“The World’s Most Innovative Design Companies” (via @FastCompany)
1. BMW Group Designworks-USA
Cars are only one of the roads this consultancy travels. Top 50 No. 25
2. Ideo
From childhood obesity to climate change, no challenge is too daunting for this iconic firm. Top 50 No. 35
3. Rockwell Group
David Rockwell’s set design for the Oscars was such a smash he’s doing a sequel. His Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco opened to plaudits. Ditto, the Ames Hotel in Boston. And Sin City’s financially fraught CityCenter is grounded by Rockwell’s tree-house-like creation.
4. Pentagram
The firm dazzles for its partners’ range of work, from Lisa Strausfeld’s intuitive interface for the Litl netbook to Abbott Miller’s elegant identity system for the Art Institute of Chicago.
5. Ammunition
It ping-ponged from designing Barnes & Noble’s hot e-book reader Nook to developing high-performance earphones for celebrity clients such as Lady Gaga and Dr. Dre.
6. Fuseproject
In addition to new lamps for Herman Miller, new Jawbone headsets for Aliph, and the world’s fastest production-electric motorcycle for Mission Motors, Yves Béhar and his team got frisky, with a bunny-eared sex toy for Jimmyjane and an eco-friendly underwear venture with PACT.
7. Frog Design
When it wasn’t helping bring wireless communications to rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, Frog was planning workshops for MTV and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help kids brainstorm, peer to peer, on how to pay for college.
8. Potion
In 2009, Potion produced interactive installations that get computing out of the box: four for Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry and two for New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage. One used iPod Touch devices to upgrade audio guides, and synced headsets for visitors in the same area to make the museum experience more social.
9. Attik
This London firm gets the systems thinking that’s vital for executing large-scale projects. Its reboot of Coca-Cola’s brand-identity platform is now deployed worldwide. Lexus, Scion, and Nike are also clients.
10. WET Design
Its Dubai Fountain is now the world’s largest, with jets that shoot a record 50 stories high. Vegas boasts Lumia, the only fountain lit during the day (with stage lights, a first), and Focus, the world’s widest water wall (280 feet wide, 24 feet high). WET’s own campus has Los Angeles’s first permeable grass parking lot, meaning rainwater is captured and reused.
Source: FastCompany / Most Innovative Design Companies
RT 
“Today we are facing many tough problems in business, in our communities, and in our society as a whole. This pliable and effective methodology is truly part of the answer. Consequently, it has migrated into the mainstream. It can be a great boon to problem solving, but it’s not without its pitfalls.
46 Notes