YouSaid · the spoken record

Frank Stephenson

lines on the record: 101
first: 2020-02-18
most recent: 2020-02-18
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Yeah, I think you said it right there. The key word is adaption. If you can't adapt, you're going to pretty much fail at the task at hand. You have to be in the design world. We can't stay with a solution that we've always had. It's always about finding a better way because there's competition out there. It's a dog-eat dog world out there. And if you can't find a way to adapt and to change to find the solution for any problem, then you're going to fall behind. So it's all about staying, like we said earlier, staying relevant to the problem at hand.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, nature is, you know, there's nothing futuristic in nature. It's all there. All we have to do is peel back the layers and find out how they've managed to make something successful because obviously in nature something's not well designed. It won't stick around for very long. So there are solutions in nature which are surprising to us today, obviously. We're still looking at solutions that astound us or fascinate us or that we think magical almost in a way. But again, the...”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Fish are much more efficient at creating aerodynamic shapes or hydrodynamic shapes, actually, than planes are. So I think we're looking at the wrong direction. We should be looking under the sea as opposed to looking at standard aerodynamic shapes when we want to do new aircraft design.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Could be used for or could look like at the moment we're going with man-made solutions pretty much. And I think if we look. In nature, how they do it, wings aren't attached. They're basically growing out of a surface. It's a lot more efficient. Obviously birds have different functions and different ways of doing the task at hand. Not every animal or every organism does the job with the same solution. They find different ways to achieve it. But there is an advantage, I think, in, for example, what I'm working or I've been working on in terms of aircraft design lately or recently is the way of combining different shapes in nature to achieve a very efficient functioning flying object. I won't go into too much detail, obviously, but the basic concept is that if you looked up into the sky and thought you were seeing a fish, then you're on the right track because of what we spoke before.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just haven't really pushed forward very much. The most innovation comes obviously from the military aviation where planes are basically designed to be or these military aircraft are designed to be unstable so they can maneuver much more quickly. But there are innovations to be found in nature, in birds, to make planes look completely different and much more efficient than what we have today. I wouldn't call planes today boring, but they're basically, I would say, you know, you have most often in the commercial world a tube with a few winks attached to it. And obviously that's space efficient and it's easy to build and to repair and to maintain. But at the same time, I think we're losing out a lot on what an aircraft in the future potentially”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How do you think about that? Yeah, I mean, the thing that increases safety, the way they do it in aviation at least, is they do, they use something called redundancy, which means if something fails, they'll have a backup system and the chance of something failing is at a very high level of improbability. So they use redundancy basically. If something fails, that shouldn't fail to have a backup system for it. But I think the innovation side of aviation hasn't been reached yet because we're still using ideas of aerodynamics that are pretty much, I'd say, outdated still and not, I mean, we're using Lyft, wings for Lyft. We're using propulsion methods that are still antiquated or not antiquated.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The flow or to get people from one place to another a lot quicker than we do today. And as in everything, safety is key there. It's, you know, we all see flying. We saw flying and the past is being a little bit dangerous, but it's now become probably safest way actually statistically of getting from A to B. If we are to start flying what we call in this new age of mobility, it will mean vehicles that can probably go shorter distances than plane or tend to go shorter distances than airplanes.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wouldn't say it's the future. I would say it's an option. The thing with ground transportation, if you already have the network for it, we have an infrastructure that is there and obviously can be improved and we need to improve it because we have so many traffic jams that are frustrating. Nobody wants to spend time just taking extra time to get somewhere. So we'll always be looking at ways to move forward faster and safer in the future. They've got new concepts with the high-speed trains coming now in many countries. And we have also what we call Hyperloop system, which is being really considered as something that can come in the next few decades very expensive, but it's a very efficient way of traveling if they can nail it. But I do see the sky as being one of the big ways to ease.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's amazing. It's pretty exciting to watch, but you can see that they still have accidents and they still have a lot of issues to overcome. So we need some way of obviously of these new systems of moving forward, of mobility coming to fruition. But I think in the long run, it's going to take a lot more research, a lot more understanding of nature, how they do it. It's one of the things I've been trying to understand for a long time is how do they develop the sixth sense of knowing what the other guy is doing as he's doing it. I don't want to say it's impossible because I never like saying something is impossible. We have to dig deeper and find.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, there is Formula E, which is basically electric cars racing against each other. But the concept that you're speaking about is pretty much letting cars race against each other without a pilot, without a driver. That is a good, say, a technology carrier or a way to come up with new ideas of how to do that and speed being a factor and all that, but there are still accidents happening there. And those cars yet, the robo cars, they call them, hasn't really progressed to any level yet where they're pretty much running on what we call AI, where the cars learn to circuit and they can start to accelerate. And we see that also with drone competitions where people are flying the drones. Yeah, I've watched them.