Design. Charity. Life.

The world’s richest man, Bill Gates, has finally launched a website – well, blog, I guess. It’s kind of its own unique thing.

When I was younger I would Google Bill Gates, to learn about his wealth, innovation and personal innitiatives. But the information was always so limited (other than news and a simple profile page on Microsoft.com). I thought it was so crazy that a guy who built up the computer industry and spent years developing for the Internet, didn’t even have his own domain name registered – I would go to BillGates.com and be so confused that nothing was there. Of all people, I thought, he should have a website. At that point I completely forgot about it and gave up.

Recently, Gates joined Twitter and re-joined Facebook. Within only 8 hours of him joining Twitter, he had 100,000 followers! Record-breaking.

Then, one day last week, I see this: Welcome to the Gates Notes:

Since leaving my fulltime job at Microsoft to dedicate more time to our foundation, a lot of people have asked me what I’m working on. It often feels like I’m back in school, as I spend a lot of my time learning about issues I’m passionate about.

Gates finally decided to put his thoughts out there, online, with a bit more time.

I thought it would be interesting to share these conversations more widely with a website, in the hope of getting more people thinking and learning about the issues I think are interesting and important. So, welcome to the Gates Notes.

Based on the way some things are worded on the site, though, I’d say he had a dedicated team of staff putting everything together. Why wouldn’t you, when you have billions?

The website encompasses a varity of things, like his travels, conversations, questions, etc. Design-wise, there’s even colour and logo branded-sections:

And it’s quite nice, design-wise. There’s an interesting interface, in terms of the site’s navigation. It’s colour-coated and each section moves depending on what you mouse-over.

It will be interesting to see how well Mr. Gates keeps the site updated. Of course he’s a really busy guy. But it looks like they’ve put a ton of work into adding content for the launch, giving it the appearance having been active for years.

Here’s a quick video interview from CNET about his new online presence:

The Official Website of Bill Gates is found at www.thegatesnotes.com.

What can we learn from designers? That’s what author Warren Berger asks in Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Your Life and Maybe Even the World.

This question, I would say, is very interesting to everyday people or the general population, as well as to myself as a design student. Berger explains the book started with him trying to personally answer the basic question, “What is design?”

I’d been writing about it on and off for years, for magazines like Wired, and it was always interesting to me that the term was used in so many different ways. As I started collecting definitions, I stumbled upon an intriguing yet anonymous quote: “Design is the glimmer in God’s eye.” That word “glimmer” resonated with me. It’s a word associated with “potential” and “possibility.” – Warren Berger

Berger explains that we can learn a lot from designers about how to face up to problems, look at them with a fresh eye and an open mind, and begin to solve them in a step-by-step manner.

Designers jobs are to bring about positive change

The part I find most interesting, what stands out the most, is his comment that “a designer’s job is to bring about positive change.” Progress happens by design, Berger states. I completely agree with these statements and this philosophy is the reason I have chosen to major in design.

While I haven’t yet read this book, it’s considered to be “a breed apart from all of the many design thinking books hitting the shelves, and worth a further look“.

Featured in the book is designer Bruce Mau, who has designed everything from textiles to museums. What I find amazing about Mau is that his philosophy is to always look for bigger challenges – despite already having had clients like Frank Gehry, MTV and Coca Cola, he continues to pursue this big question: “Now that we can do anything, what will we do?”

Warren Berger, author of Glimmer, explains how design thinking can be applied to many of our personal, business, and social challenges in the video below:

Clearly, design is more than good looks. This book and message is designed to help everyone realize this, instead of only designers. There is a lot to be learned by all of us from these individuals, amongst many other great design thinkers.

“Design is the human capacity to plan and produce desired outcomes.” – Bruce Mau

“Progress happens by design”- Warren Berger

Nothing you agree with above? Suggest one in Other or post a comment here.

If you’re looking for design inspiration, there’s a ton out there. You can spend all day browsing through portfolio sites, magazines, and walking downtown. But here are some things I’ve found helpful so far.

One thing I recommend is to subscribe to design magazines. Some have student prices, though they’re still not very cheap, but worth it. Some of the ones I suggest are Adbusters, Print, Wired, Communications Arts and Wallpaper.

There are also tons of other magazines that you can checkout online that range from general news to creative that cover work and ideas from the arts world. Some I don’t read regularly but have been recommended to me: Azure, ID Magazine, Vogue, National Geographic, Popular Scientist, TIME, Scientific American, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair.

A lot of times my inspiration and ideas and everything comes from what I see online. Constantly search through sites of designers and agencies to see their work. Some that I have bookmarked in the past include Abduzeedo.com, Logo Design Love, Leo Burnett, Just Creative Design, Droga5, I Love Typography, and I’m Just Creative.

If you’re not on Twitter, get Twitter! Don’t know who to follow? There’s a site that lets you put in a keyword (e.g. graphic design) and gives you a huge list of people that are designers or agencies, that you can then follow. It’s amazing, you get links to some really great articles, tips, ideas, resources, even tutorials. Here are more than 85 of the best Twitter users designers should follow.

Also, one of my former highs school teachers, Diana Prior, is building a website right now at teachcreativity.ca which will be full of great resources on creativity, creative advertising, entrepreneurship, and more.

Why look at all of this stuff, you ask? To be exposed! To be aware of current trends – not only in the design industry, but in technology and healthcare and everything in between.

“Design is art people use” – Ellen Lupton

Branding an educational institution would definitely be challenging, if I could imagine. There’s pressure to stay classic and academic but not too ‘old’ vs. taking a risk to make it modern but not too ‘cool’ and unprofessional, to begin with. Case in point: University of Waterloo.

In the spring of 2009, the University of Waterloo announced plans to re-brand and update their image. They wanted to start by simply putting up banners in the summer – however, their new logo design was leaked and has since caused an incredibly outcry from students and the community. There was a Facebook group called Students and alumni against the new University of Waterloo logo that had over 5,000 members in its beginnings and now as over 9,000.

As the design blog Under Consideration writes, the main complaint throughout is that the new logo is not dignified enough and it does not represent the school.

Since September, the school’s opinion site has been flooded with comments on the logo, and a Facebook page has been created to collect opinions on the logo – all of this serious consideration taken after the original plans were to be officially launched this fall.

Now, the university seems to have been left with only one choice: to accept and review feedback. The team then went through 131 iterations of the logo. As of July 24, 2009 they have begun to “share the new visual identity system with campus groups” and are preparing for a reveal in the November issue of Waterloo Magazine. On August 28, the University of Waterloo’s identity task force announced that they would have to re-evaluate the prototype logo.

From the very start, the University officially described it as part of a way of “How to better tell the Waterloo story“. I wish them luck in doing so, while keeping all of their students from transferring schools!

If this is the reaction Waterloo (a school recognized for sciences, engineering and quantum computing) is getting, I could not even begin to imagine the feedback OCAD (the university of design, art and imagination) will get when they re-brand their logo in the near future!

So, Waterloo student or not, what do you think?

[Update]: MJ Braide, the Lead Brand Strategist on the project, shares what they would do differently next time: ”Perhaps we would not have taken no for an answer when we invited the entire student community to engage and only 11 obliged. As she reflects on it Meg observes that she might have stood her ground a bit harder on the logo. It was was a great design with real integrity.”

[Inside Perspective]: Lead Brand Strategist MJ Braide shares the inside story on her blog here.