceptible
Week 4: Constraints Increase Variability · Emotionally Durable Design · Craftsmanship · Constraint as Identity · Durability as Desirability · Repair as Understanding
Week 3: Disappearing Interviewer · Curiosity as Structure · Interviewing Users · Invisible Systems Made Visible · Dual Desires · Going Deep
Week 2: Structure Mapping · Far-Field Analogies · Technology Brokering · Experience Economy · Affordances · Anticipation as Design · Controlled Reveal · Sensory Arc · One Resonant Idea
Week 1: Service · Energy · Material · Interactive/Sensory · Natural · Artificial · Longevity
Weekly Gallery Slides — your name section (3 slides):
Slide 1: Your V1 audit — honest assessment of the seed from Week 7. What works, what’s ugly, what is measurable goal for V2?
Slide 2: V2 itself — V1 and V2 side by side. What can V2 do that V1 couldn’t? Show process: iterations, explorations, failed attempts.
Slide 3: Your plan for V3 (Week 9). What gets sharper, deeper, pushed further? Principle transfer: what concept(s) from this week’s theory or cases shaped V2?
Week 8
Catmull — Ugly Baby chapter (killing too soon vs. protecting too long)
Austin & Devin — Artful Making (variation is material, not failure)
Lockton et al. (recommended)
Pixar — “Every Pixar film starts as an ugly baby.” Toy Story rewritten ~30 times.
Dyson — 5,127 prototypes before the first successful cyclone vacuum.
“What Deserves More?” · V2 of your final project
Take the V1 seed you made in Week 7. V2 must do something V1 couldn’t — add a new SEMINAL system, audience, scale, or material.
V3 next week (Week 9). Final presentation Week 10.