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So much over the next few years or the next decades that we are going to have to find a way to get these cars closer together without reducing speed. So autonomous driving is one of the solutions to that. I think if we can get the cars more Closer together without risking being safe because they're all intelligent. They understand how the distance is needed and react to each other, that will improve. But I don't see a full system of autonomous driving cars working in the near future. It'll happen in the sky, I think, before it will happen on the ground.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Grasp the idea of how that actually happens. But unless you can get cars on the road to do that, your speed limits are going to have to be in place because it's almost as if saying a smart car and a not smart car interacting. There's always going to be the risk of the not smart car doing something that puts the other cars in danger. So until we can get 100% of the cars working on the same level, I don't think we're going to see it. And you could say there is a solution of putting all the level five cars in one specific lane or few lane work together. And then the cars that are not autonomous, they can go in the other lane. The thing with the level five, that will allow you to raise the speed limits because you could get a lot closer to the cars in front of you. The density of traffic is going to increase.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Properly, it's going to be difficult to see it on the road in any major way because you'll always, at least for the next, I don't know, decades, I would say, you're not going to have all cars being intelligent on the road. It's very interesting if you look into that biomimicry side of things where you'll see fish, schools of fish, you'll see swarms of birds, starlings, they call them that type of bird, where they all basically move in rhythm to each other. It's one of the most amazing sites in nature is to see that swarm of birds, basically all in unison, the one on one side, 300 meters over on the other side, they're basically in moving in the same rhythm, which is a sixth sense still today. I don't think we've...”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I see autonomous vehicles as a vision of hope that at some point in the future we'll be able to do it. But the problem with that is it's what we call level five where the car can basically be expected to cover any potentially dangerous situation and cover it in a way that is ethically or morally correct because there are times when it will have to decide on something that is critical, very critical and that has to be judged in a certain way. It's hard to say if a machine can make a better decision than a person at some time at a critical time. where the cars are premature confident of every situation can be that every situation can be handled”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, there's always going to be a better solution, obviously. I mean, for me, it is, like you said, a stopgap because I can see, or we all know there are better solutions because electrics aren't that efficient in terms of what you do later with the batteries or how you actually produce the batteries. There's a lot of issues with that. But I do see... Advances in propulsion technology. But yeah, I mean, you could even advance on that. There's the idea that atomic power could at some time in the future were around could become a next step also. There's a bit of, you know, you have to take a reality check with the safety side of it, obviously, but it can be a next ultimate step that provides us with, say, endless power.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Ever going to return to an age or be at a sort of retrogress to an age where design becomes less important, I think it's always going to be a factor in wanting to be seen with that product and how you identify yourself with that product”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely, absolutely. But you still, I mean, design is all about, like I said, you want products to be desirable, but the general trend, what I see nowadays is the younger generations are less into owning things. They're more about the experience. So I think there is going to be obviously a trend to move away from owning vehicles, but there will also still remain those people who want want to own the product itself. In other words, the younger generation will be about getting from here to there in a shared experience kind of way or not having to worry about owning a product that will have to be insured or maintained or resolves and anything like that. And then obviously the other side, like about owning your own vehicle, people always want to own something. But it means that design in both cases is always going to be important. I don't think.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're going to be looking probably at new ways of making tires in such a way that they become thinner and still have maximum adhesion and all circumstances and efficiency. I can also see in terms of how you basically use the vehicle. If we think about vehicles being parked most of the time, okay, they're not very efficient in that way, but if we can use the vehicle during our journeys or trips from one place to another, if we can use the vehicle as a zone or an area where we can actually do something else and not be so needed to drive the vehicle, then we're also looking at more efficiency. So like I mentioned earlier, if we can open up the interior to be in a more usable space in terms of work or socialization or relaxation even, the net A huge way of opening up the visibility or the efficiency side.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We can go with a lot smaller areas needed to be used for the motors. Basically, you can either use in-wheel motors for the electrics, or you can use basically an electric motor that can be very small. It can be packaged quite small, and you do have to consider batteries, but those can be placed in ways that don't intrude on the interiors of the car. But I think efficiency is going to come in the future through the advantages of smaller things needed within the car because electronics is all about reducing bulk and size and hopefully weight. The other thing is rolling resistance, what we call rolling resistance of the tires. You can eliminate that friction, then you're helping the car to go with a lot less power needed to push it forward.