Bauhaus Founded
Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany. The school’s integration of art, craft and technology profoundly influenced modern design education and later human-centred approaches to design practice.
Open record →Ideas made tangible
Landmark Projects
Discover projects, organisations, technologies and initiatives that translated emerging ideas into visible forms of practice.
Landmark work demonstrates how theories and methods are tested in the world. These records show how innovation has developed through experiments, institutions, products, services and public initiatives.
48archive records
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48 records
Eames Office Founded
Charles and Ray Eames established a practice blending design, experimentation, communication and learning that would influence generations of designers.
Open record →Bill Moggridge Associates founded
Founded his first company, Moggridge Associates. Located in London, UK.
Open record →David Kelley Design opens
David Kelley opens a design firm - David Kelley Design. This later becomes known as IDEO (1991).
Open record →Bill Moggridge (opens a second office called ID Two)
Bill Moggridge returns to the US and opens a second office, called ID Two. Located in Palo Alto, California.
Open record →Ken Friedman holds a research appointment at The Danish Design School
Ken Friedman is also a practicing artist and designer active in the international laboratory known as Fluxus. He had his first solo exhibition in New York in 1966. His work is represented in major museums and galleries around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Tate Modern in London, the Hood Museum of…
Open record →Stanford d.school Established
The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, known as the d.school, was founded at Stanford University. It helped popularise human-centred design thinking among students, entrepreneurs and organisations worldwide.
Open record →Aalto Design Factory opens
Aalto Design Factory was opened in 2008. Several student generations have started and completed their studies, a significant number of new faculty have joined the university. Aalto Design Factory (ADF) is an interdisciplinary product design and learning hub uniting students, teachers, researchers, and industry. We aim to build a new kind of passion-based…
Open record →Swinburne Design Factory opens
Swinburne Design began its Industry Placement program in the 1970s, and in 2011 year opened the Swinburne Design Factory in collaboration with Aalto University of Helsinki, Finland. Design Factory Melbourne brings together students, research leaders, industry partners and entrepreneurs to solve complex problems, generate innovative solutions and forecast…
Open record →Design Sprint Methodology Developed at Google Ventures
Structured approaches to rapid prototyping and testing gain widespread attention.
Open record →Bernard Roth - d.school design thinking model
Considered an expert and interviewed by Dr Maria Camacho in completion of her PhD thesis titled: An Integrative Model of Design Thinking
Open record →Marco Steinberg - Helsinki Design Lab model
Considered an expert and interviewed by Dr Maria Camacho in completion of her PhD thesis titled: An Integrative Model of Design Thinking
Open record →Wicked Problems Introduced
Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber introduced the concept of wicked problems to describe complex social challenges that resist straightforward definition and resolution. The concept remains central to design thinking today.
Open record →Stanford’s Human-Centred Design Programme Takes Shape
John E. Arnold joined Stanford in 1957 and established its Design Division. He recruited Robert McKim in 1958, helping form an interdisciplinary product-design programme rooted in creativity, engineering and human values.
Open record →Stanford Research Institute Established
The organisation would later influence innovation practices, design methods and strategic planning.
Open record →Design Management Institute Founded
The Design Management Institute helped connect design practice with strategy, organisational leadership and innovation, strengthening the professional field of design management.
Open record →Jeanne Liedtka joins Darden School of Business
A strategist and professor of business particularly known for her work on strategic thinking, design thinking and organic growth.
Open record →Ken Friedman creates strategic design course at Oslo Business School
Ken Friedman is Research Professor and until recently the Dean of the Faculty of Design at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. He works at the intersection of three fields: design, management, and art. Friedman works with theory construction and research methodology for design. He also works with design process and design thinking…
Open record →Ken Friedman - Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design at the Norwegian School of Management
Ken Friedman has done research in philosophy of design, doctoral education in design, knowledge management, and philosophy of science. He worked with national design policy in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Wales, and state design policy in Victoria, Australia. He is active in developing international research networks and conferences for the design rese…
Open record →The Designful Company: How to Build a Culture of Nonstop Innovation by Marty Neumeier
“The complex business problems we face today can’t be solved with the same thinking that created them,” says author Marty Neumeier in this entertaining and original read. Instead, he says, we need to start from a place outside traditional business thinking. In an era of fast-moving markets and leap-frogging innovations, we can no longer “decide” the way f…
Open record →The Designing for Growth Field Book : A Step-by-Step Project Guide by Liedtka and Ogilvie
Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Tool Kit for Managers (D4G) showed how organizations can use design thinking to boost innovation and drive growth. This updated and expanded companion guide is a stand-alone project workbook that provides a step-by-step framework for applying the D4G tool kit and process to a particular project, systematically expla…
Open record →Color TV Introduced
Color TV has been introduced in UK and next year in the USA, however it took years since the programme was actually broadcasted in color. Nevertheless it was a big turningpoint in motion and film design.
