This is a presentation from a talk I gave at TedX Penn Quarter on July 11, 2010. It's based on an earlier presention I gave at Design Thinking Dallas about seven lessons that appy to designers that we can derive from the life and talents of John Hughes. It's best to watch the video that accompanies this presentation first. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tRkjpynmag

1. Reinventing Design
Chris Bernard, Microsoft
Photography licensed from iStockPhoto, except where indicated

2. Jay Doblin Walter Gropius
Saul Bass
Piet Mondrian
Laszlo
Moholy-Nage
Dieter Rams Paul Rand
Charles and Ray Ludwig
Eames Mies van der Rohe

3. Johnny Chung Lee Valerie Casey
Bill Moggridge Jenny Lam
John Maeda
Bill Buxton
Irene Au Blaise Aguera y Arcas

6. Source: Wikipedia

9. Seven Ideas

11. Vision

14. A balanced design vision
Source: Unstuck

15. A discombulated design vision
Source: Unstuck

17. Reflection

18. “You know that assignment you always get in
high school when you’re reading Walden, to
keep a journal?” he said in a 1988 interview.
“Well, I just kept doing that.”
Source: Sweet Bard of Youth, Vanity Fair, David Kamp

20. At some point, Hughes stopped and looked around,
and he realized that he didn’t want to make movies
anymore. He wanted to be at liberty to spend as much
time with his family as he pleased, to work the farm he
owned 75 miles northwest of Chicago, and to exult in
the resolutely uncoastal ethos of his beloved Midwest.
Source: Sweet Bard of Youth, Vanity Fair, David Kamp

22. Sketching

24. Source: Sara Summers

25. Source: Sara Summers

29. Planning

30. Source: Sara Summers

31. Process
Source: Charles and Ray Eames

32. Source: Sara Summers

33. Source: Bill Buxton with a few modifications by Chris Bernard

35. Authenticity

36. Hughes, his sons say, reveled in grandfatherhood; he relished the concept of
growing old and shifting into the role of eccentric paterfamilias. Whereas, in
the 80s, he had hewed faithfully to the fashion conventions of the time,
collecting expensive basketball shoes and wearing his hair in a rococo power
mullet, in his last decade he pointedly dressed in a suit nearly every day…
“I think it bothered him that people his same age, of similar means, were
wearing sweat suits and Twittering,” said James. Though he still kept up with
new music—Hughes had been a legendarily voracious record buyer in the
old days, admired by rock snobs for the acuity of his soundtrack picks—he
now viewed it as his primary duty to be, in his younger son’s words, “the
curious, engaged grandpa in the seersucker.”
Source: Sweet Bard of Youth, Vanity Fair, David Kamp

38. Curiosity

40. And Hughes wanted the teen pictures to convey
a sort of universal truth: that no age group takes
itself more seriously than teenagers. “At that
age,” he said, “it feels as good to feel bad as it
does to feel good.” Every day has the potential
to be the worst day ever, like Samantha’s 16th
birthday, or the best, like the day Ferris spends
playing hooky.
Source: Sweet Bard of Youth, Vanity Fair, David Kamp

41. The first of the Shermer-teen scripts was the least jocular. It was
called Detention. For Hughes, it was a mission as much as it
was a movie. By dint of having gotten married so young, he and
Nancy had spent the early years of their marriage in an unusual
circumstance: they were closer in age to their teen neighbors
than to the homeowning parents of those teens. “I saw how
their lives at 14 and 15 were different than mine had been. My
generation had sucked up so much attention,” Hughes said,
“and here were these kids struggling for an identity. They were
forgotten.”
Source: Sweet Bard of Youth, Vanity Fair, David Kamp

43. Mentoring

44. Source: Vanityfair.com

45. Source: veerle.duoh.com

46. Source: visitmix.com

47. Source: jasonsantamaria.com

48. Source: microsoft.com/design

51. Source: Sara Summers

52. Source: Sara Summers

53. Reinventing Design
Chris Bernard, Microsoft