These quotes are from Brian Walker, CEO of Herman Miller a company often looked up to for their visionary commitment to innovation in design:

They are unique in that they outsource a lot of their creative development, his response to why:

“The drive for us is our commitment to new ideas and solutions. Our external network ensures that we are always taking a fresh look at problems faced by our customers without subjecting it to our own filters. This approach has it’s challenges but it often leads to the best ideas and breakthroughs.”

He also gave these words of advice when outsourcing creative:

“What we’ve learned is to have a willingness to follow and give ourselves over to these designers – not loose ourselves, but be open to following them to places that we may question in the beginning…We try to follow them without judging them too quickly.”

His definition of success:

“It’s easy on some ways to come up with great designs that have no commercial value, but to have great design that solves real problems and creates commercial value, that’s where genius comes in.”

“Solving problems is where our design work begins.”

@ISSUE magazine, Vol 12, no. 1 p. 2

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