Open record →Herbert A. Simon conceives human cognition by computer simulation
Our work led us to feel increasingly the need for a more adequate theory of human problem-solving if we were to understand decisions. Allen Newell, whom I had met at the Rand Corporation in 1952, held similar views. About 1954, he and I conceived the idea that the right way to study problem-solving was to simulate it with computer programs. Gradually, com…
Open record →The Launch of Sputnik
The Soviet launch of Sputnik drives innovation, systems engineering and interdisciplinary problem solving internationally.
Open record →The Macintosh Project started by Jef Raskin
The Macintosh project started in the late 1970s with Jef Raskin (1943–2005), an Apple employee, who envisioned an easy-to-use, low-cost computer for the average consumer. He wanted to name the computer after his favorite type of apple, the McIntosh, but the name had to be changed for legal reasons. In September 1979, Raskin was authorized by the managemen…
Open record →Apple II Launches
Personal computing begins moving technology closer to everyday users and households.
Open record →First Apple mouse designed by IDEO
Steve Jobs (Apple) asks David Kelley to develop a mouse for their radical new computer, the Lisa. Image shown is the first consumer mouse, designed by IDEO for Apple.
Open record →Bill Moggridge designs the first laptop prototype
The Grid Compass, the first laptop with the archetypal hinged screen. This is a Laptop computer prototype. It was designed by Bill Moggridge and manufactured by GRiD Systems Corp. and design team member: Steve Hobson and Glenn Edens and firm: ID Two. It is dated 1981 and we acquired it in 2010. Its medium is die-cast magnesium, injection-molded plastic. I…
Open record →MIT Media Lab Founded
The lab becomes internationally recognised for combining design, technology and experimentation.
Open record →Google Founded
Google's emphasis on experimentation, user experience and data-informed decisions influences digital innovation.
Open record →Google Search Launches
A transformative moment in information access, knowledge discovery and digital experience design.
Open record →Wikipedia Founded
A large-scale example of collaborative knowledge creation and open participation.
Open record →YouTube Launches
User-generated content changes how people create, share and learn.
Open record →Twitter Launches
Social media creates new opportunities for participation, collaboration and community engagement.
Open record →Apple Introduces the iPhone
The device becomes a landmark example of integrated experience, service and ecosystem design.
Open record →Service Quality Research Expands
Researchers increasingly examined customer experience, service encounters and service quality, helping prepare the ground for service design.
Open record →Service Design Begins Emerging as a Discipline
Design practice increasingly expanded beyond physical products to consider services, customer journeys, interactions and the systems that support experiences.
Open record →Service Blueprinting Gains Recognition
Service Blueprinting methods provide ways to visualise customer and organisational interactions.
Open record →Service Design Network Founded
The Service Design Network created an international platform connecting service-design academics and professionals and helped advance the field’s global development.
Open record →Service Design Thinking Published
One of the key publications helping consolidate service design as a recognised discipline.
Open record →Service Design Becomes Mainstream
Organisations begin mapping customer journeys and designing entire service ecosystems.
Open record →This is Service Design Thinking: Basics, Tools, Cases by Stickdorn and Schneider
How to design and market services to create outstanding customer experiences. Service design thinking is the designing and marketing of services that improve the customer experience, and the interactions between the service providers and the customers. If you have two coffee shops right next to each other, and each sell the exact same coffee at the exact…
Open record →This is Service Design Thinking — Stickdorn & Schneider
Landmark service design publication.
Open record →Stanford Technology Ventures Program Expands
Entrepreneurship, innovation and design increasingly intersect in higher education.
Open record →Airbnb Founded
Frequently cited as a case study in customer-centred innovation, prototyping and experimentation.
Open record →Design Thinking Enters Government Innovation Programmes
Public-sector organisations increasingly used design approaches to improve citizen services, policy development and organisational innovation.
Open record →OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation Launches
The OECD formally launched its Observatory of Public Sector Innovation, supporting governments to share practices and strengthen experimentation and innovation in public services.
Open record →IDEO launches Circular Design Guide
Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, explains the circular economy and why designers need to get involved. To learn how to start designing differently, visit the Circular Design Guide. Website: YouTube:
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