Hello, everyone. So for our interview today, we will meet an industrial designer by the name of Eric Fields. Eric Fields is an industrial designer at a design consultancy called Ammunition based in San Francisco. Eric Fields has a degree in industrial design from Arizona State University. And at Ammunition, he's been doing some really interesting work including the product that he will talk about in the interview today which is the Beats headphones. The Beats brand and the Beats product, the Beats company, is now acquired by Apple. But there is a series of innovations, a series of products and Brand expressions that Ammunition designed for Beats and Eric was involved in that project pretty actively. And so in today's interview, you will hear from Eric about the world that he did with Ammunition on the Beats project. Before going to Ammunition, Eric worked at a company called Bold Design, which is also a design consultancy in the Bay Area. And while at Bold Design, where he was for several years, he was involved in the design of a thermostat that is now referred to as the Nest. The Nest is a company that was acquired recently by Google, but their claim to fame or their most popular product, the famous product is the Nest thermostat. And a thermostat essentially as may of you might know is a device that's installed inside homes to regulate temperature in the home typically. But this Nest is a smart device and it know your rhythms, it can adjust temperature when you walk into the house. So it's a whole series of really interesting innovations and Eric was involved very actively in the design of the Nest thermostat. So Eric has in his portfolio under his belt, two really amazing products, the Nest and the Beats, in addition to a whole load of other work that he has done as well. So Eric is a very talented industrial designer, he also is a motorcycle enthusiast, so he takes a part and rebuilds vintage motorcycles. And actually, when we did our interview with Eric, he was injured from an accident that he had on the motorcycle, but was brave enough and strong enough to still do the interview with us. So, you'll meet Eric Fields, and you will see some of his work in today's interview. Thank you. So Eric, thank you for doing this interview with me. Maybe we can start with you telling us your name and the company that you work for and what the company does. >> Yeah, my name is Eric Fields and I'm a Senior Industrial Designer at Ammunition in San Francisco. At Ammunition, we focus primarily on working with startups and growing their companies into larger businesses. We do a range of services from branding to industrial design, packaging, service, UI, UX. And ideally we work with young companies that want all of those services as a package. >> So does it help that you're based in San Francisco and working with startups because this is a place [CROSSTALK] >> Yeah absolutely, like a lot of the startups we work with they're either down street from us or couple, not too far of a drive away. Maybe an hour at the most. So absolutely, yeah. >> Personally I know you are an industrial designer, a product designer. What kind of work do you typically do for Ammunition, just give us a couple of examples of things you've worked on. >> Yeah, so a lot of companies that we work with can be anybody from a small-scale startup that's just getting started. It needs a lot of experience and guidance throughout the product development process. Some examples of those clients is one that's really well known, it's Beats by Dr. Dre that originally started as a really small startup just like any other start up. And that quickly turned into a pretty large company that then got acquired by Apple. I'd say that's probably the most commercially successful client that we've worked with. But we also do projects with companies as large as Google. >> And then before you joined Ammunition you worked at Bold? Could you talk about some of your projects there just briefly? >> Yeah, well, the similar working model that we worked with a lot of startups and pretty well-established companies. A notable client there was Nest, and we worked on the first generation Nest thermostat there. And really kind of helped not only launched that product into the successful company that got acquired by Google, but also into kind of something that created an icon for the Internet of Things. Which is pretty interesting to see it sort of be referenced by future clients as, everybody kind of wanted to be the next Nest, and everybody kind of wanted to have that same sort of success and ownership of whatever their product was. >> What does innovation mean to you? How do you define it? How do you practice it? Sort of your general understanding of innovation? >> Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting word around this area, just because it's used a lot and that's kind of become so ambiguous in terms of what it actually means. And I think what's interesting about it is that I think you see it happening at a lot of different levels and a lot of different scales. It could be as small as an industrial designer resolving a detail on a part with a use of material or shape or something that's innovative in its own way. It could be as large as something that changes the way a business operates or changes the way people perceive transportation or something like that. So I think that there's a huge spectrum of what innovation can be. I think that what makes innovation good or what separates it from just sort of being innovative for the sake of being innovative is not really the method by which it's doing something but more rather the experience that it creates for people. I think that there can be a tendency in the technology sector for there be sort of technology applied to something just because it can be a solution looking for a problem in a way. And not necessarily because it should be done that way. So I think that sort of is where you can distinguish what is to the real innovation like good innovation rather than just sort of what somebody thinks they might be doing that is innovative. >> So you say things that are purely technologically driven, just designing a product because you have the technology to do it is not the way it should be and whether this is on the human experience? >> Absolutely, yeah. I think that the experience is key and then I think of that is oftentimes can be the role or the value of design, with technology and sort of developing innovative products is that really just bringing that sort of human-centric thinking into it. And just really thinking how does this value, or what kind of value