Meet Ivy Ross
Ivy Ross is the Vice President of Design for Hardware at Google, so she is kind of a big deal, and yet somehow, until recently I had not heard of her. Maybe I have been living under rock and didn't realize it, but in the off chance that you are not familiar with her either, let me introduce you.
Ivy is doing some pretty notable things at Google right now, but she has a long history of doing cool things across a variety of fields. She began as a metal worker/ jewelry designer in New York City and eventually launched her own company "Small Wonders". Her "origin" story is rather interesting and worth reading here (timesensitive.fm) if you are interested. After Small Wonders she chose to make the move to the corporate world where she quickly transitioned from design positions to executive positions, always keeping creativity and human centered design at the front of her strategy and methodology. She has held a variety of positions at Avon, Swatch, Liz Claiborne, Bausch and Lomb, Coach, Calvin Klein, Mattel, the Gap/Old Navy, Art.com and finally Google.
Throughout her career Ross has maintained a focus on establishing and maintaining environments in which creativity can thrive. She considers herself something of a conductor, creating spaces and drawing in disparate talents at opportune moments in the service of creating something special. One such experiment was carried out at Mattel, where she was Senior Vice President of Worldwide Girls Design and Development. She christened the experiment "Project Platypus". Project Platypus was a "special ops unit" in which twelve employees of Mattel were brought out of their day to day responsibilities for three months to focus on designing and developing a completely new product/brand for Mattel. For the first two weeks Ross brought in outside speakers to pour new ideas and ways of thinking into the new "platipi". These speakers ranged from standup improv trainers, to Jungian analysts. She is a firm believer that for new ideas to emerge there needs to be new stimulus. (Austin Kleon also has a short post on this idea here. ) But new stimulus is just part of the equation. Other notable elements are giving employees the freedom to explore and creating a space that is outside of the workaday environment that sparks new thinking. The ultimate goal is of course a new viable asset (toy, brand, etc) for the company, but Ivy's immediate focus is on providing the needed stimulus and opportunity for true creativity, trusting that creativity and freedom will yield something not only usable but successfully innovative. She trusts in the process.
Over the years she has been employed to revive and foment creativity and innovation in a variety of companies. She has stated that one of her greatest challenges has been setting up corporate environments and team situations that better accommodate creativity. She feels that when it comes to product innovation most companies do not know what they are doing because they do not understand two critical aspects; (1) the environment in which creativity thrives and (2) the way in which people work together and collaborate. She feels that collaboration is often seen as a threatening concept and is undermined from the beginning by titles, established hierarchies, and fixed roles. The key to Ivy's success seems to be more of a sensitivity to the working environment than of establishing the correct approach, methodology, or strategy.
The latest and maybe the most prominent example of Ivy Ross's approach can be seen at Google, where she is the Vice President of Design for Hardware. She was tasked with bringing Google into the physical world. She asked, "What is it like to hold Google in your hand?" At the time this was an incredibly abstract thought. But as they drilled down into the principles and personality of Google three words consistently rose to the top of the discussion. Human, Optimistic, and Bold. These three terms became the anchoring principles of design. Human in this context came to represent accessibility. Optimistic came to represent a sense of fun. This is embodied in the Google logo being changed everyday on the browser; what other company does that? And Bold was drawn from such endeavors as developing driverless cars. Now that these ideas had been extracted from the company's history and ethos, the questions remained, "What is it like to hold Google in your hand?" To answer this question, Ivy created two distinct "labs" in the design department. One was a materials library. This was a first for the data technology company, and it's viability took a little convincing. The second was a color lab. Ivy is a very practical and tactile designer. Besides her sensitivity to the creative process itself, she is also attentive to the materials and their affect on our psyche. This approach proves to be very useful when you are trying to humanize technology. Her attention to and appreciation of materials is where I think her approach to object design very much overlaps with that of architects. The scale is obviously different, but the thought process and context consideration are comparable. She is not dealing with space, but she is working with human scale, volume, experience usability, and material functionality. It goes without saying (hopefully) that good solid fundamental design thinking crosses disciplines. Perhaps realizing, leveraging ,and developing this idea is what characterizes Ivy's career more than anything else. Much to her credit, she has consistently found success across a wide range of disciplines, contexts and expectations. This is why I felt the need to share about her. There is so much more interesting things to find about her so I have included a few links below.
A quality interview- surfacemag.com
Changing Google's Design Culture- designmilk.com
About Project Platypus- aiga.org
Google in Material Form- core77.com
A Creative Environment- forbes.com
Designing at Google- coolhunting.com
Some Other Things Worth Sharing.
Here is a beautiful “landscape hotel” in Norway. It is intimate with nature, it is sustainable, it is modern... fieldmag.com
Here is a short but vulnerable piece asking questions of depression that may not be all that uncommon.... coffeewithanarchitect.com
We have shared about the Burke Museum before, but that wont stop us from sharing more awesomeness… architecturalrecord.com
And this is just a great show to watch as you wind down at night (you can find it on Netflix)…. granddesigns.tv