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  • Principles of Design

    Four collections of Design Principles: “It is right that we should stand by and act on our principles; but not right to hold them in obstinate blindness, or retain them when proved to be erroneous.” Michael Faraday

  • Models of Innovation in Japan and Korea: MITI and KIDP

    Korea’s strength in the creative industries, together with the strength of their multinational brands, is regarded as a model by other Asian countries. How did this model come about?

  • The 5 C’s: Design skills for the near future

    CODE Since the first introduction of CAD and 3d modeling systems, code is behind most products. With generative design, the code becomes the design itself. Big data about user behaviour in combination with machine learning and adaptive production methods (Industry 4.0) will make highly personalized and adaptive design solutions the new normal. To master code,…

  • Design and Myth

    In his 1957 book „Mythologies“, Roland Barthes analyses the Deesse (The nickname of the Citroen DS car, “goddess” in French) as a mythical object, and plastic as a mythical material. Plastic interests him because of its transformability, the metamorphoses it contains, being able to imitate everything. He finds it remarkable that plastics are given mythical names…

  • Design for Sustainability

    Material A curated collection and workshop by Mario Gagliardi on local, handmade objects in northern Thailand and Laos. These objects smartly utilize the properties of natural materials in their method of making. Go to Material

  • Design for critical thinking

    5 projects designed to invite reflection and critical thinking.

  • Envisioning communities

    The vision In 2008, HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser wanted to explore designs for better communities in Qatar and the region: Diverse and responsible communities which would invite independent thinking and creativity. Mario Gagliardi, CEO at Qatar Foundation at the time, was tasked with providing proposals and consequently organised a workshop to explore innovative approaches to urban design which…

  • Tools to think with

    Concepts and assumptions determine how an organisation and its environment are seen. When plotting a course of action, managers implicitly rely on them. These concepts are the foundation for both daily decision-making and long-term planning. Once concepts are taken for granted, they are held implicitly, possibly impeding innovation efforts. Leonard and Straus found that thinking style…

  • Art, Design and the Elements

    Aristotle explained the elements in terms of what we might call sensual qualities: hot, cold, wet and dry. His main thought was that all materials are manifestations of different compositions of the elements. This idea – that the world consists of underlying elements – was fundamental in several ways. It implies that the world is…

  • Design and the real world 세상과 멀어지는 디자인

  • Korea’s most successful luxury brand

      Whoo (后), the cosmetics brand designed by Mario Gagliardi, is now Korea’s most successful luxury brand, selected by the Seoul Economic Daily in 2017 (read more about its creation). The brand exceeded 100 billion Korean Won in annual sales in 2009, 200 billion Won in 2013, 400 billion Won in 2014, 800 billion Won in 2015,…

  • Innovating education

    Government policies and interventions are powerful instruments that can change social and economic realities on the large scale. However, social reality is highly complex.

  • Analysing the Digital: Transformations, Territories, Frames and Uses

    While the digital is explained in itself by computer science, important questions for the humanities – such as how the Digital affects human behaviour, or how it impacts society and economy – are outside its scope. Different disciplines have provided answers, but there has been no integrated concept bridging these insights.

  • Design with/out industry

    Plato: Jim, do you think the end of the world will come at nighttime? Jim: Mm, no. At dawn. James Dean and Sal Mineo in “Rebels Without A Cause”, 1955 It is a chilly late morning this spring in Berlin. Fitting to the temperature, a skier runs skis made from cardboard in a circular groove…

  • Evolutionary painter

    What if your sketches would evolve and start their own life with algorithms inspired by biology?

  • Korea’s bestselling luxury brand in China

    Korean cosmetics brand Whoo  (后), conceived and designed by Mario Gagliardi and his team at LG Household and Health Care, has surpassed all competitors including Cartier, Louis Vuitton and Rolex for overseas luxury duty-free sales in Korea. It is the first time a Korean brand has become the bestselling luxury brand.

  • Chinese shoppers in South Korea shunning luxury brands like Louis Vuitton in favour of local goods

    Chinese visitors to South Korea are buying less from global luxury mainstays like Louis Vuitton and Chanel in favour of cheaper home-grown brands, as young, independent travellers make up a bigger share of tourists. Lured by the “Korean Wave” of culture exports, from soap operas and K-pop music to food and fashion, price-conscious younger Chinese…

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  • Conceptualizing brands: Metaphors of Brand Management

    The management of brands is often biased by the way managers conceptualize and understand brands. We have identified four commonly employed metaphors of brands which, all in their own way, produce unwanted effects on the management and utilization of brands.