The 'Designs on Portland' discussion series continues tonight at Design Within Reach. This time the stage will be a little more crowded, but worth the crunch.
The program was suggested by my colleague Tim DuRoche, who wears many hats as a community outreach coordinator for Portland Center Stage, a jazz drummer, and a blogger for Portland Spaces. Tim will be joining me onstage to interview Sohrab Vossoughi, founder and president of Ziba Design and Daniel H. Wilson, Ph.D., author of Where's My Jetpack: A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future That Never Arrived.
Called "Designing Dreams, Engineering Desire", the talk will delve into the broad, intertwining relationship between form and function. Advertisers talk about selling not the steak but the sizzle. Yet ultimately a great product or design needs both: to work well but also to conjure an emotional response. That's true with the smallest child's toy or a massive work of architecture.
Wilson's involvement will allow us to look at how visions of the future not only don't always pan out, but sometimes retain a life of their own. Particularly, the future visions imagined in the mid-20th century, of jetpacks and hovercraft and Tomorrowland, seem to have a staying power in the imagination. We've invented the Internet, human cloning, even holograms. Yet sometimes the 1950s vision of our future still looks more exciting. Why is that?
Sohrab Vossoughi is already well known to many Portlanders in the design profession. Ziba was originally known as an award-winning industrial design firm behind products like Microsoft's ergonomic keyboard and squeegees for Rubbermaid. But Ziba has in the past few years branched out toward creating experiential design--a combination of marketing, architecture and more--for clients like Umpqua Bank and the South Waterfront Discovery Center. Sohrab was also included in an Oregonian story I wrote earlier this year on the top ten people in Portland architecture and design.
Funnily enough, there are actually two books about the disappearing dream of jetpacks, both by people with Portland connections. My good friend Mac Montandon, who used to write for Willamette Week and now is a Brooklyn-based editor/writer, just came out with the book Jetpack Dreams: One Man's Up and Down (But Mostly Down) Search for the Greatest Invention That Never Was.
Because this event will be more of a full-fledged conversation instead of a slideshow by the guest and then a few questions, Tim and I would like to encourage people to offer questions for the panelists, whether you'll be there in person or not. For those of you who are interested in coming, though, the event is tonight at 6:30pm at Design Within Reach, 1200 NW Everett on the ground floor northeast corner of the Wieden + Kennedy building.
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Ziba relies too heavily on its relationships in China. They need to learn to embrace American manufacturing. I know we can’t manufacture everything in America, but yes, products can be made profitably in America. In fact, manufacturing products here can have some huge strategic advantages like quicker time to market, lower component inventory, ability to quickly respond to market changes and yes quality.
I get the impression that companies like Ziba and Nike don’t even consider American manufacturing.
Posted by: Steve | November 25, 2008 at 05:01 PM
www.ziba.com. Perhaps you are confusing the Portland design consultancy with another company. Ziba doesn't manufacture anything.
Posted by: kalliope | November 29, 2008 at 12:39 PM
No, I am talking about the products they design. They COULD and should have a huge impact on where the product is produced.
Of the products they have designed, what percentage are made in America? Do they care?
Posted by: Steve | December 01, 2008 at 05:52 PM