8 April 2012 | Blueprint, April 1984

Nick Butler: the product designer as anti-hero

Nick Butler died in early 2012. Here, in a rare and relatively early interview, he explains why, despite being one of Britain's most successful 20th century designers, he preferred to keep a low profile

7 April 2012 | Design magazine, February 1983

King Miranda: designers as priests at technology's altar

The Milan-based studio gives a master class on how desingers should mediate technology with humanism 6.5MB

2 April 2012 | Blueprint, November 1984

David King: graphic designer, ranged left

When once he art edited the Sunday Times colour supp, David King brought picture after picture of Leon Trotsky to the breakfast-tables of Britain. Nearly 30 years ago, this is his first ever major interview

| Blueprint, late 1986

FHK Henrion: graphics as propaganda in World War II

In the 1940s FHK Henrion did some of the world's most passionate posters; in the 1960s, he helped create the face of post-war Britain. Just four years before his death, I talked to him at his house in Hampstead

28 March 2012 | Smart Monkey TV

Open innovation, the linear model of innovation, and risk avoidance

Kitchen interview on how companies abdicate responsibility for innovation

27 March 2012 | Smart Monkey TV

Innovation: what is it and who spends money on it?

Kitchen interview on the basics of new products and services, R&D, state intervention and the role of basic scientific research

| spiked

Rare earths and not-so-rare tensions

Barack Obama's threat to take China to court for hoarding precious elements is more than just a trade dispute

26 March 2012 | Smart Monkey TV

Innovation: the picture in energy and in pharmaceuticals

Kitchen interview on the barriers – both real and assumed – to progress in the two sectors

22 March 2012 | Battle of Ideas conference, 2011

Fracking and Fukushima: our energy security fears

'When I hear the phrase "energy security", I reach for my revolver'. Debate with Professor Gordon MacKerron, director of Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Sussex, and Tanya Morrison, government relations manager, climate change, Shell International

2 February 2012 | spiked

All this carbon-cutting is a waste of energy

Neither Boris Johnson nor Ken Livingstone is willing to deliver the uninterrupted, cheap energy London needs

29 January 2012 | Design Principles and Practices journal

The craze for design thinking

The historical and social reasons why hip designers talk of little else. Plus: elements of an alternative 127kB

| Design Management Journal

The Next Trend in Design

Given the alacrity with which design managers uphold and then forget about future trends, it's worth asking: Where do such trends really come from? How can we forecast the next one, and be sure that it won't simply be a transient fad? 106kB

25 January 2012 | Amadeus

Back on track

Europe's railways need to up their game in IT 1.2MB

17 January 2012 | spiked

Making a molehill out of a mountain

Clint Eastwood’s biopic of J Edgar Hoover is more about the man’s personal identity than his historical significance

29 December 2011 | Campaign, 16 September 1988

How design got High Streed cred

The British High Street began to swing in the 1960s. By 1988, the frothiest year of the Thatcher decade, it really hurtled

The West finds cutting back hard, but it finds growth even harder. British officials in particular have largely lost the idea that fundamental, long-term research, as well as technological innovation, can create whole new industries and millions of jobs. There's plenty of rhetoric about innovation, but most of the excitement surrounds cutting back again - reducing Energy usage, waste and costs generally. For all the talk, too, of innovatory 'business models', or new ways of taking money off customers, a prominent and very familiar business model today is... cutting back budgets for research and development.

We need a new spirit of critical enquiry - in science, and also when innovation is rhapsodised about, but not tenaciously pursued. We need to think big, take risks, build more prototypes and learn from their failures, and have faith that human ingenuity can triumph over seemingly impossible obstacles.

It's time to get serious about innovation.