The nature of design

Franco Lodato, chief designer and director of design at Motorola IDEN Mobile Business, explores how bionics and bio-design have been critical to his innovative product design. He examines how the processes, shapes, mechanisms and textures found in nature have aided designers since Leonardo da Vinci. Lodato cites examples of two of his own bionic designs. The first is an ice axe designed for the Italian sports equipment manufacturer CAMP, modelled on the woodpecker, a bird that chisels into wood to feed. The second a new line of rugged, shock-resistant, weather-resistant phones designed for Nextel Communications, modelled on the protective exoskeleton of lobsters and other crustaceans.