From Making Stuff To Designing Services
It was nearly 20 years ago that we saw daily TV updates of overflowing landfills and loaded trash barges roaming the Atlantic in search of a home. The days are long past for debating the merits of plastic versus paper, or boasting about the percent of recycled content in products and packaging. Design innovators have caught up with the notion of services as “dematerialized products.” The iPod, arguably the hottest product on the market today, makes a poignant (if unintentional) ecologically correct statement: Why struggle to light-weight a jewel box further when an iPod can access and store 1,000 CDs worth of music with no packaging—indeed, no CD at all?

From Changing Products To Changing Behavior
Thanks to Energy Star, computers, fax machines and photocopiers now sleep when they are not in use, and most conference rooms have motion detectors that turn lights off automatically when people leave the room. Not every product can be designed to offer such carefree efficiency, but we can start to make products that encourage more sustainable behaviors by making them fun. The dashboard on Toyota’s hybrid Prius is a great start—providing game-like feedback that helps drivers squeeze every possible mile from a tank of gas.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the average home pollutes the air with more greenhouse gases than the average car. Over the next 10 years, I think we’ll harness the power of design innovation to make significant strides in reducing home energy use — while making our homes safer and more comfortable. Let’s start with the meter. Today’s electricity meters seem to be designed to conceal information from those who actually use the juice. Researchers are developing ways to turn our meters into home energy dashboards, allowing us to spot power-hogging appliances or the lights your teenage kids left on upstairs.

From Save A Watt To Save A Drop
Twenty years from now, two-thirds of the world’s people will live in a water-starved area. Beyond water purification and desalination technologies, this looming crisis means there will soon be an acute need for dishwashers, clothes washers and personal hygiene products, like shampoos and soaps, that conserve water. Nanotech fibers represent the potential for as much in the apparel industry, making self-cleaning fabrics possible. Such technologies demonstrate the potential for holism in design, naturally conserving precious resources while providing other consumer benefits as well.

What Won’t Change
Regardless of the product or issue, consumers will always try to make the most of their purchasing dollar. They will reach
first for those products that deliver superior primary benefits such as performance, good taste, health or aesthetics over saving the earth or even giving workers a fair shake.

Making things even more challenging, “green” products carry a heavy burden of misperception. More than 40 percent of consumers still equate environmentally responsible shopping with laundry detergents that leave clothes dingy or fluorescent light bulbs that cast a green hue. This is where designers come in.

What Will Change
Most product designers won’t invent a new water- or energy-saving technology, but they can design products with a lighter environmental footprint that consumers want to use and be seen with — and for which maybe even pay a premium. Doing so is good for business, can distinguish one’s career and can garner recognition within the design community. Consider the IDEA-award-winning Prius and Whirlpool Duet washers, for starters.

The good news for the planet in 2005 is that many critical technologies have already been developed. We already know how to save water and energy, extend product life and manufacture products with low toxicity. Successes like the iPod prove that lower-impact designs can even revolutionize mature industries. The better news for designers is that opportunities abound to use their talents to make environmentally sound technologies appealing and accessible to the mainstream, and give consumers the opportunity to put their money where their heart is. Now that’s a new and improved idea.

About Jacquelyn A. Ottman
Jacquelyn A. Ottman is president of J. Ottman Consulting, Inc., a New York Citybased marketing and new-products consultancy specializing in sustainable products and marketing. She is the author of Green Marketing: Opportunity for Innovation, and the founder and driving spirit behind “Design:Green,” a pioneering educational initiative for eco-innovation. More information can be found at www.greenmarketing.com and www.designgreen.org.

[ Source: J. Ottman Consulting, Inc. ]

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“There are some products that don’t necessarily need to be redesigned, like the chair, because you can find good ones that people have used for a long time,” said Fukasawa. “But even a chair can be made to fit our lives better. When I design a chair, I really try to make it chair-like by looking for its center. Every product has a core of awareness, and if you take that as the center of the new product, you can fix the bad part to make a better chair.”

Déjà Vu Chair
Naoto Fukasawa 2006

After reading the article that Porro has posted yesterday, I just decided to post something more as well since I have also been looking into Fukasawa’s designs recently.

