Two Dads are Better than None

There are three basic principles behind any well-designed product: truth, humanity, and simplicity. To see these three in action, look at one of the icons of the 20th century -- the VW Beetle. My dad had one of the first models -- a yellow 1952 Bug. In college, I had a red 1968 model. It was one of the few cars in which I've really experienced the feeling of driving. The driver's seat was like a real chair and totally ergonomic. The car was high, comfortable, practical, and even though I could never go very fast, I felt like I was flying.

From a design standpoint, it was an incredibly simple and honest creation. Basically, the Beetle combined three semicircles: two arcs for the fenders and one large arc for the body -- pure, simple, and beautifully proportioned. And it's so human, even down to its weaknesses -- such as the heater, which never seemed to work in the old models. But we still loved the car. What makes good design? Design is not beautification. It's a thought process -- a nonlinear, spatial way of thinking in which connections are made between seemingly unrelated things. Designers are creative visual thinkers who learn to see the world differently.

Think about the Beetle: How many objects -- and cars for that matter -- make people coo?

Sohrab Vossoughi (sohrab_vossoughi@ziba.com) founded ZIBA Design Inc., a product-development firm, in 1984. Some of Ziba's clients include Nike, FedEx, McDonald's, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Hyundai, Coleman, and Rubbermaid. The first VW beetles were built in 1938 with a 985cc engine. They were named KDF-wagens -- kraft durch Freude or "power through joy."