Creativity is an innate human impulse, many people believe, something we’re born with but too often “grow out of” as adult lives make more and more demands. Fortunately for us, the creative drive continues to run strong in legendary designer Brendan Dawes. Habitually alert to the happy accident, and possessed of highly eclectic interests and a quirky wit, he has happened into his perfect career. Around this habit–call it a philosophy–of asking, “Why does this have to be this way? What if . . .,” Dawes has built magneticNorth, an acclaimed Web and interaction design practice, based in Manchester, U.K. In this unique book, Dawes invites readers inside a series of his personal projects to get a view of his process--his creative seeing, making, and playing. He encourages designers to look beyond the normal tools of their trade to find inspiration in the most unlikely of places: tubs of children’s clay, anonymous notes, household plumbing fixtures, jazz music, snow globes, fast-food take-out bags, airport departure gates, and more. Brilliant, original, and always grounded in the needs of users, Dawes shares both the techniques he has created and the key lessons he has learned in design: why comfort is the enemy of creativity; how mistakes can be celebrated instead of feared, and how to strip design to its purest and most powerful forms. Known worldwide for his entertaining and inspirational presentations, Dawes now brings profound insights to a book that is certain to become a classic inspiration for designers of every type. Brendan Dawes is Creative Director of the interactive design group magneticNorth, based in Manchester, UK. His clients include the Walt Disney Co., the BBC, Kellogg’s, and Coca-Cola. Dawes’ work has been featured in numerous journals, including idN, Creative Review, MacUser, Computer Arts, Create, The Guardian, and Communications Arts. He was also featured in New Masters of Flash and other books, and is the author of Flash ActionScript for Designers: Dra,g Slide, Fade. Dawes spends much of the year speaking at conferences around the world, including the HOW Design Conference and Flashforward .
Left school at 16 with no qualifications and started working as a photographer for a local news agency. In my spare time I was mucking about with things like the Sinclair ZX81 and making my own movies using a Super8 camera. I'd do things like scratching "laser beams" into the film negative using a razor blade.
I then studied sound engineering for a year (c1987) in Manchester and started to get into sequencing and the like on the good old Atari ST. Then somehow I got a record deal with a small indie in Liverpool and cut a few "rave" type records.
Eventually I needed to earn some actual money to pay the bills so I took a job in an electronics factory where I stayed for 8 years. During that time I started to use my dad's 180c Mac Powerbook and got into Photoshop and eventually web design (this is around 1995).
In 1996 I landed a job with Subnet - a crazy company with a couldn't care less attitude. We won clients like Disney and Coke because we could make cool stuff in Flash. Hooked up with Hillman Curtis in Seattle in 2000 and thats when things really started to happen.
mN started in the same year and six years on we're still taking on the world, building a team of individuals who want to question how things are done and change our approach to technology.
