The Talent at PepsiCo Design & Innovation Discuss Their Methodology

Summary

The Mexico Design Center is a collective of multidisciplinary designers focusing on innovation through design thinking. They prioritize empathy, strategy, and prototyping to align creativity with business goals. By working internally within organizations like PepsiCo, they leverage unique insights to create impactful solutions. The team thrives on collaboration and transparency, applying their diverse skills across branding, product design, and experience creation. Their mission extends beyond business value, aiming to craft meaningful social experiences that enhance people’s lives through moments of convenience, safety, pleasure, and health.

Takeaways

• 🎨 The Mexico Design Center is a collaborative space where creators and designers from diverse backgrounds come together.
• 💡 The center focuses on a wide array of design disciplines, from graphic and motion design to product and experience design.
• 🧠 Design thinking is emphasized as a core process, involving empathy, strategy, and prototyping.
• 👥 Empathy is crucial in understanding user needs, translating them into strategies that influence the organization's brand, customer relations, and business models.
• 🚀 The design team works at the intersection of feasibility and innovation, aiming to turn the impossible into reality.
• 🔍 Transparency and collaboration are fundamental values at the center, fostering innovation across different functions and departments.
• 📊 The Design Center integrates design as a business value within PepsiCo, making it an internal part of the company's strategy and future vision.
• 🛠 The multidisciplinary nature of the team allows for seamless cross-functional collaboration, combining skills in various areas like sketching, 3D modeling, and project management.
• 📈 Designers at the center contribute to large-scale projects and events, focusing on the impact of design within society and how it evolves over time.
• 🌍 The ultimate goal is to build value not only for customers but for society as a whole, creating meaningful experiences that enhance convenience, safety, pleasure, and health.

Q & A

What is the focus of the Mexico Design Center?

The Mexico Design Center focuses on collaboration and innovation among creators, designers, and collaborators from various backgrounds to enhance the overall design experience.

What roles do the members of the design team hold?

The team includes graphic designers, brand experience designers, 3D animators, product and experience designers, brand and packaging designers, architects, and brand strategists.

What is design thinking and how is it used in this context?

Design thinking is an approach based on empathy, strategy, and prototyping. It involves understanding people's needs, translating them into strategies for organizations, and using design tools to create solutions and align teams around a central idea.

How does the Mexico Design Center encourage collaboration?

The center fosters collaboration through transparency, with the architecture and work culture designed to inspire and instigate collaboration across different teams and departments.

Why is empathy important in the design process?

Empathy allows designers to understand people's needs, dreams, and desires from a different perspective, enabling them to create solutions that resonate deeply with users.

How does being internal to a company like PepsiCo give the design team a competitive edge?

Being internal allows the design team to have a unique perspective, as they are integrated into the company, which helps them drive value by understanding internal dynamics and aligning design solutions with company goals.

What is the role of prototyping in the design process?

Prototyping is used to visualize ideas and create sketches or models, helping align teams and stakeholders around a common vision and enabling quick iteration based on feedback.

How do designers handle innovation between the feasible and the impossible?

Designers work at the edge between the feasible and the impossible, constantly pushing boundaries to transform impossible ideas into possible, innovative solutions.

How does design thinking create business value for companies?

Design thinking integrates into a company’s way of working, helping to address user needs and transform challenges into opportunities, which ultimately drives business value.

What is the ultimate mission of the Mexico Design Center's design team?

The team's mission is to build value not only for customers but for society as a whole by creating experiences that deliver pleasure, safety, convenience, and health for consumers.