Adidias Design Head Inerview

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so lving_with_style_and_why_the_world_needs_intuitive_design_25386.asp

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Core77 Quest ionnaire

Adidas's James Carnes on Ignoring E-mails, Problem-Solving with Style, and Why the World Needs Intuit ive

Design

Posted by core jr | 20 Aug 2013 | Comments (0)

Name:James Carnes

Occupation:I am the Global Creative Director f or Sport Perfo rmance Design at Adidas.

Location:I current ly live right outs ide Herzogenaurach, Germany. But I also st ill live in Portland, Oregon. I just

of f icially moved over to Germany with my family, but I st ill go back and f orth.
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Current projects:We just f inished everything to do with the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Now we're ramping up

f or the 2016 Olympics in Rio. So t here are a lot o f new high-performance projects on our table, in terms o f

f oo twear and apparel and working with new country federations, which is always really cool.

There's tons of ot her stuf f . We've got a new line coming for Stella McCartney. We introduced a technology

called Boostthis year, and that 's growing. We're also do ing a lot of new collaboration projects, where we're

bringing in designers f rom dif f erent industrieswhether it's architects , indust rial designers, graphic designers

and working with them, just get ting a dif f erent point o f view on what spo rt means to them and how they see

sports products.

Mission:I would say, right now, the thing that I live by is making the f uture accessible through meaningf ul

design. I think people need to be able to relate t o t otally new ideas, and design is really the interf ace that doe

that . It takes something that 's completely unfamiliar and makes it f amiliar, and it brings so mething that 's t otally

rare and makes it f eel close to you. My mantra right now is: The world needs intuitive design.

For its Energy Boost line, Adidas replaced the EVA foam found in most running shoe midsoles with a Boost foam made from

thermoplastic polyurethane granules fused into a cushioning layer.

When did you decide t hat you wanted to be a designer?It was basically right bef ore college. I had three

main tracks that I was cons idering: Science and medicinewhich, in a very stereotypical way, was what my

parents would have lovedarchaeology o r the visual arts. I didn't really know that I wanted to be a designer; Iust knew that I wanted to go in that direction. And at the last minute, as I was applying to dif f erent universities

I pulled together a port f olio and included it in my applications. So t hat's when I decidedas I was applying.

Education:I went to t he University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, and got a B.F.A. with a f ocus on indust rial design

First design job:That's a f unny one. I didn't grow up with a t on o f money, and I used to make toys f rom stuf

I basically pulled f rom the trash. So I would put together to y guns for me and my f riends, or put together othe

contraptions. It was pret ty well known in my neighborhood. And at some point this one f riend's dad came to th

house. I thought I was in trouble. But he came to ask if I would make toys f or his two so ns' birthdays, which

were a couple of days apart. So I ended up making these f uturist ic bazookas f or the kids down the street , an
http://www.adidas.com/us/boost/_/N-1z128vz


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that's when I realized, "Oh my god, this could actually be a job."

Who is your design hero?I like the ext remesso I like inventors and I like stylist s equally. I'm really a f an of

Zaha Hadid and the Bouroullec brothers. But I'm also pretty crazy about Tom Ford, and I think Miuccia Prada is

amazing. And as f ar as up-and-coming guys t hat are peer heroesI'm a big f an of Alexander Taylor, and I also

really like Jay and Ed f rom BarberOsgerby.

The Adidas headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany


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Left: Inside the performance division at Adidas. Right: Carnes's office in Herzogenaurach

Describe your workspace:It's f unny because I have a workspace at home and an of f ice in Port land and an

of f ice in Germany. And I didn't really realize what my workspace looked like unt il I ended up having threedif f erent ones, and discovered that I had a lot of the same furniture and the same setup.

I like a combination of cold and warm, f rom warm natural hardwoo d to stark concrete. I prefer warm light f rom

lamps rather than overhead lighting. My preference is s till to have books; if I'm bored and need inspiration, I

don't love the Internet as much as I love f lipping thro ugh boo ks. My workspace is generally clean, orderly. But

no matter how clean it is, I almos t always have some pile of samples or protot ypes to pick through.

