CAD Monkeys, Dinosaur Babies and T-Shaped People: Inside the World of Design Thinking and How It Can Spark Creativity and Innovation

by Warren Berger

Can great design transform people's lives? And can we all learn from the way great designers think? For a new generation of designers, such as Bruce Mau and Yves Behar, the answer to both questions is an unequivocal 'Yes'. To them, design is more than just a question of fashion or taste; it's a way of asking fundamental questions in order to solve complex problems. In "Glimmer", award-winning journalist Warren Berger shows how these visionary thinkers are taking design principles out of the studio and applying them to the tough issues of today, from making medicines safer to counteracting the threats of global warming. By approaching seemingly intractable problems with simple thought-processes that often seem counter-intuitive - 'ask stupid questions', 'embrace constraint' - designers are creating 'glimmer moments', when a life-changing ideas crystallise in the mind, and coming up with breathtakingly innovative solutions.

Genres: Design, Nonfiction, Business, Psychology, Audiobook, School, Inspirational

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

I’m an author and speaker on innovation, creativity, and the power of questioning. I invite fellow curious thinkers to join me in exploring the power of inquiry to spark breakthrough ideas on my questioning site. My latest book is the updated 10th Anniversary edition of A MORE BEAUTIFUL QUESTION, published by Bloomsbury Worldwide, with new chapters on how questioning can help make you a better leader … a clearer thinker … and a more effective communicator, and much more

