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Design in the world
"Designers need to develop a new relationship with the world," says Yves Behar. He sees a bigger role for design in the future, and the opportunity for designers to be true participants in both for profit businesses, but also non-profit important causes...>>
"Designers need to develop a new relationship with the world," says Yves Behar. He sees a bigger role for design in the future, and the opportunity for designers to be true participants in both for profit businesses, but also non-profit important causes. "Humanistic design must tap into the "giving" element of our profession. It must be deeply in-tune with the needs to create a sustainable future, deeply connected with emotional needs, and deeply self-expressive." <<
INDUSTRY LEADERSHIP
Author Kevin Kelly says, "In recent years, Yves Behar has emerged as one of the most important industrial designers on the contemporary scene. Through his San Francisco-based design and branding company fuseproject, the Swiss-born Behar has shown that a futuristic, hi-tech approach to design can be deeply humane. The fluid forms and innovative function of his products are impressive enough, but it's Behar's interest in the human experience and positive social change that give his objects real meaning."
PARTNERSHIPS
"We are changing the way we engage clients, less vendor, and more partner. I dislike the mentality that puts design in the self-defeating position to be a "vendor" to enterprises... I think this demands change on both sides of the equation: for clients to realize that designers are partners to their success, and for designers to put themselves in the place of both stake-holder and risk-taker. Big company or small company, corporation or start-up... it doesn't matter."...>>
"We are changing the way we engage clients less vendor, and more partner. I dislike the mentality
that puts design in the self-defeating position to be a "vendor" to enterprises... I think this
demands change on both sides of the equation: for clients to realize that designers are partners
to their success, and for designers to put themselves in the place of both stake-holder and risk-taker.
Big company or small company, corporation or start-up... it doesn't matter."
fuseproject partners with companies large and small on long-term engagements: "a long-lasting
impact on our client's brands, means that the work is never done... it is constantly evolving
to keep our client's brands relevant."
While this notion of partnership is a great fuel for change in our engagements with the world's
best known brands, fuseproject also develops actual business partnerships, working with early
stage firms for an equity or royalty stake, and creating shared risk and shared reward.
When appropriate, Yves Behar takes on outsider-insider roles, redefining the role of design and
brand leadership at companies such as Coca-Cola, and Jawbone where Yves is CCO and VP. "Yves
is our creative compass, his vision has shaped this company's products and brand since day 1"
Hosain Rahman, CEO and Founder, Aliph Jawbone.
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Education
Helping raise the next generation of designers is a duty, a creative stimuli, and simply a
question of continuing to build a profession he loves deeply. Yves Behar is the chair of the
industrial design department at the California College of the Arts.
www.cca.edu/academics/industrialdesign.
Yves Behar's CV
Yves Behar is the founder of the San Francisco design studio, fuseproject. Yves is focused on humanistic design and the "giving" element of his profession, with the goal of creating projects that are deeply in-tune with the needs of a sustainable future, connected with human emotions and enable self-expression.
For Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organization, fuseproject designed the world's first $100 "XO" laptop aimed at bringing education and technology to the world's poorest children. Yves' commercial projects set out to be equally impactful as exemplified by the Herman Miller LEAF Lamp, the Aliph Jawbone and, most recently, Y Water.
Yves' work has been the subject of two solo exhibitions and resides in the permanent collections of international museums worldwide, including the MOMA, the Musee d'Art Moderne/Pompidou Center, the Chicago Art Institute and the Munich Museum of Applied Arts.
He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the prestigious National Design Award for Industrial Design celebrating design as a 'vital humanistic tool shaping the world' - awarded by Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian National Design Museum. He has also received the INDEX: Design to Improve Life, "Community" award for his role in creating the "XO" laptop.
In addition to his responsibilities at fuseproject. Yves acts as Chairperson of the Industrial Design program at California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco and he has taken on creative, business-partner roles at Aliph Jawbone and other client-companies