A couple of nights ago, I heard segment on Marketplace.org regarding American Industrial Design. It's not often that I hear design stories on a business/economics radio show so this report piqued my attention. It's a two part report:
Part 1: Two obsessed guys and a radical motorcycle design
Part 2: A motorcycle design for the history books
It features JT Nesbitt, designer of Confederate Motocycles (2005), now Lead Designer of Bienville Studios, Jim Jacoby, founder of ADMCi - American Design and Master-Craft Initiative, and the Bienville Legacy concept motorcycle.
What attracted me to ADMCi is one of their vision statements:
Celebrate gifted individuals and small teams who achieve levels of aesthetic, technological and commercial success commensurate with large corporations without the smothering effects of inbred corporate structure or manipulation from the financial sector.
though, their other visions are definitely what we need more of in the design industry. I believe it's this kind of thinking that will bring about innovation America needs.