Design

First we had IQ. Next came EQ. Now, Bruce Nussbaum introduces CQ — Creative Intelligence. In his new book Creative Intelligence: Harnessing the Power to Create, Connect, and Inspire (Amazon, BN, or IndieBound), Nussbaum, a former assistant managing editor of Businessweek and a current Professor of Innovation and Design at Parsons-The New School of Design, makes […]

From the Department of Why the Heck Didn’t I Think of That? comes SayWhat, a new Android app that “lets 
you introduce the subject of your call, set 
the mood and check the availability of the 
person you’re calling before or while placing
 the call.” Check out the 1-minute video below. Then spend at least […]

In a survey last week, the Pew Research Center asked a question whose form I’ve come to find interesting and useful: “What one word best describes Barack Obama/Mitt Romney/Joe Biden/Paul Ryan?” (As it happens, in my upcoming book, I use this type of question to show what people really think of sales.) The answers to these […]

If you “build a better mousetrap,” Ralph Waldo Emerson supposedly told us, “the world will beat a path to your door.” But, c’mon, who does that anymore? Roger Arquer, it turns out. Using off-the-shelf items such as beer glasses and soy sauce bottles, Arquer has built traps designed “only to catch mice, not to kill […]

The College for Creative Studies, the excellent art and design school in Detroit, has launched one of the smartest ad campaigns I’ve seen this year. The objective: Get students (and parents) to consider a BFA or MFA. The technique: The posters you see below.

For the last maybe 20 years, I’ve been complaining about pennies. At first I was impressed by the spontaneous order in solutions like the “Have one, leave one. Need one, take one” dish. Then I realized that such accommodations only propped up an evil regime — and I griped to anyone who would listen that […]

This morning, while straining to get my cognitive gears to engage, I stumbled across two tidbits of advice that made the task easier and prepared me for the week ahead. The first came from Brain Pickings, one of my favorite sites. Proprietress Maria Popova unearthed a 1972 Q&A with the legendary Charles Eames. The whole thing […]

In The Adventures of Johnny Bunko, our hero comes up with what he thinks is a revolutionary, category-busting new idea. Inspired by a passing bird, he decides that his company should make shoes with seeds embedded in them. As the shoe wears out, the seeds are distributed wherever the owner happens to walk. And when […]

A few years ago, I took a five-day drawing class in New York City that changed my life. I entered the class a complete ignoramus on matters visual. By week’s end, I was somewhat less of an ignoramus — because, to my amazement, I had begun learning how to see. Drawing, as I discovered that […]

In an inspired act of crowdsourcing, showmanship, and democratic participation, National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman has turned to us to refashion the NEA’s visual identity. Yesterday Landesman announced that his modest but mighty federal agency was accepting submissions to redesign the logo for the NEA’s “Art Works” initiative. As the NEA blog […]