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Propelled cars, if you want to call it that way. And what that means is that we're not so much now in need of aerodynamic aids or aerodynamic shapes that will allow us or allow us to save fuel in terms of efficiency. So saving fuel is basically based on improving the aerodynamics of a car as well as handling, obviously, but we are limited to speeds on most roads where the aerodynamics don't play a huge part of the efficiency. So obviously the faster you go, the more dynamic the car, the less fuel it uses. But like I said, we can't really go that fast these days. So as soon as we move into the world of electrical cars, electric cars, we start looking at ways that the electrical side can improve the efficiency of a car. So what that does, it means”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, obviously if we're looking at today's cars and we're looking at fuel propelled cars, then we're looking at aerodynamic efficiency. The trend now, I think, is we're almost not being forced, but the general view now is that we have to start looking more at ways of not using the world's resources. So not looking at fossil fuels. And that brings into play the whole game about electrical.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Interior is going to start playing out as more of an entertainment or a social or a working or relaxing environment so that you can start to express more interesting designs on the interiors of the car.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“safer. There are a lot of opportunities, obviously, because one of the things about driver safety, which is very interesting, is a lot of the problems with accidents or incidents like that are a result of driver error. And there's a huge movement. Now we all know about it going towards autonomous driving. Autonomous driving rules out the driver in a lot of instances and basically if you can take the driver factor away, you're probably in one way going to make cars safer, obviously. And then you can start to change the design in such a way that you're not thinking so much about the driver being constantly aware of the situation around him. He can start to relax in the interior of the design of the car can start to become a little bit more, and this is what I see as becoming the new future of design.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For safety, whether it be passenger people inside the car safety or pedestrian safety or whatever. And those regulations are constantly pushing designers to compromise their designs to make the vehicle.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, the big one is basically we have to design a car that can be brought to the market and successfully received by the consumer, obviously. But what they have to understand is that we're working from a point of view that has to pass so many rules and legislation and certification things that there are quite a few things that restrict you from doing the say the ultimate beautiful car that you could design they'll they'll put in things every year. You'll come across new regulations that force you to remember or to force you to do something that you really almost have to compromise the design on for and one of the big factors there is that there's always a big push”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I know what the end goal is. I know what I have to achieve with the design. And you won't just do one design, obviously, and say that's the end of it. And here you go. Let's go do it. You'll go through a whole sketching process. But one sketch will lead to another sketch and will successively lead to many more sketches, obviously. But it's not sitting there trying to think where each line goes. It's basically letting your subconscious thoughts of the end product come out as they want to come out. You're watching it. You're being critical of it, obviously, but you're not there at that moment in time to change anything. You're just observing it. And later you can go back and judge it, I would say.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Side of yourself or the experience come out by itself, you don't have to push it. You just start looking at almost like looking at variants when you're drawing. But yeah, it's an interesting and amazing process when you can actually draw nice things without putting the effort or the obvious effort that you need to put into it without making it seem like you're actually thinking while you're drawing it's a subconscious act in a way.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Goal first, and you have to imagine it before you actually carry it out. It's people oftentimes talk about working in reverse. You start out with what you want to see and what you envision as the final result, and then you sort of work backwards. I can see the value of that, but from a design point of view, what I try to do is see the end result first. And then when I've seen it or tried to imagine the best outcome, then I just let my hand start working. And subconsciously, it's amazing. It's being in the groove. I think people can relate that. When you do something that basically comes up across as being effortless or very easy, it's not. You've done your research. You've practiced enough to understand that you have the talents to apply them to a design. You understand proportion, just understand all the basics. Then you let the artist.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of research that has to be done before you start designing. I think a lot of designers might fall into that trap of where they just start designing a new product immediately when they get a brief or a project to do. For me, it's all about starting with trying to envision the outcome. It's a process pretty much. You can't, I mean, you can obviously start, but it's just basically putting lines on paper that really don't have any end result. You have to start, I think, with researching your design.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's a good, I don't know. It's sort of a way that comes out of your own self. I mean, all designers are extremely self-critical, I'd say, you know. A lot of them, a lot of us maybe aren't sure of what we're doing sometimes. And you look for justification or approval from the other people. And obviously if you do something great and everybody loves it, then you've done a great job, but it's really a real deep cut to the designer when somebody criticizes his design. But when you're actually designing, like you mentioned, for me, it's not so much about thinking while I'm designing. I pretty much think about, I mean, the other thing is you have to be aware that when you design, there's a lot of...”