Anyway, just feel that I agreed a lot with what Mr. Fukasawa shared above about furniture design. My students are currently working on the upcoming Singapore Furniture Design Award. I noticed that what most of them are doing is trying their best to break the traditional form of a chair, which I am not sure if that is really a good way to approach design. I know as designers, we should challenge the norms and conventions. Yet is it really necessary to be totally radical in order to be different or to produce a nice piece of design? Personally, I don’t think so.

The following is something I found in ±0, that is written by Fukasawa, ±0 Design Director.

Shared Sense
I’m searching for a shared sense, one that should already exist. To use a metaphor, it’s something akin to the gaps in a jigsaw puzzle, but which is not one-dimensional. It’s like the gaps within a set of nested boxes, into which time, space, action, customs, culture, information, education and thought have all been poured. I believe that finding these gaps means looking not at people or objects themselves, but rather at the space around them or their outlines. I don’t like the idea of forcibly changing the shapes of things under the guise of “creation”. Gaps in spaces are things that occur naturally; they are soft or pliable. I want to strengthen this kind of pliability within my own design consciousness, this pliability that accepts a wide range of design ideas. ±0 is a mark that expresses this idea of pliability without there being gaps, much like a cluster of bubbles stuck together. A ±0 that is in a fixed state is simply inconceivable. Just like a solid body whose cells change, designs that fill the gaps are limitless. As such, ±0 can also be seen as a receptacle into which the knowledge of designers who have found this invisible yet existent shape can be placed.

“Something that seems to exist but didn’t”

This is the evaluation of ±0 designs that we often hear. The phrase “something that seems to exist but doesn’t” is a good one, and leads us to imagine that perhaps there is a shared image between myself and the user about what they want before I design. I’m just laying out this thing that seemed to exist but didn’t for everyone. You could say that the design comes not from me but from others. ±0 is trying to create good things in spheres that, while being considered necessary by everyone, haven’t really had “design” applied to them.

Okay, last point. ±0 has just released its latest 2007 collection. I fall in love with its new coffee and tea maker! Do check out on their lastest designs here.

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From paper shredders and cellphones to a chandelier and tea bags, Fukasawa has developed dozens of products in nearly three decades as one of Japan’s most influential designers. He strives to ensure that people will use each of them as casually as they chucked their trash into that bicycle basket. “You shouldn’t need to use an instruction manual to learn how to use a product,” he said. “It should be so intuitive that you work it out naturally.”

His peers have no doubt that he has succeeded. “Naoto’s great skill is in combining humor, concept and function into a package, which seems so natural that it is accessible to us all immediately and without instructions,” explained the British designer Jasper Morrison. “He communicates an object’s purpose on an intuitive level, and we somehow receive his message with a mixture of the pleasure of understanding something clever, and the satisfaction of mastering a new piece of equipment.”

Check out the full article at The International Herald Tribune on Design.

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I’ve always been a fan of drawing tablets though I have the toughest time getting my drawings right by using it. I’ve even written extensively on it, comparing the differences of sketching in a traditional sketch book, to sketching on a drawing tablet and finally on a tablet pc. Thus when the Wacom Bamboo tablet was launched, targeted to the non-graphics market such as business professionals and home users, it sparked a great interest and a little worry if it might make my very expensive Intuos3 obsolete.

Like its namesake, Bamboo is extremely versatile, unlocking powerful pen-based features found in current operating systems, especially Microsoft’s Windows Vista, for freehand writing, annotating and navigating on computers.

However i did find a disconnect with their product name and design, sparking my curiosity of the story behind its industrial design roots.

This red-dot 2007 winning concept was designed by SIGNCE (formerly Ziba Europe) and was meant as:

…to reflect a new attitude of working with a computer using a digital pen. Bamboo enables access to the enhanced functionalities of current operating systems such as handwritten input, and lets consumers easily develop their individual style of working.
Source: Official Press Release

But why the name Bamboo?

Alf Hackenberg, head of the design team at SIGNCE in cooperation with Martin Langkau, said: “The central element of Bamboo is its new round ‘Touch Ring’ for navigation located on the upper edge of the product, allowing an intuitive and ergonomic control of important commands. The additional ‘ExpressKeys’ correspond with the Touch Ring, and the stylish blue backlight to provide easy access to often used functions.”

The appearance of Bamboo impresses with contrasting high gloss finished and elegant matt surfaces and is black with illuminated keys. Black was chosen for its stylish look and to meet the aesthetic needs of both Mac and PC users.