does this bring to individuals or population, to a group of people, just having that human understanding of what is good and what is right. Not necessarily just technology for technology's sake. >> You actually almost led into the next question. I'm always somewhat confused and I see these terms overlapping, design and innovation, but in your mind, and I think you started answering the question. In your mind how do you see design and innovation related or similar or dissimilar or connected or overlapping or? >> Yeah, I think with technology from my experience with working with startups and lot of companies in the Bay Area I think that The relationship there is really sort of a continuum of design that I think that's where we see the most successful is where design and engineering. And you know all the different teams are sort of working in continuum and that nobody is working in a vacuum. I think that is where things can really fall apart is when say you're an entrepreneur and you go off and start developing an idea or technology. And the old model of doing that was come up with the idea, have an engineer create an architecture or archetype of how that works. And then have the designer make it look good, and I don't think that works any more. I think that things are too complicated for that to work really well. So I think that the successful relationship between design innovation is that really just being a continuous conversation on having design brought in the beginning. So that there can be sort of a different perspective of how the technology can be embodied. And yeah, I think just really making sure that that's an ongoing conversation and I think it's important that all the disciplines sort of understands what the other discipline brings to the table and that design is accommodating engineering. That they understand engineering so that they can help that product be innovative and esthetically pleasing, and cost effective and all those other [INAUDIBLE] sort of things. >> So hey could you talk about some of the products that you worked on, some of the stuff that you've done an animation that's it's innovative and interesting for us to look at it and discuss. >> Absolutely, yeah so we can first start with a couple of Beats products. I didn't design this personally myself, but just in terms of innovation I think that these start to touch on the sort of innovation on a smaller scale about just how something was resolved and embodied into a form. And I think that when you look at headphones in the way that they need to fit on people's heads there's a lot of articulation that needs to happen to make things comfortable. And typically on older headphones there is a lot of visible mechanical parts and I think that this is a great example of just pure innovation on a physical level in terms of how you can come up with more well resolved mechanisms. So you have this floating gimbal here. It's captured by this rubber diaphragm that allows the ear cup to pivot in multiple directions on this. Even sort of the way that the hinge is built in to here, that you don't really see any mechanical details, but you feel the click of the size adjustment on that. And then it also has the hinge built in, so for collapsibility for storage. >> Wonderful. >> So I think that that's one example of how it can be innovation on a smaller scale level. >> So this moves because of the mechanism inside. >> Yeah, there's essentially a ball joint in there and it's captured by this rubber diaphragm that gives it that kind of spring-loads it. So in terms of different colors too, for the >> Yeah, and then also, this is just an example of how it translates across a broader product range and just more of an example of how you can >> Expand design DNA into different types of products, different types of price points. These ones have an interesting pivoting mechanism, they were originally intended to be a DJ headphone, and that's a scenario where you want to have one speaker up so it has this pivoting mechanism here. >> Fantastic. >> And then that's also where the length adjustment happens. So for the height here larger head [CROSSTALK] >> That's wonderful. >> And then this also joins the pivot mechanism. >> So either one could be moved out? >> So yep either one could be moved out, and then it can also rotate all the way in for storage. >> Fold yeah. >> That folds up into a case into something really small. And yeah, it's a good examples of something that very well resolved on purely a design level. All the mechanical parts are reduced into things that become very beautiful, very functional, very durable. >> There's a product, there's graphics, there's the engineering throughout come together very well >> Yeah, and that's another example of where it requires a lot of good team effort on the engineering level as well too. I mean you have a cable that's going in here that needs to pivot around. So that the electrical connections can happen. And then, also, the way that things can assemble together to minimize the appearance of the fasteners. It's a good example of some collaboration between idea and engineering. >> Wonderful. Same here on this speaker. It's very subtle but the way this center band is constructed has a plastic frame on the inside that basically gets a double shot over it. So what that does is it creates this really strong kind of center chassis, and also incorporates all the buttons into it. >> Buttons on it, yeah. >> So in terms of waterproofing, it's very water-resistant. It's very resistant to wear and it captures the foot in one part. So you not only have a chassis that everything assembles into, but you have a foot, you have your buttons, you have everything that's basically capturing what one looks like, one material. [CROSSTALK] >> This is a beautiful product. >> And then, there is some clutter engineering. You have areas that are rigid, and then areas that are soft for the buttons. