The HP Touchsmart computer

This diverse portfolio of projects is standard fare at Lunar, where John, an engineer-designer who would look at home as the bassist in an indie rock band, rallies the troops to create award-winning designs that have included everything from the Zootr to the ULTRA II SD PLUS flash memory card and a green version of San Disk's ImageMate Reader.

Lately, John says, the company's focus has been on best practices in sustainability, both within the company and in the designs they create. The group recently published the "Designer's Field Guide to Sustainability," and John regularly speaks at industry conferences on the topic.

All that's just fine, but as John noted recently on , the company's blog, "As designers, we have a panoply of motivations. We want our clients to be happy, for their products to sell in the millions, for our peers to admire us, for our work to matter to people, to make a difference in the world. But now I realize all that is meaningless. What we really want is for our work to be featured in the music video at the top of the charts. Check it: Boom Boom Pow by the Black Eyed Peas uses the HP TouchSmart PC to frame their hypnotic vision of the future."