Nationality Canadian Role Writer | Name Eric Karjaluoto | |
Occupation Interaction designer, entrepreneur, and writer Education Emily Carr University of Art and Design Books The Design Method: A Philosophy and Process for Functional Visual Communication | ||
The design method using process to hack design with eric karjaluoto
Eric Karjaluoto is a designer, entrepreneur, writer, and former painter. He is a founding partner at smashLAB, a strategic interactive agency located in Vancouver, Canada.
Contents
Background
Karjaluoto studied at the Emily Carr Institute in Vancouver. Prior to focusing on design he worked in production at the Prince George Citizen newspaper and spent several years working as an exhibited painter.
Design
In 2000, Karjaluoto and hometown friend Eric Shelkie started smashLAB in Prince George, BC with two computers, a few hundred dollars and little business experience. “On our first project we made $400, about $2 an hour,” Karjaluoto revealed in an article from the Globe and Mail. "We took the hardest path, in Prince George, during a recession and after the dot-com bubble had burst.” smashLAB gradually built up a roster of local clients and eventually moved the office to Vancouver in 2004.
In 2007—inspired in part by the Oscar-winning Al Gore film An Inconvenient Truth—Karjaluoto and his partner spearheaded "Design Can Change", an effort to unite designers to address climate change. TIME Magazine selected Design Can Change for inclusion in its annual Design 100—a list of "the people and ideas behind today's most influential design".
Writing
Karjaluoto's blog "offers critical thought and discussion of topics relating to communication design and designers". One post in particular, titled "9 to 5 = average" sparked a flame war and prompted a new media organization to create a live panel discussion based on the topic. His articles have been republished by web publications such as Taxi Design and Creative Review. He has also written articles for .net Magazine and Applied Arts, and excerpts of his white paper, "A Primer on Social Media", were published in the May 2008 issue of Advertising Age.
Authored the book "Speak Human" that tackles the topic of design and communication from the point of view of the ways in which people interact with the objects around us. In it 'Karjaluoto lays out several methods in which small companies can retain the hearts of customers.'
Speaking
Karjaluoto has presented at events put on by design associations such as HOW Magazine, AIGA, and New Media BC. He also taught branding in the Digital Design program at Vancouver Film School.