Yves Béhar, Changing Minds One Design at a Time

By DENNIS NISHI | Special to THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Courtesy Yves Behar

Full name: Yves Béhar
Age: 41
Hometown: Lausanne, Switzerland
Current position: Founder and chief designer at Fuseproject
First job: Costume designer
Favorite job: Current one
Education: B.S. in Design, Art Center College of Design
Years in the industry: 17
How I got to here in 10 words or less: I followed my own path

Best known for his role in designing the One Laptop Per Child laptop,Yves Béhar is an award winning industrial designer that founded Fuseproject, a design firm based in San Francisco. The Swiss native has worked on everything from an elegant new LED task light for Herman Miller to environmentally and socially-conscious underwear. Mr. Béhar has helped push the field of design into a more collaborative realm. His work has been widely featured, including in the Smithsonian. Writer Dennis Nishi spoke with Mr. Béhar about his life in design. Edited excerpts follow.

Q: Do industrial designers grow up with this innate feeling that the world needs to be tweaked and shaped?

A: They do. Before high school, I couldn't find anything that combined my two favorite winter sports -- skiing and windsurfing. So I made this contraption so I could windsurf on snow. It creaked a lot and was really dangerous, but it went really fast. That was one of my first major projects.

Q: You attended the Art Center College of Design in California. Did your education there change your vision?

A: The schools in Europe tend to be very specialized. Art Center had a lot of different departments with a lot of interesting things going on at once. I would spend a lot of time in the fine arts department and the film department, for example, and that exposure cross-pollinated my ideas. I think having a lot of exposure is critical at all stages. Of course, in order to have any influence on the world outside a specific profession like design once you graduate, first one has to excel in design. It sounds contradictory, but once you're recognized for being good in this one thing, people are open to allow you to branch off and do other things.

Q: You've put this idea to use in order to change the workplace for designers. How so?

A: I've been working hard at redefining my interpretation of the profession. When I graduated in the early 1990s, designers in industry were treated more like stylists. The design work was more of an afterthought and our true potential was shortchanged. Over the past 15 years everything has been completely transformed and we're now at a place where we [designers] have a real say at the table. And that's done by seeing yourself as a designer, consumer and manufacturer.

Q: What were your first experiences as a professional industrial designer?

A: I worked with Hartmut Esslinger founder of frog design when he was still with the company. I worked with Lufthansa to help redesign first class and business class seats. I worked for some computer companies and on lots of electronics (projects). I eventually got bored with the electronics field because I found it to be repetitive.

Q: Is that when you decided to strike out on your own?

A: I started Fuseproject in 1999. I wanted to go in a completely different direction. I put forth this notion of brand and product right away. I took some of the things I had learned from mass production and interaction design and put them into everyday projects. For example, one of my first projects was with Mini, the car company. I made a watch for them in which the display would change direction to accommodate different usage and it was a first to do that. I also worked on projects outside technology -- like with Birkenstock.

Q: It seems like younger consumers are now so visually oriented and impatient. It doesn't seem like an intuitive way to design, especially since you grew up without the Internet and the immediacy the Web provides.

A: I like the fact they're impatient. I think they've raised the bar. It's pushing everyone to really integrate great technology with great engineering and great design. There are still so many companies still figuring things out in a laboratory and on a technology floor and with the manufacturers. And then at the end they throw in some design. Those companies stand out like a sore thumb.

Q: How difficult is it to sell innovation to consumers or to dislodge them from old ideas and convince them that there is a better way of doing things?

A: People reward innovation. If it's smart, if it's relevant and not trying to completely replace the original experience, it's not difficult at all for them to come around -- especially if you're taking a product they're used to and taking it to the next phase. The key is to extract the essence of what (consumers) are drawn to and build on that.

Q: What about clients? Is it hard to get them to completely abandon old ideas?

A: Yes, it can be difficult. If you can get them to commit to the conceptual side of projects first, it makes the process easier. We're lucky, though, that most clients come to us for change because we're about ideas, not just a style. The idea is for (them) to say, 'Yes this will take us from where we are now to what we want to be tomorrow.'

Q: What were some of the challenges with the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project? I understand that required a complete reinvention of production methods.

A: It was always driven by a very simple idea. What would the kids love? What did they need? But we had to completely rethink how the laptop was made and how the parts came together. We ended up challenging the status quo on how computers were made. In the end, it was a marriage of technology, education and design that allowed this vision to come about virtually uncompromised.

Q: How do you feel about the project now that it's been deployed and used in so many different settings?

A: It's been extraordinary. I get pictures all the time from places all over the world. There will be about a million laptops made by the end of the year and the ramification of all these children everywhere using them and teaching their parents and siblings to use them is a fantastic reward.

Q: What have you learned from your experiences? And how are you improving on the second generation version that's being released soon?

A: We've simplified the number of components on the XOXO and are making the laptops localized. For example, nobody has ever made an Amharic keyboard for Ethiopia. This is the first keyboard ever made for them and it was so easy. We're also using completely new technology that wasn't available at that price point when we started this in 2005. Kids can use it as a tablet computer now or just like reading or holding a book.

Q: Any chance you'll come around full circle and revisit your windsurf-ski contraption?

A: There's still a side of me that keeps me in these extreme sports. I surf in the Bay Area, snowboard, ride electric skateboards. So, sure, why not? Good ideas should never be wasted.

Write to Dennis Nishi at cjeditor@dowjones.com