Alf Hackenberg continues: “The high-value product aesthetics are created by the signature combination of different surface characteristics that are consequently applied to all elements of the product including the Bamboo pen, pen stand and tablet. In addition, the black colour makes the tablet appear stylish, emotional and almost mystical.”
Source: Official Press Release

Looks like Alf was not the designer as he sounds like he is struggling to explain the concept. When I first saw the name, (ie before the pictures as my email filters them out) I imagined a Chinese poet or artist sitting with his paper rolls and composing with his “Mao Pi” or Bamboo brush. I must admit to being a little shocked once I looked at the images but I can see where they are coming from in their initial concept development. Don’t get me wrong, this is a great looking product both in aesthetics and functionally, but I just cannot reconcile the name and its form or finish.

I suppose at the end of the day it might be better that a concept name should stay as just that, a concept name.

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Brian Law

After his polytechnic graduation, he was offered a job to work with Honda Motors design team back then. But he chose to resign a few months later, to opt for studying in NUS industrial design, wanting to learn more about design thinking and conceptualisation. Having no regrets choosing to further study here, he has certainly done well, winning 2nd prize with his Organic Cook Design in the Electrolux Design Lab competition 2006 and the Kinetic Light Trekking Pole in the Red Dot Award Concept in 2007.

Winter Lai

Winter, on the other hand, studied graphic design in Vietnam. Wanting to learn further, she wanted to do other fields of design in Asia. And when she heard from others about NUS industrial design team’s capability in Asia, she decided then, to leave Saigon, and come to Singapore to pursue her dreams. Doing pretty well too, her good sense of spatial design has won her accolades in the L’oreal Brandstorm 2007 and Design Excellence Award in Hansgrohe Bathroom Design Competition.

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So with such exposure I had the great opportunity to work with and find out more about the design philosophies of the two famous design icons in Japan - Naoto Fukasawa and Toshiyuki Kita. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity to unravel the mysteries behind their personal design philosophies, styles and their success!

NAOTO FUKASAWA
Was born in Yamanashi Prefecture in 1956. He graduated from Tama Art University in 1980. After working 8 years for Seiko-Epson, he left Japan for US - joining ID Two, which then became part of IDEO which he was part of for another 8 years. Returning back to Japan then, he helped set up IDEO’s Tokyo office which he ran for 5 years. He established Naoto Fukasawa Design in 2002 and later was creative director and responsible of the launch of ±0 in Dec 2003. His other famous works include MUJI’S CD player, the mobile phones “Infobar” and “neon” and the ±0 brand of household electrical appliances and sundries.

Yugen Design Philosophy - “Design without Thought”

“My ideal of design is of something powerful that cannot be seen, but only felt .” - Naoto Fukasawa

This is very similar to the meaning of YUGEN (subtle profound) which means “Suggest and not reveal layers of meaning hidden within. Invisible to the casual eye and avoiding the obvious.”

His design works are usually identified by the simplicity of its appearance, evident nature and joyous modesty. Though his works speak of simplicity and terseness, it never equates to emptiness or dryness, this is due to the hidden meaning behind all his design concepts sculptured with economic and refined design forms.

If you look closely, he rarely uses right angles in his designs; his preferred angle is R2.5. The beauty of his designs lies in the way he expresses himself via the details, which are designed through thinking through how a person can use a product simply. His designs also take into account the human element by favoring the emotional over the intellectual.

In fact, Naoto has become the hero of a behaviorist philosophy known as “Design without Thought”:

There is no such thing as a design that is good forever. What lasts is what is in harmony with the body. Things that are in harmony with our thoughts rapidly lose interest. Design means observing objectively. It means being aware of our living nature, being animalistic, and a simple element in the larger environment. Like a jigsaw, finding these gaps means looking not at people or objects themselves, but rather at the space around them or their outlines. It is not a question of logic but of things that fit each other, a perfect fit. - Natoto Fukasawa, Interview with Intramuros magazine.

He believes in designs that generates a “later wow”, in other words designs that corresponds to our unconscious and the environment that surrounds us. In fact, it is this design philosophy that gave birth to the ±0 brand, which is a symbol that expresses the idea of pliability. ±0 speaks about the beauty of the invisible yet existent shapes and follows the ideas of YUGEN philosophy very closely.

