smart meet beautiful

July 23, 2007

This is old news, but I just listened to an interview with Jenny Lam from Jul 6, 2006. It’s about her designs for Vista, but she talks a lot about her design philosophy, which she describes as “smart meet beautiful.” The interview was quite long, but there are some nice nuggets of truth and a peek at this designer’s inspiration.

She talks about creating distinctiveness, emotional connection and a brand. “Branding is not just about putting logos everywhere. Branding is an end-to-end experience… We don’t own the brand… Our users own it. They define the perception of it. We can just influence it with the products we build and the service we give them.” She describes adding animation, as “adding a nice touch to make it alive.”

When asked what inspires her, she speaks of her design heroes, getting together with creative colleagues, and doing design outside of work too. She highlights one of her heroes, Bruce Mau, who she describes as more of a philosopher. She recently saw an exhibit of his in Vancouver called “Massive Change” about how design can change the world, even save lives. I love hearing about how people are inspired.

She’s now at Jackson Fish Market, a small design firm in Seattle.

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