Reviews

[Lloyd Downey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books that has been written by a non-expert who has turned himself into an expert by interviewing multiple experts in the field. He even attended design school to better understand the field. I guess, that coming as an intelligent and observant outsider, actually has its advantages. He doesn't come with too many pre-conceived ideas and can be open to new experiences.
I found the book quite fascinating. A large part of it focuses on Bruce Mau....a design consultant ...who agreed to work with the author. The premise of the book is that design is applicable to just about any challenge and its principles are accessible to anyone. There is a "glimmer" movement which includes all sorts of input from outside and inside the design profession . What makes them all designers is that they just don't think about the things that are ripe of reinvention ....they act on it.
The book is built around ten principles of design which seem to be fairly common to all different kinds of design challenges. There are divided into four separate categories: Universal, Business, Social, and personal.
And the principles are:
Universal....Ask stupid questions, Jump fences, Make hope visible
Business: ....Go Deep, Work the metaphor, Design what you do
Social:.....Face consequences, Embrace constraints
Personal:.....Design for emergence, Begin anywhere.
the best designers are T shaped people...deep knowledge of one skill (the vertical bar) then they branch out into many different areas of knowledge.
By relying on the ability to think about and picture what might be, designers can glimpse the possibilities that lie on the other side of the fence. They also connect ideas from one real with another, entirely separate realm. What if I take the sensor technology from a Segway and use in for a prosthetic arm socket?
Speculate first (wild ideas, scenarios, possible solutions)...and research later.
There is quite a long section on the $100 computer. Initially dismissed as a total pipe dream ....the first model came in at $188. Not what was aimed at but remarkable nevertheless. And later models pushed the price down further...to $75?. It's interesting that just recently, I've read the the kids who had the computers haven't really outperformed the other kids at maths and academic subjects. (mainly because cheap computers get used ...like all other computers....mainly for games, social media, and watching porn). But really, the design company who developed this $100 computer changed the game.
Design, for some, is hope made visible...and sketching is a great tool to make it visible. It can be easier to show relationships (visually) than to describe them.
Bruce Mau curated a design show in Vancouver titled "the Massive Change exhibit"....With the idea that business, culture and nature were actually embraced by design...a kind of subset of design rather than the other way around. There were strong reactions (positive and negative) to the show but it seemed to resonate beyond the art museum world to city-design and business.
It's actually pretty useless asking people what they want because they usually just don't know. So design groups have been taking "deep dives" into the client's world and watching what they actually DO. In one case, adding a psychologist to the design team. (Just lost about an hour's work because I didn't save the review....this is really annoying with Library Thing that it doesn't have some sort of auto-save). A Chicago based consultancy firm has come up with a map for a single compelling human experience. There are five phases: attraction, entry, engagement, exit and extension. And, overlaying these there are six intensity based attributes which can be adjusted to make the experience more compelling: defined, fresh, immersive, accessible, significant, and transformative. They claim it can be applied to everything from visiting a hospital to building an educational class.
There is an interesting digression about the relationship between advertising and design. An example is given of Alex Bogusky who designed an anti-smoking campaign for teenagers in Florida. Basically they were not responding to ads like "Smoking kills" so Bogusky tried to find what the kids actually responded to. His answer: "Truth". So he designed a kind of movement ...with kids invading tobacco companies etc ....and it took on a life of its own. Smoking dropped by 38% in the target group.The claim is that if advertising is a promise: design is performance.
There is an interesting anecdote about a kid getting up at a Coca Cola conference and asking why (if coke is bad for health and bad for the environment) why don't they stop producing? Bruce Mau's response...I found vaguely unsatisfying: "You can't stop people doing what they like and I happen to like Coca Cola". That's the answer we have heard from the Tobacco Companies...who are now moving into different businesses. I think, maybe the kid had a point and Coca Cola does need to start thinking of health and environmental issues. With Pedigree dog food and Procter and Gamble, the design transformation was about changing the corporate culture ...making Pedigree a really dog focussed company and P&G more open and creative.
There is also an interesting segment on design for the developing world; Cheap housing, water purifiers etc. Design Activism...which seems to be taking off. However, there are some skeptics who have pointed out that previous utopian designer cities have not ended well. But there is also a recognition that it's not just sufficient to design a thing...you have to also figure out how to produce it, distribute it who pays for it, how to get people to use it etc.
Some of the constraints relate to the design cycle...whereby a product is designed, used and then junked...thus adding to the trash problem. Mau is pushing for a more integrated approach whereby the object instead of being junked is recycled as raw materials for the next iteration. An interesting design principle is to look at what the natural world has already developed via evolution.
Nor does one's personal life escape the designer's attention. After a health scare Mau looked at his life as a designer and redesigned his travel schedule and doesn't own a car. Designing for emergence is designing for the possibilities by also allowing for surprises along the way. In designing better lives for us the importance of social intersections has been recognised....this is a kind of US (or developed world) issue because many less developed societies have really strong and well developed villages and social life...even though they may not have great wealth in material possessions.
It is claimed the in terms of designing for happiness there needs to be a match between challenges and our creative skills...and if we are operating in the sweet spot here we will be engaged in meaningful activities which tend to keep us happy.
One of Mau's other principles about design is it doesn't really matter where you start: Start anywhere. Just start.
There are many other design methodologies. Warren Berger talks a little about the Stanford model: gaining expertise via empathy, 2. Framing the challenge, 3. generating options or ideas, 4. creating prototypes to test those ideas, 5. iterating or refining those prototypes based on feedback.
There is a lot of content in this book. And maybe it suffers from the fact that it's based a a series of interviews and then Bergen has had to try and pull all these disparate anecdotes into a coherent narrative. He does reasonably well at this but there is still the feeling that one is jumping around a lot. Nevertheless a fascinating book and one which has made me think a lot more about the place of design in our world.

[Crysta · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was passed out by our VP as a "must-read." I assumed it was about graphic design, but it was about so much more. I loved the multiple case studies about how design - whether in a product, a process, or an idea - can really be transformative, far beyond what we usually consider. This book is about opening your mind to a new way of thinking and a shift in worldview. Very much worth the read.