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, some companies paint themselves into a corner and it's hard to get out. I mean, you know, it's a balancing act, obviously. If you don't change enough, you can be criticized for not advancing or not, like I said earlier, not being relevant. But at the same time, if you can come up with fresh ways of interpreting something, like adding a new word to a language that kind of expresses or defines something a little bit better.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Design language. So it's a bit of a balance, but you want to always move that design language, that design recognition factor of a product in a way that every time you come out with a new product, it doesn't look the same, but it looks either, you can't say better because design is so subjective, but you can say it sort of looks.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Make a car look uniquely unique to that brand. In other words, the shape of the car, different types of elements. Feel that is basically sort of what you would see in a family where you have a brother and a sister looking similar. They're not exactly the same, obviously, but they will have a look that resembles each other, resembles their parents. And so what you try to do is build that. A lot of companies do it well. Other companies might not do it so well. But that is, again, one of the objectives of a designer is to either continue that look in such a way that it's still progressive because if you hold on to it too tightly, then it can get overused and boring in the end and stagnant also. But what you tried to do is progress it progressively. You don't want to make big jumps in the design language because otherwise it becomes either diluted too quickly or indistinguishable or looks too much like somebody else's.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, design language is basically the brand's recognition factor. If a company is doing it right, a consumer should be able to look at the car and understand who makes that car, what brands of car that is, that is done by creating a look. And that look is like a language, I guess you could say. It's more than just a face. It's basically features on the car that are used as strong design points to brand that image. So if you look at certain companies, they'll have certain factors that may be it colors or shapes or font styles or whatever that will associate with or typify the company. You'll be able to identify the company right away without knowing that it's actually that company that is being talked about. So when you speak about design language, what we try to do is”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The P1 to actually accelerate the error going into the car. So if you feed more air into an engine, basically you're going to get more power out of it. So we found a distinct advantage by using these scales to improve the airflow. And it was big. I mean, the amount of increase in volume of air was enough to blow away the engineers and make them see that, yeah, designers sometimes can be a good.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It wasn't nice. I mean, I almost lost my job because of the finance director being a bit upset about my use of the credit card, the company credit card. And it wasn't good. But at the same time, I tried to explain to them, you know, that designer's thinking in these ways and you have to get accept that this new design department at McLaren was out to do things a little bit differently and we had to find every advantage we could in the book to beat the competitors. So I still to this day don't think he agreed to it. But at the same time, we put that fish through the whole analysis of why and how it accomplished what it did. And like I said, what we call the scanning process of the actual mathematics of the scales were applied. We use that to put into the air intake ducts.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Still today has its incredible pull and appeal. But basically I was able to start with a clean sheet of paper on that design of the P1 and again to make it the best in its class. I was trying to look for every advantage I could find. So I basically on the way back stopped off in Miami and picked up a sailfish that had just been caught and bought it right there and had it taxidermied downtown in Miami and then they shipped it back to Heathrow Airport, albeit in a massive package that required me to get one of the Formula One trucks to go pick it up because of the size of it. didn't turn out”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, there's got to be a secret there that somebody can learn from or use. And I found out that basically the scales helped generate little bubbles. I get to put it very simply, little bubbles of air around it, which then will create sort of an air pocket or a film of air around it, which then creates another thing, which is a bit of like a suction, which will pull the fish even faster forward. And so this concept of using the scales of the fish became something that I started to think, well, how can we apply that to the design? And this new P1, the McLaren P1, that you're referring to or its mission was to be the greatest car that McLaren had ever built up to that point, surpassing hopefully even the F1 that they'd made in the middle 90s, which is an iconic supercar that.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, they must be fast, obviously. But he says, Well, they're not only fast, they're much faster than a cheetah. And so that spiked my curiosity. And again, so I started researching it over the next few days and found out that for certain reasons, that the sailfish could get up to over 70 miles an hour, which if you compare it to 50-ish mile an hour cheetah, that's a huge difference, and especially if it's going through much denser media.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There was, yeah, that's an interesting story. I remember when I first started with McLaren, I moved, I had to moved to England, obviously, and it was very close to the headquarters living there. But I had a few weeks off still. I went off to the Caribbean and went to an island where they basically had some trophies around on the walls. And I noticed his shellfish above the main reception desk. And I asked the lady there, basically, why is this up there on the wall? It's taken up such a big amount of space there. And she said, well, I don't know. The owner caught it and he's very proud of it. If you speak to the owner, it'll probably explain a little bit better to you. So I spoke to him and he said, well, dang, don't you know how hard it is to catch those fish? They were so fast. And I, I, I...”