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Tom Hardy
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Tom Hardy

Author: 
Bret Smith
Birth/Death Age: 
1946
Tom Hardy

Tom Hardy was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1946. He attended Auburn University, earning his Bachelor of Industrial Design degree in 1970. After graduating, Tom went to work for International Business Machines (IBM) where he designed numerous products including main-frame computers. During the late 1970s Tom was given the task of researching personal computers and developed a number of designs and product proposals based on his research. Tom designed the original IBM PC CPU and Keyboard introduced in 1981. After serving as the Director of Design for the IBM Lexington Kentucky Facility which designed and oversaw the production of typewriters and printers, Tom went on to become the corporate head of IBM’s Design efforts, directing projects worldwide. His work as an IBM industrial designer has been won numerous awards including: Industrial Designers Society of America Gold IDEA, The Premio Smau Award (Italy), iF Product Design Award (Germany) and I.D. Magazine Annual Design Review. As Corporate Head of the IBM Design Program (1989-1993), Hardy directed worldwide design and identity activities in collaboration with preeminent designers Richard Sapper and Paul Rand, while coordinating fifteen design centers in Europe, Japan and the United States. Tom presided over the successful launch of numerous products including the highly successful ThinkPad notebook computer series (one of Business Week’s “Hot Products” in 1993). The original ThinkPad, launched in 1992, together with other award winning product designs initiated during his corporate leadership tenure, helped lay the foundation for the revitalization of IBM's brand image and product offerings in the 1990s. Tom Hardy’s roll in IBM global design and identity coordination is featured in the Rizzoli book World Design. The ThinkPad has also been written about in great detail in at least three separate books: ThinkPad: A Different Shade of Blue, Management of Strategic Alliances and The Race for Perfect, as well as in a case study published by The London Business School. The 2007 anniversary issue of PC Magazine also highlighted Tom’s innovative leadership role in the original ThinkPad development process.

In 1993 Hardy established a consulting firm focusing on brand-design strategy. From 1995-2003 he served as Corporate Design Advisor to Samsung Electronics assisting in their effort to focus on innovative product design to improve global brand equity. Business Week's 2002 issue on "Cool Korea" cited Hardy’s work in inspiring Samsung designers to 'think out of the box.' Business school case studies attributing brand-design strategy to Samsung’s global success have been published by SCMS Journal of Indian Management, Bangalore, Thunderbird School of Global Management and Harvard Business School Publishing.

Hardy is the creator of Verbal-Visual Framework (VVF), a patent-pending brand-design management tool with unique analytics to accurately inform and direct decision-making. VVF provides an in-depth, educated framework for design language and strategic brand direction. In addition to Samsung, his clients have included Ford, Lenovo, Lowe’s, Maytag, Merck, Tupperware Brands, Verizon and Xerox.

He is currently a part-time Professor in the Design Management Program at Savannah College of Art and Design.

http://verbal-visual.com

Sources: 
Interviews and personal correspondence with Tom Hardy. Images used by permission of Tom Hardy.
Copyright Information: 
I do not own the rights but have obtained the rights for industrialdesignhistory.com to post the attached image(s) or video(s) on its website with proper attribution.