[Stacy Neier Beran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although I would jump at the chance to read a revised & revisited version of this book, Berger’s work stands the test of time. I finished this book one week before our global lockdown in March 2020, yet I regularly flip through its pages, read my annotations, and reflect on the stories during this fraught time. The concept design “glimmer” met my daily grind and infiltrated in ways to “make hope visible” (14). Through Berger’s narrative, I learned of design giants like Bruce Mau and Jane Fulton Suri. Berger’s integration of their perspectives may have initially read as provocative when first published, and more than 10 years later, their views give concrete foundation to an ongoing evolution of the role design plays in purpose-driven & values-based business. The concept of “smart recombinations” gives permission for all of us to “jump fences”, looking to adjacent fields for inspiration. These “jump fences” moments ultimately blur lines and simultaneously demonstrate the interconnectedness our world needs to move from human-centeredness to life-centeredness. Berger aptly encourages us to not know, that our lack of knowledge gives freedom for original discoveries. In other words, how often do we celebrate knowledge as mastery or as the enemy of innovation? What pragmatic considerations should we practice, with a consistent pursuit “to go out there and find people up to their elbows in the muck and beauty of life" (101). For design-curious and design-forward thinking, Berger’s book sets an important stage as contexts evolve. In a COVID-era world, we need to ask why, why, why, why, why to discover humans’ real needs and motivate “an upward spiral” (47) for sustained change.

[Mikaila · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in experience design.

[Phil Mendez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Loaded with catchphrases, buzzwords, and flash points, this is the sort of design compendium slick to avoid. It skirts the listicle genre and passes, just barely, as the type of nonfiction you find in the wafer-thin, and yet aggressively so, "I'm successful, so listen here" business advice replete in the aisles of massive bookstore chains. Several projects were praised on abstract qualities like innovativeness and future potential. One Laptop Per Child XO-1 is one such example in the book that conveniently pats Nicholas Negroponte on the back, admitting the process held to design thinking protocols like "jumping the fence" while conceding the actual project was a failure in terms of changing how kids learn and develop socially or intellectually. Kids used the laptops to play games. Or worse, they fundamentally mistrusted the use of computers. Further examples missed the basic ground rules and research/design etiquette--or rather, standards--for engaging communities. For example, a clever invention was one rolling ball that held and transported water. This was meant to be given to younger children who could fetch water for the rest of the community. However, I learned in a video lecture from a professor at my university, by chance, this invention was considered a failure because women, in this particular community, were accustomed to standing around as they collected water to exchange social information: they didn't want kids crashing their networking rituals. I may have been more receptive if this book didn't promise--on the cover no less--to "Transform Your Life, Your Business, and Maybe Even the World." It seems to me more like a misguided promise at best.

[Melissa Hicks · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really hadn't read the reviews for this until I finished the book, and it was funny to find that some folks had the same thoughts that I did. First, I think this is a great book! But, it took me quite a bit to get into it and get through it. This worried me at first, but I made it through. The reason it takes so long is that there is a LOT of information in here. Good information. Great examples. Deep thoughts. I checked this out from the library, but now I'm going to buy a copy of this. A definite must in my creative toolkit. The other BIG PLUS is the set of resources at the end of the book...from a glossary, to people, to websites, etc. This is a gem!

[Scott Wozniak · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was the first book I read on design thinking and it opened my eyes to a whole new world. To say that it impacted me would be an understatement. I ended up changing my role to do that kind of work full-time inside the company I was working for, then leaving that company to build my current company around it.

I have read other books that went deeper into the specifics on how to do each part of the process, so this isn't the first book I'd choose as a tactical manual on how to do it. But it's a great way to introduce yourself to a process (and a way of living) that produces breakthrough insights every single time.

[Alara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me a while to get into it, but once I did, I found this book is a great tool to showcase there are things we can all change by applying design principles. While reading it has also been extremely interesting to learn about different designers and inventors.

[Jason Trojanowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great read for fans of design thinking methodology and Bruce Mau. In depth and real life stories to prove the effectiveness of the method.

[Thomas Vree · Rating 5 out of 5]

Totally loved it. Some really great insights into design, and how design is becoming far more important to companies that want to survive and thrive in today’s world. Many companies think design is merely the packaging, the glossy veneer so to speak. But smart companies realize that design needs to extend not just to how the product looks, but everything. They need to design the whole experience, from how the product looks, but more importantly how it works, and the detailed research that goes into functionality, to how the company interacts with their existing and potential customers, via a website, phone interaction, etc.

