McDonalds - The New Community Center?

Iconic McDonalds is at it again: they are reinventing themselves once again - this time from a design perspective.

The October issue of "Fast Company" magazine has several fascinating articles on how the company that practically invented fast food is now immersed in revolutionary changes in design.

• "McDonald's Design Heritage" shows how the fast food giant has built its success on ideas that bubble up from anywhere
• "Super Style Me" - inside the $2.4 billion dollar plan to change the way you think about the most iconic restaurant on the planet
• "Where's Ronald McDonald" - inside the disappearance of one of the 20th century's most recognizable brands

"If you have a restaurant that is appealing, contemporary, and relevant," says McDonald's president Don Thompson, "the food tastes better."

Denis Weil, McDonald's VP of concept and design, says that the new styles of design fit perfectly into McDonald's everyman aesthetic. Calling it a community center, he means that McDonald's is one of the few places cheap and casual enough to be accessible to nearly everyone.

"There are very few public places left where private things happen," according to Weil. At the Innovation Center, a test lab for concepts of all kinds, there is a mock restaurant divided into four "seating zones," each designed for a different activity - chilling out, working, casual dining, and group events.

"Dialing up the design in a restaurant makes it a little stronger," Weil says, "but it will lose freshness faster, so we have to update more frequently."

Read all the articles above - then grab a Caramel Frappe' at your local McCafe, and imagine the relevancy for your organization.

And you can still get fries with that...