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Core77
Core77 Quest ionnaire
Adidas's James Carnes on Ignoring E-mails, Problem-Solving with Style, and Why the World Needs Intuitive Design Posted by core jr | 20 Aug 2013 | Comments (0)

Name: James Carnes Occupation: I am the Global Creative Director f or Sport Perf ormance Design at Adidas. Location: I currently live right outside Herzogenaurach, Germany. But I also still live in Portland, Oregon. I just of f icially moved over to Germany with my f amily, but I still go back and f orth.

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 there are a lot of new high-perf ormance projects on our table, in terms of f ootwear and apparel and working with new country f ederations, which is always really cool. T here's tons of other stuf f . We've got a new line coming f or Stella McCartney. We introduced a technology called Boost this year, and that's growing. We're also doing a lot of new collaboration projects, where we're bringing in designers f rom dif f erent industrieswhether it's architects, industrial designers, graphic designers and working with them, just getting a dif f erent point of view on what sport 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 to totally new ideas, and design is really the interf ace that does that. It takes something that's completely unf amiliar and makes it f amiliar, and it brings something that's totally rare and makes it f eel close to you. My mantra right now is: T he 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 that you wanted to be a designer? It was basically right bef ore college. I had three main tracks that I was considering: Science and medicinewhich, in a very stereotypical way, was what my parents would have lovedarchaeology or the visual arts. I didn't really know that I wanted to be a designer; I just 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 portf olio and included it in my applications. So that's when I decidedas I was applying. Education: I went to the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, and got a B.F.A. with a f ocus on industrial design. First design job: T hat's a f unny one. I didn't grow up with a ton of money, and I used to make toys f rom stuf f I basically pulled f rom the trash. So I would put together toy guns f or me and my f riends, or put together other contraptions. It was pretty well known in my neighborhood. And at some point this one f riend's dad came to the house. I thought I was in trouble. But he came to ask if I would make toys f or his two sons' birthdays, which were a couple of days apart. So I ended up making these f uturistic bazookas f or the kids down the street, and

that's when I realized, "Oh my god, this could actually be a job." Who is your design hero? I like the extremesso I like inventors and I like stylists equally. I'm really a f an of Z aha 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 that 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

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 Portland and an of f ice in Germany. And I didn't really realize what my workspace looked like until I ended up having three dif f erent ones, and discovered that I had a lot of the same f urniture and the same setup. I like a combination of cold and warm, f rom warm natural hardwood to stark concrete. I pref er warm light f rom lamps rather than overhead lighting. My pref erence is still to have books; if I'm bored and need inspiration, I don't love the Internet as much as I love f lipping through books. My workspace is generally clean, orderly. But no matter how clean it is, I almost always have some pile of samples or prototypes to pick through. Other than the computer, what is your most important tool? My hand and something to draw with. I've explored every possible f ancy pen on the planet, and I've never f ound something better than a Bic Round Stic. And what I've realized is, the ability to draw an idea transf orms a conversation f rom being about words to instantly being about possibilities. You can talk and talk and talk, but the person with the pen actually starts to shape the idea. To me, it's always been the most powerf ul thingwhether you're talking about a product or 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 solution almost instantly. 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. T here's nothing more I can learn here." What is the worst part of your job? Probably the thing I dread the most is the administrative 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 time, probably 50 percent of my time is treating my team as part

of a huge company. I'm doing budgets, organizational setups, process calendarsthings that when you go to design school, you never think you'll be doing. But then you realize that without those things, a drawing is just a drawingit's nothing 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 time do you get up and go to bed? In general, I go to bed around midnight and get up around 6:00. But 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 the oppositeI'm working on a project and I'm totally in the f low of it, and I'm more of 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 emails about something that I just can't come up with an answer about, I ignore the e-mails. It's terrible. What is your favorite productivity tip or trick? T hat's an easy one. I always have a sketchbook with me and I always make lists, constantly. And it's not, like, notes. I only write action stepsexactly 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 doing thatmaking lists, making sure everything is actionable, and then doing it, and

crossing it of f , and not being able to turn the page until you're doneis incredibly powerf ul. What is the most important quality in a designer? Probably intuition. Which is tough, because it's not a skill you can simply learn, and it's not something you're born with; it's something you have to really cultivate. For me it's about problem-solving with a sense of style. You need to be part engineer and you need an emotional connection to aesthetics, and you need to be able to put those two things together in a way that just f eels right. T he problem-solving part is important because, you know, the world doesn't need more stuf f ; it needs better stuf f . It needs more longer-lasting stuf f . And I think f or designers, that intuitive ability to connect the dots 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 solve, creates that aesthetic sense of style. And that's critical. T hat 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 of the misunderstandings is that there's a lot of emphasis placed on the totally original idea. Repurposing an old idea can be as powerf ul and as meaningf ul as a totally new idea. About designers, I think there's still this total misunderstanding that designers are just 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 of a designer's daily work and how they have to go f rom understanding a project f rom a 30,000-f oot view and then be able to go down to the very, very smallest detail of every penny that goes into that product. I think the depth of what designers actually do is still not understood.

Carnes's office in Herzogenaurach

What is your most prized design possession? I have two. I have a 200-year-old Koran I bought while I was in Indonesia. It's handwritten, so every single page was thought out. We don't normally think of everything as being designed; sometimes we take certain things f or granted, especially older objects. And I cherish that. I look at that sometimes just to remember how important it is to use your hands. And the other one is a collection of tools f rom my grandf ather. He was a plumber. What I love about that collection is, every single tool he had, he had to make or remake or custom-f it in some way. And I love looking at those. Aside f rom sentimental reasons, there's a history in them, and the history is about making tools better, and that's part of design. What is exciting you in design right now? I really love f ollowing what's happening with the gradual conversion to a more sustainable f uture. And what I like is that we're so f ar past the whole idea of a green movement; it's now about actually the harsh reality that world economics are plummeting in some places because we've been thinking small and designing f or today. Not just with products, but with buildings and inf rastructure f or cities. And that's starting to change. Designers, I think, are changing that by making responsibility look and f eel premium. T hey're bringing the f uture to us in a way that's incredibly attractive, but it's simple and suggests that we don't have to be a throwaway economy anymore. If you could redesign anything, what would you choose? T he experience of eating f ood on an airplane. T he f ood itself , the way it's servedthe whole process of f ood on an airplane is something that's disastrous to me. You could overhaul it in such an easy way. What do you hope to be doing in ten years? I've been moving around a lot in the last ten years, so I'm looking f orward to f inally settling down and building a house f or myself and my f amilya house that really f eels like our home. I also have a dream of owning a restaurant. Wherever I am and whatever I'm doing, I'll still be designing. It's in my DNA. Lastly, who's more fun to have a drink with: architects, industrial designers, or graphic designers? It's like having to choose between really good wine, a microbrew, or a mixed drink. I'm pretty happy to have one of each.