Icon-o-cast: A Podcast By Lunar

Health expert, entrepreneur and educator Dr. Bern Shen joins LUNAR’s Robert Howard for a discussion about the future of health care and the implications and opportunities for the practice of design. Don’t miss Bern’s framework for understanding how design makes a difference for drugs, diagnostics, delivery and policy.

Tiffany Shlain, filmmaker and Webby Awards founder, talks with LUNAR’s John Edson about new connections in the Internet age and how design itself can force mutations in our global network.

Design researcher and Brazilian Amyris Fernandez talks with LUNAR's Gretchen Anderson and Lisa Leckie about design research methods in Latin America. www.icon-o-cast.com

What are the key ingredients for starting a new beverage company and how can design play a role in launching a product in a super-competitive marketplace? What are the guideposts that guide a startup from pure invention, entrepreneurial drive and consumer preference? In this episode of Icon-o-Cast, entrepreneur Albert Cahana talks with LUNAR’s Gretchen Anderson about the role of design in launching a new product.

Guest Emily Pilloton of Project H talks with LUNAR's John Edson about leveraging the power of design to solve social needs. www.icon-o-cast.com

In this special Lunar New Year edition of Icon-o-Cast, LUNAR kicks off the Year of the Tiger with perspectives on business and design trends for the coming year from Asia, Europe and the U.S.

Furniture and cabinet creator Thomas Wold joins LUNAR's Gretchen Anderson in a conversation about discovering personal expression and the creative process.

LUNAR’s John Edson and Margie O’Driscoll of the American Institute of Architects discuss the changing roles of industrial designers and architects as pros pursue the “big questions” that are shaping new directions for their disciplines.

LUNAR’s Travis Lee and John Edson discuss recent developments in sustainable design and materials, and chat about Travis’ experiences during his assignment in Hong Kong.

LUNAR's Robert Howard discusses design education and "design thinking" with Kim Howard-Saxe, director of the Innovation Lab at the Nueva School. Recorded at the Maker Faire 2009. www-icon-o-cast.com

LUNAR's Gretchen Anderson, director of interaction design, shares insights into how to develop an effective set of product "facial features" -- those signals that tell users what a product does. www.icon-o-cast.com

LUNAR's Bob Lane demos his ingenious Curie Motor for Gretchen Anderson. Bob's device was featured at the San Francisco Exploratorium.

LUNAR's John Edson and Gretchen Anderson trade perspectives on the 2009 Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) annual conference which wrapped Sept. 26 in Miami. They pick favorite sessions, debate what could be improved and consider the advantages that come with a down economy.

Online social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are red hot -- today. But how will these networks evolve over the next few years? Are there underlying qualities that will keep them relevant? In this Icon-o-Cast episode, LUNAR's Gretchen Anderson and Tacit Knowledge's Chris Andrasick discuss the future of online social networks.

In this special edition of Icon-o-Cast, Lunar's John Edson shares a presentation he gave at the 2009 Sustainable Brands conference in which he discussed applying sustainable design principles through a framework developed by Lunar to the problem of distributing water. This edition is available in both video and audio formats.

Lunar is planning an awesome presentation for next spring’s South by Southwest Conference in Austin that will look at gesture-based interfaces and how we might move our interactions with cell phones, netbooks and other devices beyond touch. We need your “thumbs up” on our ideas in order to secure a slot at the conference. In this special edition of Icon-o-Cast, Lunar Interaction Designer Ron Goldin talks about Lunar’s proposal and asks you to vote for us at www.lunar.com/vote. Voting closes Fri., Sept. 4. Vote today!

At Lunar, we've been applying the compelling storytelling techniques from comics in our interaction design work. In this episode, Lunar interaction designers Gretchen Anderson and Ron Goldin talk about how comics can be a powerful and surprising tool in the design of complex products and experiences.

What do you get when you combine 600 inventors and innovators with thousands of people who want to see their work? It's Maker Faire 2009. Join Lunar's Robert Howard, Bob Lane and Jonathan Downing as they roam the faire in search of the new, the cool and the homemade.

Fast Company Guest Blogger and Lunar President John Edson talks about the classic chair by Charles Eames

How can design tap into our emotional wiring, stop us in our tracks and create responses in us? An exploration we did at Lunar, loosely based on Don Norman's Emotional Design, looked at how design can make us stop and think, stop and act, and stop and behold. In this episode, Lunar's John Edson, Jeff Smith and Becky Brown talk about this last dimension -- the beauty dimension of "stop and behold" -- and how it turns out to be the most elusive power of design.