A Fine Line: How Design Strategies Are Shaping the Future of Business

For the first time, Hartmut Esslinger, internationally acclaimed designer and founder of frog design, inc., reveals the secrets to better business through better design. Having spent forty years helping build the world’s most recognizable brands, Esslinger shows how business leaders and designers can join forces to build creative strategies that will ensure a more profitable and sustainable future. A Fine Line shares the amazing story of Esslinger’s transformation from industrial design wunderkind to a global innovation powerhouse, while detailing the very real challenges facing businesses in the new global economy. Offering companies far more than a temporary innovation booster, Esslinger shows how he and frog build creative design into the framework of an organization’s competitive strategy, the same approach that has worked so well for leading edge companies such as Sony, Louis Vuitton, Lufthansa, Disney, Hewlett-Packard, SAP, Microsoft, and Apple. Offering a step-by-step overview of the innovation process—from targeting goals to shepherding new products and services to the marketplace—Esslinger reveals how to arrive at a design that reflects an intensely human experience and will connect strongly with consumers. With Esslinger’s unique perspective, rich stories, and global mindset, A Fine Line explores business solutions that are environmentally sustainable and contribute to the future of a thriving and lasting global economy. The blending of design and business intelligence holds the key for shaping a sustainable competitive advantage in the rapidly evolving creative economy. A Fine Line equips business leaders with the necessary tools to thrive in tomorrow’s world.

Table of Contents:
Foreword vii   About Hartmut Esslinger ix   Introduction xi   1 Design-Driven Strategy: Staking a Claim in the Creative Economy 1   2 True Lies: The Role of Leadership in Innovation 13   3 Designing to Win: The Creative Business Strategy 31   4 Minds Beat Money: The Innovation Process, Step by Step 55   5 A Business Design Revolution: The Greening of Planet, Inc. 83   6 Design-Driven Strategies for Better Business— and a Better World 111   7 The Factories 133   Epilogue 159   Resources 163   Index 167

About the Author :
Hartmut Esslinger is the founder of frog design, inc., a leading global innovation firm, and one of the most respected designers and business consultants in the world. Esslinger founded frog design in his native Germany and sparked a design revolution. His work has defined the modern consumer aesthetic with such revolutionary products as the Apple Macintosh computer, Sony’s Trinitron television, Lufthansa’s brand and fleet image, Disney’s Cruise Lines and Consumer Electronics, and Louis Vuitton’s brand aesthetic. His designs are in the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum in New York. He is also Founding Professor of the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Karlsruhe, Germany and Professor for Convergent Design at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria. For more information, please visit www.frogdesign.com/afineline.