A few weeks ago, I sat down with Industrial Designer Philippe Guichard for a conversation on experience.
I thought we would be talking about design. And we did.
But as often happens with these On Experience conversations, the topic gradually shifted. What started as a discussion about products, creativity and culture slowly became a conversation about perception.
It became about what experience teaches us to notice.
How Design has Changed
One of the questions I asked Philippe was how his approach to design had changed over the last thirty years. His answer surprised me.
He said that when he was younger, design was much more ego-driven. He wanted to create clever products that won awards. This was a common measure of success in industrial design.
Deeper within that pursuit was his desire to create products that demonstrated how capable he was as a designer.
Today, he sees design very differently. Now, he sees design as an act of service.
That distinction stayed with me, but not because it is limited to design. But it seems to describe a pattern that appears in many fields.
The early stages of a career are often about proving ourselves. But the later stages are often about serving the situation in front of us.
The focus shifts from “How good am I?” to”What does this situation need?”
You might see that as a sign of professional maturity – and it is. But it feels like a change in perception of himself and what he provides.
Experience Changes What We Notice
As the conversation continued, Philippe described something I have heard from many experienced practitioners.
He can now see multiple dimensions of a situation simultaneously. For instance, thoughts about manufacturing, the marketing, the user experience, finance, business models, the project constraints, and the opportunity for success.
This is not linear. He doesn’t see one, then the other. But all of them at once. He’s exploring how elements fit together as a single pattern. And that makes sense when you realise that a finished design is all of these forces coming together in a single object.
This aligns closely with a question I’ve been exploring through On Experience. We often think of experience as being about knowledge. But what if expertise is more about attention?
Experience doesn’t simply teach us more facts. It also appears to teach us what to look at.
An architect walks into a building and notices the structure.
An anthropologist notices people.
A mindfulness teacher notices awareness.
An industrial designer notices products, interactions, proportions, intentions and consequences.
The world hasn’t changed, but their perception has.
Observation Before Intervention
One of my favourite moments in the conversation was Philippe describing the creation of a product called The Lobster. It’s a simple paintbrush holder that became a commercial success.
The interesting part wasn’t the product itself; it was the process.
The design didn’t begin with brainstorming. It began with observation.
Philippe spent time watching painters work. And he noticed how paintbrushes continually ended up on the ground, and this meant paint dripped all over the place, people often stepped in it, and this wasted a lot of time and energy keeping the workspace clean.
It was only after observing the situation that the design emerged. It was observation first and intervention second.
That sequence feels increasingly important because it’s almost the opposite of what people in organisations do. They move quickly to solutions, recommendations and action.
But many of the people I’ve spoken with through On Experience seem to share a different pattern. They spend longer looking, noticing and trying to understand.
And it leaves me to think that perhaps that patience is not a delay to expertise, but it is the expertise in action.
The Influence of Culture
Another fascinating thread explored the influence of culture. Philippe has the unique experience of growing up in France, studying and working in Canada and now living and working in Australia.
From this, he noticed how different cultures shaped different design languages. But not only that, the expectations in the society about design were different, too. This suggests a different way of seeing. While some wanted function, others wanted flair.
What interested me wasn’t whether one approach was better than another, but the idea that culture quietly shapes perception.
We often assume we see reality directly. Yet much of what we notice, value and respond to has been shaped by the environments in which we have lived.
That’s true for end users of products as well as those creating them.
Our experience becomes a lens. And after enough years, we stop noticing the lens itself.
The Things We Learn to See
Toward the end of the conversation, I asked Philippe what he notices when he walks into a room.
His answer was immediate; he didn’t even need to think about it.
He instantly noticed the lights, the switches, the chairs and the products in the room.
He told a story about visiting an art gallery as a design student. While everyone else was looking at the paintings on the walls, he was looking up at the ceiling because that’s where the interesting lighting was hanging.
That story made me smile because I recognised it instantly. It’s what I do as an ex-architect. I walk into a building and notice the form, the structure holding it up, the relationship to the outside and the materials used.
We cannot help ourselves because experience has trained our attention.
And perhaps that is one of the most interesting things about expertise. It’s not that it gives us better answers, but that it changes the questions we naturally ask.
It doesn’t fill our heads with more information; it teaches us what is worth noticing.
The longer I explore experience, the more I find myself returning to a simple possibility: Experience changes what we see.
And once we see something differently, we can never quite return to seeing it the old way again.
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