It uses Bruce Mau’s terrific essay An Incomplete Manifesto For Growth
as a starting point.

Several sections were very profound, and one I thought was especially good.

Brian Collins of the firm COLLINS states that the experience design movement is reinventing the marketing model that has been dominated by advertising for the last half century. That old model made it feasible that a large company could offer a lackluster customer experience, yet still coax people to purchase its bland offerings, thanks to the sheer power of message bombardment. But over the past decade, a flip-flop began to take place. Ads started to lose their power because of changes in media (including more fragmentation and greater audience control and participation). Meanwhile, those same changes in the media heightened the importance of providing quality customer experiences because customers now had more ways to talk to each other. Today, increasingly, the experience is the advertising.

The companies that are unable to figure out how to design and deliver that experience have little else to do but make pleas for our attention that are mostly ignored–in other words, they advertise. Collins believes we may now be reaching the point at which advertising becomes the penalty paid by companies that cannot design well. “In this new environment,” he says, “you could think of traditional advertising as a tax on laggards.”
Glimmer p.147-148

It also delved into the curse of a lot of designers - that they’re interested in everything - that they want to learn and try everything. I can identify. Buckminster Fuller would call it being a ‘comprehensivist’.

“When I’m totally unqualified for a job, that’s when I do my best work. If you’re trying to find a new way to think about something to make it better, it can actually hurt you to have too much experience in that particular milieu–because you understand the expectations too well. And that can cause you to limit and edit your possibilities, based on what you already know ‘doesn’t work’. ” - Paula Scher

Another section touched on why being creative is such a charge.

People tend to think of happiness as a goal, but it’s more of a process, according to Martin Seligman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the former president of the American Psychological Association. Seligman maintains that there are two activities that lead to happiness. One is what he calls “engaging” activity–the challenging and often creative activity that tends to lead to a “flow experience.”

When you’re engaged in these types of creative activities, it activates an area of the brain called the nucleus accumbens that controls how we feel about life, according to Dr. S. Ausim Azizi, chairman of the department of neurology at Temple University’s School of Medicine. He noted that creative activities that you enjoy also stimulate the brain’s septal zone–the “feel good” area–and that makes you feel happy.

But the other part of the puzzle has to do with the second type of activity that can make you happy. Seligman has observed that in addition to those “engaging” or creatively stimulating activities, there are also “meaningful” activities that tend to make people happy. These, he says, involve “using what you’re best at to serve others or participate in a cause bigger than yourself.”

If you’re doing a certain kind of design–“problem solving design”–you are combining both types of activities. You are creating and contributing to a larger cause, simultaneously.

Through constant acts of creative design, you recreate yourself. You help propel your own growth spiral, feeding off the energy of creation. That’s not just a feeling, it’s a fact: being in that state of “design flow” raises the levels of neurotransmitters in your brain, such as endorphins and dopamine, and that keeps you focussed and energized, according to Dr. Gabriella Corá of the Florida Neuroscience Center. Glimmer p.264-266

[Benjamin Wallsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Original review taken from my blog, The Virtuosos.

CAD Monkeys, Dinosaur Babies, and T-Shaped People: Inside the World of Design Thinking and How It Can Spark Creativity and Innovation, by Warren Berger, had been sitting on the floor at the foot of my bookshelves – I’ve run out of room on the shelves so new books get put into prioritized piles on the floor – for a good six months before I finally got around to reading it. Despite its sometimes obvious advice, I’m sad that I didn’t pick it up sooner. The book is full of anecdotes from famous designers utilizing various techniques from a simplified list of strategies, which Berger calls “Glimmer Principles,” aimed at introducing design thinking – creative problem-solving – as a means to overcoming some of society’s greatest challenges.