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Design and the acceptance of design of the new mini was it did recall obviously the iconic look of the original one, but at the same time it didn't make you feel like it was some kind of bean or vehicle that just suddenly appeared on the market as being something revolutionary and its design language. It had to feel accepted right from the beginning, I'd say, in those shapes did very much help it to achieve that.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Simply because the original one was such an iconic car of the 20th century that it wouldn't make sense to make a replacement that just sort of started off in another direction. It had to carry over a lot of that character character of the original and bring in some of the future technology that we developed over the years. But at the same time, the shapes could be influenced in such a way that it did come across as something that you wanted to get closer to. A lot of the shapes that we see, you know, if I say the female body, well, it's just simply because those are shapes that we see as nice shapes. I don't want to say in a mean in a sensual way, but those are comforting shapes, shapes that most people appreciate as being attractive, appealing, friendly in a way, enticing in other ways. But yeah, so I think that was a big factor in the.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It is a science. We call it biomimicry, and it's pretty much the science of looking for solutions in the way that nature has already figured it out for us. So when I design, my inspiration doesn't come from, let's say, things that are transient or in one year and out the next. It's basically looking for the solutions that nature provides us and basically most things in nature coming close to 99% of them would be pretty much considered to be attractive in the first place. So when I look at as inspiration from there, the things that I look for, things that you feel comfortable for, the inspiration of things, shapes that you feel comfortable with and don't jar you or don't basically surprise you in a negative way. When I design the mini, I was looking for those. Shapes in nature pretty much that you would see as”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, the thing what I find really interesting about design is, and like I said, there's a bit of a science to design. When you design for something that's appealing emotionally appealing, you have to, I mean, most designers don't just pull something out of thin air. They have to get their inspiration from some source or some original thing that they feel that they like or feel connected to I've always been very interested in the art of making something beautiful, whether it be architecture, whether it be furniture or anything like that. There's beautiful in the right way is enduring. It doesn't ever go out of fashion. But when I design pretty much everything I've ever designed has a connection, personal connection to nature for me. One of my favorite subjects always has been biology and nature. And I've always tried to find my inspiration through nature pretty much.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, you're trying to capture what I call that emotional factor, which is they both turn the person, the consumer on in such a way that he really wants that car. But at the same time, your budget kind of can control what you do to add excitement to the end product”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Get me from here to there, kind of car to the one where you just stare at it in the garage and have a glass of wine while you're looking at it. The thing is design. Basically, it's more expensive to design a bad car, a car that's not successful than it is to design a very expensive well-designed car. It costs more to make a mistake than it does to not make a mistake if you get what I mean there.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A designer's point of view, it's kind of like you know, you often get asked what's your favorite design that you've ever done, or I get asked that a lot. And again, you want to answer the question, but I find it extremely hard to answer that question because you put as much blood and guts and sweat into designing the small details and the small cars and the lesser expensive ones as you do in the bigger ones. It's much like, you know, I would compare it to being asked which is your favorite child unless you got a real black sheep in the family, you're probably going to end up saying that all of them are your favorite. It's just they're all different. So I can't say that, you know, designing one car is funner than designing another car. They're all important. But in one respect, I think that designing between that whole range of cars from a”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Rely too much on computers, and you ask them to sketch something, and they have a hard time. In the way that the traditional way of sketching was always a big thing when I was coming up through the ranks, it was pretty much your work and not the computer's work. And there's always the artistic license that comes into play and you can do that when you're doing it with your hand or with your own input, but a computer basically will give you a zero or one output on most things and that is a cold number or cold way to operate.”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“human yeah yeah sometimes something that is absolutely spot on just doesn't feel right you you can't warm up to it so yeah i've i've always tried to stay away from computers and design until absolutely necessary today's age of design of any product basically has to go eventually to that stage of being you know used a computer comes into the process to either to deliver the design to a team to to actually build it the engineering side of it but if you can hold out as long as you can during the actual uh design and ideation phase and you're going to come up with a much probably a much more sensual and attractive product than if you rely too much on computers and that's a little bit what i don't like about training the training of designers in in our systems today is that a lot of them are starting”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not a tool, but a good way to evaluate your designs. So yeah, computers, I'd say they do help us, but I can't imagine anything, you know, if you look back at the history of art, the history of sculptures, a lot of those things that were still considered today to be timeless masterpieces or enduring masterpieces never could have been done with a computer. They've always got a bit of imperfection that makes them...”
2020-02-18 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #76 Frank Stephenson: Pushing the Limits of Innovation · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT