I always liked the story about Philippe Starck and his famous lemon juicer (squeezer?) design. Lloyd and Snelders (2003) discuss it in an issue of Design Studies.
They talk about how Starck used his design thinking skills to move from physically drawing a squid on a napkin, as a kind of metaphor, all the way through to the design solution – the Alessi lemon squeezer that looks ‘squid-like’.
As Nigel Cross (Cross, 2011) suggests, it’s a beautiful example of how designers draw on recalled memories to aid their creative process. In this case, it’s one of the more practical ‘real world’ examples of design thinking having a practical professional practice application or outcome.
Here’s to more of that.
Cross, N. (2011). Design Thinking: Understanding How Designers Think and Work: Oxford: Berg Publishers.
Lloyd, P., & Snelders, D. (2003). What was Philippe Starck thinking of? Design Studies, 24(3), 237-253. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0142-694X(02)00054-6
Communication & Graphic Design Research 