Growing up before the advent of cable television, we had three stations to choose from. Well, four stations if you counted PBS (and no one really counted PBS). In Detroit, we were lucky because we also got CBC from Canada. Beyond that, pickings were slim for a kid who wanted to spend time in front of the television.

Saturday mornings were of course the difference maker. You could get cartoons on Saturday mornings, which was a welcome reprieve from whatever my parents wanted to watch. And after cartoons, we were greeted with professional wrestling. Names like Chief Jay Strongbow, Koko Beware, George “The Animal” Steele, Dusty Rhodes, Roddy Piper, and many more. It was awesome to watch the spectacle of wrestling, especially the rise of Hulk Hogan and the mainstreaming of what was a fringe sport. I recall when Wrestlemania filled the Pontiac Silverdome, and also when “Dr. D” David Schultz slapped reporter John Stossel. Perhaps even more seismic was when Nikolai Volkoff started carrying an American flag and teamed with Hacksaw Jim Duggan after the fall of the Soviet Union.

I fell out of watching wrestling during what became known as the Attitude Era. But recently, I started going out to a local professional production called Lucky Pro Wrestling. This was after seeing it advertised through posters that were stapled to powerline poles around my town. After going the first time, I was hooked. It might have lacked the scale, pyrotechnics, and pomp of what you see on television, but it also had so much more. It had the passion of performers who are assaulting their bodies and each other for the love of the art, for the legacy of the history, and dedication to the fans. If you want to see community, go to a local independent professional wrestling match.

So I am very excited today to welcome professional wrestler Vern Vicallo to Experience by Design. Vern is billed as coming from Detroit, Michigan, which is something that we bonded over when I first chatted with him at his merchandise table. He has been injured for much of this year, but is making his return to the ring at the Nextgen Championship Wrestling event on November 13th in Raymond, NH.

We talk about Vern’s entry into wrestling in 2010, and the training opportunities that exist in New England. He describes the experience design approaches that he and other wrestlers take to make the crowd part of the show. Vern shares how wrestling is a combination of being a jock and a theater kid, joining together emotion and movement to tell stories that people care about. He also describes his love of all things Detroit, including Faygo “pop” and the Insane Clown Posse.

And of course we talk about the perception of wrestling as real or fake misses the point of creating experiences for audiences. Thankfully, he didn’t slap me like I was John Stossel.

Vern Vicallo on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vernvicallo/

Vern Vicallo on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VernVicallo/

Vern Vicallo on Lucky Pro Wrestling: http://www.luckyprowrestling.com/vern-vicallo.html

Vern Vicallo Store: https://www.prowrestlingtees.com/vern-vicallo-v.html

This semester, I’ve been teaching a class that originally was called Internationalization and World-Ready Product Design. The class stands in a long line of academic tradition of having really long names that are hard to remember. Despite that, the class has been a fun exploration of culture, technology, inclusion, ethics, and design aesthetics. One of the themes that we keep hitting on, and my guest last week emphasized, is that we typically rely on a limited history of design aesthetics that is rooted in certain cultural traditions and leaves out (or even completely are ignorant of) others.

Aesthetics put simply is the philosophical investigation of art and beauty, how people evaluate things in terms of those properties, and how those aesthetics are part of design. American philosopher John Dewey in his book Art as Experience talked about how art and aesthetics should be integrated into everyday life. There is inspiration from and unity in art and everyday experiences, especially how our appreciation and imagination of the everyday can be rooted in artistic expressions. This in turn becomes part of how we envision design.

We can see how this has an impact on our work as experience designers. How do we think about art, beauty, usability, and overall aesthetics in the design products that create?

To explore this issue and these questions, I welcome Ravi Sawhney to Experience by Design. Ravi is an industrial designer, and co-founder of RKS Designs. He also is co-founder of RKS Guitars, which he worked with rock star Dave Mason (of Traffic, Delaney and Bonnie, and Derek and the Dominos, among many other accomplished groups). Together, they redesigned how the guitar would look in a new amazing form, as well as conceptualized how guitars could be modular. The focus on aesthetics extends into how RKS does other design work, including user interfaces, brands, packaging, and much more.

Ravi talks about his journey to founding RKS, as well as what led to him working with Dave Mason (who recently died when we recorded this). He describes his approach of Psycho-Aesthetics, which is a “design methodology that merges psychology with aesthetic design to understand how products and experiences influence human emotion, thoughts, and behaviors.” He also talks about Psychoaesthetics Artificial Augmented Intelligence, a new human intelligence layer that controls and directs AI through human-centered design principles.

Ravi shares his career journey from working as a model maker to becoming an industrial designer at Xerox PARC, where he developed the first graphical interface for a touchscreen while working with PhD psychologists and programmers. Ravi discusses his approach to helping organizations overcome client resistance to disruptive change by using design to create positive experiences and affirmations that lead to adoption of new ideas.

We also talk about old tech, Teddy Ruxpin, remote controls, and coffee mugs.

RKS Design: https://rksdesign.com/

Psycho-Aesthetics: https://rksdesign.com/psycho-aesthetics-design-thinking/

RKS Guitars: https://rksdesign.com/rks-guitars/

Ravi Sawhney on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ravisawhney/

There are a lot of aspects of my job that I enjoy. Perhaps the most enjoyable is helping students prepare for a fulfilling life where they can find a professional and personal path that will work for them. Not that we as professors can be fully responsible for that. But I think all professors see themselves as Robin Williams either in Good Will Hunting or Dead Poets Society. We want to reach our students in a way that provides a lasting impact.

Another part of this is trying to extend one’s own profession through the lives of younger aspiring professionals. Ideally, we provide a platform on which they can stand and advance, further progressing the work we have done and hoping for greater progress when the reins are turned over to new generations. Here is what we have done and learned, and now it is up to you all to advance what we started. I can’t say “finish what we started” because progress is never finished. But through continued progress, we can hope that things just keep getting better for more and more people.

While we all can be beneficiaries of such progress, it is important to keep in mind those who have been historically marginalized, making sure that progress is not just felt by them, but directed toward them.

To discuss professional pipelines and intentional inclusion, I welcome Steven Wakabayashi to Experience by Design podcast. Steven has a fascinating history, majoring in physiology/neuroscience as well as theater/dance, which was a unique combination for a pre-med path. However, his own work creating websites and a gap year led him to focus on design as a career.

We talk about his low-tech childhood, where he had to find ways to use creativity to occupy his time. Steven discusses the importance of taking creative risks and making mistakes during one’s education. Steven explores how design is becoming increasingly homogenized due to Eurocentric perspectives and corporate aesthetics, but highlights the importance of global design diversity, particularly from Asia, Africa, and different Asian countries. He explains that while some designers seek corporate jobs for stability, clients are increasingly seeking fresh and innovative designs that often draw inspiration from underrepresented communities and activism.

Steven describes his efforts related to the QTBIPOC Design fellowship, providing a pipeline for diverse talent to make a difference through design. We also explore how leveraging individual experiences and cultural backgrounds can enhance problem-solving and create more effective designs. We end with discussing the need for adaptability in design practices as contexts and audiences evolve rapidly, emphasizing the importance of being open to new approaches and continuously reassessing needs.

Stranger Creative: https://strangercreative.com/

QTBIPOC Design: https://qtbipoc.design/

Steven Wakabayashi Website: https://stevenwakabayashi.com/

Steven Wakabayashi LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenwakabayashi/