frog debuts a radical new business model. Can it save independent design?

FASTCO — 

The business of design has never been as profitable as the businesses that design enables. In partnering with the VC firm Tuesday Capital, Frog wants to change that.

In 2013, Andrew Zimmerman received a letter from Facebook’s legal council. Zimmerman had just taken charge as president of Frog, the storied design consultancy that helped bring about everything from the Sony Walkman to the Apple Macintosh. And Facebook had a request that wasn’t really a request: Facebook wanted Frog to waive all IP rights to a conceptual headset it had designed for a burgeoning VR company called Oculus.