Deconstructing Product Design

Vespa 150 GS

Corradino D’Ascanio for Piaggio, 1955

1. To paraphrase Mark Twain, often the greatest barrier to innovation is not what we don’t know, but what we do know that just isn’t so. Breakthrough innovations often require individuals who possess strong generalist design and engineering knowledge, but who specifically lack experience with a particular product domain. Such generalists are able to look at problems fresh, uncorrupted by past assumptions and conventions, and leverage analogical knowledge from other domains. Such was the case when Enrico Piaggio sought out noted aeronautical engineer Corradino D’Ascanio to develop “a vehicle that will put Italy on two wheels.” D’Ascanio comments: “Not knowing motorcycles, I was in the ideal ...