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> So in terms of the form the kind of language that was developed in those days they all connect look like a part of a family. >> Yeah. >> And I'm assuming that was consciously built into the design of the products the color as well? >> Yeah, and that's you know just through a lot of sort of iteration and questioning how do these different sort of elements and details translate into different types of products. Two things that have completely different sort of function and where they, the environment in which they live in. But together, create a more cohesive family. So I think that there's just a lot of sort of aesthetic sensitivity that goes into developing that. So there's a certain geometric nature, a certain treatment of the logo and the sort of how details are done on the two different designs. But together they make sense as a family. >> I like the way the logo is actually incorporated into the design. It seems to it looks like the B was supposed to be there, it doesn't look like it was added on or- >> Right, yeah. >> So I'm assuming you worked on a large team with people from a variety of disciplines to manage the range of products, but also the innovative nature of the designs >> Yeah I mean, I think that the teams are relatively small which is good that it keeps a circle of communication very direct and open, but definitely requires people to have expertise in areas that are outside of just industrial design. I think engineering is huge, manufacturing is big and I think those three coming together and just really having sort of a similar understanding and goal of what this product should be. That's imperative to get a design out on the shelf that matches the intent of the designer. >> Mm-hm. So you've worked on some phone designs, as well, that you could talk about? >> Yeah, this is another product I did that I They're sort of interesting for different reason. So that this is this called Obi. This is a smartphone company focused on developing countries. So starting with India was the primary focus. So that idea there was that the low end smart phone market is just largely ignored, by design. That usually companies like to focus on the higher end scale of the price point. >> The more expensive products? >> Right, And so the thing with this company is that there's just a large market there in a lot of developing countries that, they're not buying these expensive phones, because they simply can't afford them. And the options that they're left with are basically the leftover, sort of ignored models by luxury manufacturers that are basically just sourcing off the shelf. Phones from China and selling them to these countries. And so this company basically wanted to take the sort of aesthetic values that we have with our experiences and with other products and bring that to a cheaper price point. So again I think in terms of innovation it's on a very technical level about how you can make things still very simple and elegant, but that they can be done in a way that is low cost. Which is very, very hard to do. And especially within the smartphone market that even just the internal components are quite expensive so the leftover that you get for bottom cost on product and packaging is actually quite small. So what's great about these is that they are very well-functioning Android phones. They have the latest in chipsets and software and capabilities. But they are relatively nice design at a low price point. >> Yeah, and there's some color variation on that as well? >> Yeah, I don't have all of them with me, but we did create a color family with these and we also sort of are developing a larger portfolio for the company as well, too, that there's a range of price points within that lower spectrum. >> Is that an Indian company selling products in an Indian market or is it a company from elsewhere? >> The company is primarily based in India and it's partnered with Ammunition to be a design partner. >> Actually, when you were at Bold Design, you worked on the Nest which has become a really popular product, obviously a famous product and was acquired by Google. Can you talk about the design of the Nest as well? >> Yeah. I think in terms of innovation, I think that that's probably the best example that I can think of for something that I've been able to work on that sort of really bodies innovation, not only a small scale level but on a larger level. I think that if you look at just their core idea, it's not necessarily about changing and adjusting the temperature in your house. But there's also the added benefit of the energy savings that you get. There's the sort of a broader benefit there that you're not only helping save money on your home bill, you're also doing something that's better for the environment. It has the right use of technology where it's adapting to what your needs are in the home, how many people are there, what your daily routine is in the house. So it's sort of an accommodating view much more than sort of what a traditional adjustable thermostat was prior to that. And you get this benefit that basically after a certain amount of time, the product has paid for itself from the savings that you get from your home, from your energy bill. So I think that is really sort of interesting case study and something that has actually innovated. Really given something to the consumer that not only they replace this gaudy plastic thing that was use to live on their wall that they were stuck with something that looks really nice, but also something benefits them. >> So then you worked on the industrial design, the user experience for the project activity and all that? >> I worked on the early concept of the industrial design. So a lot of the form and material and the sort of aesthetics and stability of it. >> So one of the questions for people in this class is what can I do to be as innovative as I can, as an individual. And the second question is, slightly broader. What kind of company do it? It's a small, start up, company or a large organization. So, if you could address those two questions, that would be great. >> I think, that's a really, really tough one. And I think that in some instances, you don't actually really know what's going to be innovative until it gets further down the road. So I think it's important to keep an open mind and sort of see what things can become. Prior to that, I think just being very communicative and talking to the people around you, talking to the people that you work with, talking to your clients, and keeping that really sort of open dialogue is really, really important. I think that to really innovate and have all these teams of people that are working together that it really such demands, there's lot of trust between each other. That ideas can be shared and there's going to be a lot of discussions without any sort of fear of judgement, and any kind of worrying if your ideas are dumb ideas. So I think that building that trust with your clients and your colleagues so that you can just have this open dialogue communication, I think, is probably one of the biggest benefits that you can do for yourself. because I think that it really requires people to bounce ideas off each other's heads sometimes, to come to an idea, or make innovation happen.