Other t han the computer, what is your most important tool?My hand and something to draw with. I've

explored every possible fancy pen on the planet, and I've never found something better than a Bic Round Stic

And what I've realized is, the ability to draw an idea t ransf orms a conversat ion f rom being about words to

instant ly being about possibilities. You can talk and talk and talk, but the person with the pen actually starts toshape the idea. To me, it's always been the mos t powerful thingwhether you're talking about a product o r

whether you're talking about an org chart in an HR discussion. It's amazing to see how the presence of a pen

can accelerate a so lution almos t instant ly.

What is the best part of your job?Always learning. I have never gone into work and f elt like, "I'm done. I've

f igured it out. There's no thing more I can learn here."

What is the worst part of your job?Probably the thing I dread the most is the administrat ive side of running

the design department. I've got 250 designers in f ive dif f erent locations around the world. So as much as I'd

love to be on the edge of new products all the t ime, probably 50 percent o f my time is treat ing my team as par


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of a huge company. I'm doing budgets, o rganizat ional setups, process calendarsthings that when you go to

design schoo l, you never think you'll be doing. But then you realize that without those things, a drawing is just

a drawingit's no thing unless you have this whole inf rastructure set up to actually deliver that thing.

The AdiZero Primeknit sneaker features a seamless one-piece upper.

What t ime do you get up and go to bed?In general, I go to bed around midnight and get up around 6:00. Bu

I'm jet-lagged pretty regularly, so sometimes I'm adjusting to a time zone and I might be in bed by 8:30 or 9:00

and then I'm up at 3:00. Or it's t he oppositeI'm working on a pro ject and I'm totally in the f low of it, and I'm

more o f a nighttime person, so if I keep going af ter dinner I'll be up until 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning.

How do you procrastinate?I just ignore things. If I don't want to do it , I just ignore it. If people send me e-

mails about something that I just can't come up with an answer about, I ignore t he e-mails. It's terrible.

What is your favorite productivity t ip or trick?That's an easy one. I always have a sketchboo k with me an

I always make lists, constantly. And it's not , like, notes. I only write action s tepsexactly what I need to do.

Every single point has an action verb at the beginning, and I make sure every single thing on that list gets

crossed of f . Just do ing thatmaking lists, making sure everything is actionable, and then doing it, and


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cross ing it o f f , and not being able to turn the page until you're doneis incredibly powerful.

What is the most important quality in a designer? Probably intuition. Which is to ugh, because it's not a sk

you can simply learn, and it's no t something you're born with; it's something you have to really cultivate. For m

it's about problem-solving with a sense o f style. You need to be part engineer and you need an emot ional

connection to aesthetics, and you need to be able to put those two things together in a way that just f eels

right.

The problem-solving part is important because, you know, the world doesn't need more stuf f ; it needs bett er

stuf f . It needs more longer-lasting stuf f . And I think f or designers, that intuitive ability to connect the dot s

between unrelated ideas and come up with something new and keep the importance of the human connection

to whatever it is you're trying to so lve, creates that aesthetic sense of style. And that 's critical. That is what, I

think, separates an ideas person or an engineer f rom a real designer.

What is the most widespread misunderstanding about design or designers? About design, I would say

one o f the misunderstandings is that there's a lot o f emphasis placed on the totally original idea. Repurpos ing

an old idea can be as powerf ul and as meaningful as a to tally new idea.

About designers , I think t here's still this total misunderstanding that designers are jus t people who sit around

and draw and like colors and, you know, these very superf icial things about what designers do . And I think

people would be absolutely amazed by the depth and breadth o f a designer's daily work and how they have to

go f rom understanding a project f rom a 30,000-f oo t view and then be able to go down to the very, very

smallest detail of every penny that goes into t hat product. I think the depth of what designers actually do is s t

not understood.


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Adidias Design Head Inerview

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