Welcome to Icon-o-Cast, a blog and podcast produced by Lunar Design in San Francisco, California.   Our goal in these forums is to explore the topic of design in a plainspoken way.   It’s our firm belief that design creativity makes genuine differences to people, commerce, society and the environment — and that this creativity is an accessible resource for every one of us.

Join us in our continued exploration and demystification of the power of human creativity!

Man in the Moon

April 22, 2007: Lunar’s Matt Durack and Robert Howard join John Edson to talk about applying creativity to develop an innovative medical product on an impossible schedule.  (And they did it! Listen to learn how.)

Novint Falcon with Needle Simulator

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Trendspotting

March 5, 2007: Can designers create great products that don’t hurt Planet Earth? Lunar’s Scot Herbst and Travis Lee say "YES," by following a simple set of principles for sustainable design they’ve developed. Scot and Travis share their insights with John Edson.

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News and Reviews

February 5, 2007: Lunar’s user-experience expert Gretchen Anderson talks with John Edson about using digital music players, including the Microsoft Zune, SanDisk Sansa e200 and, of course, the Apple iPod. Their conversation also explores simplicity, feature sets and creating a great product experience.

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Cover Story

January 10, 2007: Christopher Celeste, founder and president of Findaway, talks with Lunar’s John Edson about the Playaway self-contained audiobook from Findaway and how customer experiences can be enhanced by taking away features.

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Man in the Moon         

January 2, 2007: Lunar’s John Edson talks with designers Alex Rochat and Alberto Villareal about their recent personal design projects and the creative process.         

Alex’s "Peel" concept for an MP3 player was featured in a recent edition of Monitor magazine.
		Alberto’s "Cascuz" concept for a cyclist’s helmet and light won a red dot "best of the best" design award.

            
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News and Reviews

December 13, 2006: Lunar designer Scot Herbst and host John Edson discuss sustainability in design and Scot’s perspectives on a recent sustainability conference held at Stanford University.

Recommended sustainability websites:

• GreenBlue
• GoTo Reviews – a guide to the most effecient things in the world
• treehugger
• sustainablog
• Bill McDonough

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Trendspotting

October 28, 2006: Lunar designers Alberto Villarreal, Roman Gebhard, Matthis Hamann and host John Edson discuss design trends in Europe and Asia.

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Transmissions from Earth

October 6, 2006: Lunar’s John Edson interviews design pros at the 2006 Industrial Designers Society of America’s annual conference about the relevance and contributions of design. And we get an audio comment from Harald in Stockholm!

Industrial Designers Society of America

Save NOLA (New Orleans) Music

Send John a comment about Icon-o-Cast

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Man in the Moon

September 27, 2006: Lunar’s John Edson discusses a new format for Icon-o-Cast based on feedback from listeners.

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Cover Story
EMOTIONAL DESIGN – PART 2

Don Norman

September 12, 2006: Cognitive scientist, human-centered-design expert and author Don Norman joins Lunar’s John Edson for a wide ranging discussion about what makes great design. Part two of a two-part conversation.

Don Norman’s website

Emotional Design

The Design of Everyday Things

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Cover Story

August 18, 2006: Cognitive scientist, human-centered-design expert and author Don Norman joins Lunar’s John Edson for a wide ranging discussion about what makes great design. Part one of a two-part conversation.

Don Norman’s website

Emotional Design

The Design of Everyday Things

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June 12, 2006: Different materials provide different capabilities for designers and result in different experiences for consumers.

Why do product designers use the materials they use? What’s the "dream stuff" designers would love to use in the products they create?

In this Icon-o-Cast episode, Lunar’s John Edson talks with a gaggle of Lunar Design pros about materials used in products today and what will be coming tomorrow.

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March 28, 2006: In a market economy characterized by commoditized products and global competition, how do companies gain deep and lasting loyalty from their customers? The key, argues author Steve Diller, is in providing meaningful customer experiences.

In this episode of Icon-o-Cast, Lunar’s John Edson talks with Steve, a partner at Cheskin Research and co-author of Making Meaning: How Successful Businesses Deliver Meaningful Customer Experiences.

In addition to Making Meaning, this episode refers to Joseph Pine, The Experience Economy and the Design Critic weblog.

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March 2, 2006: China has already become an important manufacturing center and, as the world’s most populous nation, a coveted new market. China is also quickly becoming a global design center.

Lunar’s John Edson talks with Andrew Zee, manager of Lunar’s new Hong Kong office, and Elaine Ann, founder of Kaizor Innovation, a strategic innovation consulting company specializing in China markets, about new directions for design in China.

John mentions a recent read, The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman, and Icon-o-Cast listener Shalin enjoys his (almost) new Senseo coffee maker.

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