Berger starts off listing the major groupings of the principles: Universal, Business, Social, and Personal. Some of the principles are head-smackingly simple, yet manage to produce the all-too-familiar, “Wow. Why didn’t I think of that?” A perfect example of this is Ask stupid questions. Of course, he doesn’t mean ask questions that are stupid, but questions that might be perceived as stupid by someone who is very familiar with the field in question. So, for instance, asking why we make the things we make or what makes us happy, would qualify as “stupid” questions given that they challenge the very foundations of the problems that we’re trying to overcome. It’s all about asking why things are the way they are. Comically, the approach of the three-year-old asking why after every answer an adult provides reflects this nicely. Other principles, however, are patently obvious and don’t really provide much to the genre of enlightened thinking, such as the principle of Facing consequences. I understand the necessity of its inclusion in the strategy for creating innovative thinking, but I’m not sure it deserved an entire chapter in the book. A few pages and a nice anecdote could have covered it sufficiently.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, and I’d recommend it to anyone who is at all interested in getting a basic understanding of the important considerations made in coming up with creative solutions to a variety of problems. The book’s greatest strength, I think, is its clarification of what design really is. The word generally connotes ideas of fashion, interior decorating, and general beautification of products and people. However, Berger makes a strong case that design – especially good design thinking – is integral to finding real solutions to society’s most difficult problems, not to mention the personal problems we, as individuals, face every day.

A perspective-altering quote that sums things up rather nicely, courtesy of Warren Berger: “I design, therefore I am.”

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been reading a lot lately about design -- it's a vastly misunderstood word. This book helped bring some clarity around the issue. After all, we're all designers.

Some highlights:

Design is a way of looking at the world with an eye toward changing it. To do that, a designer must be able to see not just what is, but what might be. And seeing is only the beginning. Designers are also makers. They take the faint glimmer of possibility and make it visible and real to others.

Ask stupid questions.

Take Field Trips, the bandwith of the world is greater than that of your TV set or Internet.

Begin Anywhere. Don't be afraid of confronting a blank piece of paper.

If you question the way things work but do nothing about it, you're more whiner than designer.

Designers are known for questioning that there is a joke acknowledging the tendency to question everything:
"How many designers does it take to change a lightbulb? Answer: Does it have to be a lightbulb?

Innovation happens when we seek Empathy. Frame the Challenge/Problem. Generate Options/Ideas. Create Prototypes. Iterations of the Answer.

[Sabin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although at times I felt that this book is just an updated version of Wikinomics (I sometimes doubt the updated part) aimed at designers, complete with some obligatory design-speak, it managed to keep me interested to the end. Although at times it just seemed to go all over the place with the examples, some practical, others technical, others personal or more artistic in nature, it kept coming back to the idea of design as the expression of human will and desire (and Macs, he always had to return to the Mac or iPod - basically deifying Jobs).
Even though it has its flaws (from my point of view), it's actually a great book - the book sometimes sounds like a basic self-help book, with the short and definite sentences, like the author expects you to put down the book and start applying the thing he was talking about. It has a wealth of examples and references (although not all of them new, especially when you realise you know most of them) and is a fine read.
There's nothing wrong with a little self-help advice for designers or wannabe-designers.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fascinating book on the way Design Thinking has changed the world, for better and worse, and what current Designers are doing to change everyone's life for the better. Every case study mentioned is amazing, my favorite being how Deborah Adler has revolutionized Target's pharmacy to make it easy to understand medication, and harder to take the wrong thing.

The worst part of this book is that it makes me want to go back to school and get into Design!

[Neelesh Marik · Rating 5 out of 5]

A practitioner's ready reckon-er on making the easy and difficult things happen. The following silver bullets embody the ready reckon-er themes, categorized in 4 fields where design thinking does apply.

Universal: Ask stupid questions, Jump fences, Make hope visible
Business: Go deep, Work the metaphor,
Social: Face consequences, Embrace constraints
Personal: Design for emergence, Begin anywhere

The following 2 videos summarize the ethos of the book.
http://glimmersite.com/about-glimmers...
http://www.youtube.com/user/WarrenBer...

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

A welcome surprise, and proof that maybe non-designers should write about design more often. While the stories here would be familiar to any somewhat informed person in the design field, Berger tells them in such a clear and compelling manner that even a seasoned (and skeptical) designer like myself gleaned new and inspiring insights. If you want a crash course in the present state of design and all its methods, I can't think of a better introduction for the novice or voyeur, not to mention a great resource for the seasoned design creative.

[Andrew Karpiel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Changed the way I think about the word design. Great case studies on designing better processes and solutions. Changed the way I look at the world around me. I have always been able to identify inefficiencies and bad design, but this book tipped me over the edge towards designing better processes.

The term design is used very broadly and the designers mentioned are often made out to be gods/heroes but other than that an inspiring and well written book for me an outsider to the design industry.

[Imelda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Warren Berger's Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Your Life and Maybe Even the World was insightful and eye-opening. Design is not only about beautiful packaging and choosing the perfect font for a poster, rather a method of finding or solving problems to improve our daily lives. Berger uses various real life design examples such as the iBOT wheelchair, starting from what inspired the designer to how it was finally created. The book is not only aimed at those who know about design but, anyone who enjoys reading about the subject, while promoting to apply the designer mentality to our lives.

[Joe Preston · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first book on the subject of Design, it was assigned to me for a senior capstone course on entrepreneurship and product design. I thoroughly enjoyed thinking about design from the eyes of designers, I felt like it offered me more mental tools to approach design thinking than learning fundamentals of design in a college course. It's an easy read and has some great anecdotes, pick it up at your local library if you'd like to learn about designing things as small as spatulas and as large as economies.

[Dan Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

This a book by designers who apply the term ‘design’ (too broadly) to encompass almost everything that is invented, created, painted, machined, or constructed. The main thing I enjoyed about this book was some of the creative examples of design used to solve hard problems, but it was a bit snooty from the design perspective and it referred to the great designer so and so and the amazing work of so and so else so much that it became annoying. Still a worthwhile read.

[Awortwi Dzimah · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exhilarating journey through a different dimension - this journey was so esoteric, illuminating and much like watching and being wowed in the scenes of "Dr. Strange". I am emboldened to do more and starts from anywhere...I can now appreciate that I am not the only one who finds comfort in the woods.

Great page-turner! Warren, I am onto all your books now: A more beautiful question, The book of beautiful questions...

[Nathanael Coyne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Warren Berger's Glimmer is a practical book on design in business and social innovation based around ten principles covering ethnography, creative thinking and working within constraints.

Read the entire review at purecaffeine.com:

http://www.purecaffeine.com/2010/07/b...

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the type of book I don't read often enough. A book that relates directly to my work and the whole process of thinking creatively. This is a paperback edition of the hardcover book Glimmer.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who has to think creatively on his job, which I would think is just about anyone.

[Scott Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me about a hundred pages to get into this. I found the first section repetitive and dull but it quickly became more interesting when the author began to discuss a wide range of examples of innovative design and explained how modern designers are working not only to design interesting products but also systems, cities and even personal lives.

[Tara Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book to help one understand the value of design thinking not only in business but in creating change in the world. It also discusses the brilliant work of designer, Bruce Mau, a evolutionary thinker.

[Theodore Kinni · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderfully written, story-driven exploration of the basic principles of design thinking and how they are being applied in the real world. This is the paperback; it was orginally published in hardcover and titled Glimmer.

[residentoddball · Rating 5 out of 5]

Captivating. I know a lot about Design Thinking, but this gave me the history, evolution, and depth of it. And it introduced me to Bruce Mau. If a book could describe you and how you think, this one would be mine.

[Anna Ambrister · Rating 5 out of 5]

My absolute favorite design book. I re-read it almost every year to keep my brain sharp and keep a steady reminder of why I love what I do as a designer. It’s quite holistic in terms of approach but feels applicable to all types of design. 10/10 would give it more stars if I could.

[Kim]

Love this book, tons of ideas to apply to my work!

[Laura]

This book is full of insights for a junior designer like myself.