Other Japanese design theories that are applied in his design: FUKINSEI (imbalanced), KANSO (simple)

TOSHIYUKI KITA
Born in 1942, Japanese designer Toshiyuki Kita has been the chairman of Good Design since 2004. Other than Japan, he has had great success in Italy where Kita started in 1975, by selling luminaries and tableware, and then producing and selling furniture. His entire effort was motivated by his desire to eventually bring the craftsmen’s labor and skill back to Japan. Through his influence and effort there has been worldwide recognition of Japanese traditional and modern art and design. Some of his famous works include Sharp Aquos Plasma TV, Wink Chair and Hana lacquer ware.

Kita believes in the Shizen Design Philosophy or the “Soul of Design”
SHIZEN, means “Raw, natural and unforced creativity without pretence. True naturalness is to negate the naive and accidental.”

Kita describes his work by:

“Form expresses feeling. When I design I try to put feelings into the products. I don’t like cold products. I like friendly, human products.” ~ Toshiyuki Kita

Toshiyuki Kita’s designs are organic and faunal-looking. His product design forms are very expressive in character and have metaphors that relate to birds and to the different body parts of animals.
He personally believes that designs should be well balanced to achieve “harmony” (or chowa) between people and things. This harmony equates to the balance of nature. A strong supporter to recycling, Kita uses only the raw materials (for example washi paper) which can either return to nature by a natural process of decay or by solar energy. Maintaining the equilibrium of the design in terms of the materials, production costs, safety, ecological factors are important aspects of his design.

“Always, when I design, I think in the product as a friend and I try to put this feeling into it, very subtly. Function is very important, but this function doesn’t have to be cold. Function can be friendly. This is where form is very impotent. Form expresses feelings. And color is also very powerful. Form and color transmit a message and this message affects our feelings.” - Toshiyuki Kita, Interview with LADF ( Latin American Design Foundation )

Because of his great interest and study towards habitats, lifestyles and traditional artwork, it tends to inspires and influences the way he shapes his designs. This is similar to SHIZEN philosophy, where the aesthetics of products is expressed through balance with harmony, raw and without pretence. His designs emanate an appealing and lighthearted feeling at first glance, reminding people of the “humanness” in design.

Other Japanese design theories reflected in his designs include DATSUZOKU (unworldly), KANSO (simple)

It is interesting to note how different both their design styles are. While Naoto focuses on YUGEN design philosophy that bears a hidden meaning that generates a “later wow” factor, Kita’s design speaks of an obvious aesthetic styling that links people back to nature - SHIZEN design philosophy. Both their designs in fact draw upon very different market tastes. I have asked my designer and non-designer friends about how they feel towards both their design styles; and find it interesting that I got an almost equal number of votes for preference of both their design styles, which appeal to different characters.

I found while writing this article, my own design philosophies lean towards YUGEN (subtle, profound) and KANSO (simple). Understanding and applying our own design philosophies in our work, would hopefully make all of us better designers.

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More often than not, fresh graduate designers have found themselves searching for a design job, unaware of what they are capable of. Hence, when it comes to interviews, they fall short of showing their unique design capabilities, which makes them stand out from the others. Also, in wanting to pursue a Masters program, they can be still uncertain of the course they want as they have yet to discover what they can do with their innate design qualities.

My advice is, always craft your portfolio in such a way that enhances your design strengths and shows your persona. Read the rest of the entry to find out about some of the different styles of design portfolios defined:

1.Design Process Portfolio
Example: Frog Design

Persona - Designers who are strong in defining their concepts use this approach to fully explain the strengths of their design through explaining the research, the inspiration and features of their design.

The Audience - Such portfolios are good for presenting for design scholarships and Masters design programs, where the interviewers look into how you think through your design process to impress them.

Danger- People who use this approach have a tendency to be long-winded though, so this may bore the people who read your portfolio. Therefore, make each concept in your portfolio like your SONG - make the lyrics melodious, sweet to hear, but not too long!

2. Design Skills portfolio
Example: Jaren Goh

Persona - Designers who are capable at certain specific skills like professional sketching, photo-realistic 2D or 3D rendering will focus on only showing the design areas that they are really good at, rather than elaborating the whole design process.

The Audience - Such portfolios attract interviewers from companies, especially those that operate on specialized design management strategies. They see the potential in hiring you for what you are good at.

Danger - Your portfolio scope may lack an overall depth of concept understanding, if you do not show enough design process to explain your design concept. So do PEPPER your designs with more design inspirations and ideas to create that extra flavor.

3. Design Variety Portfolio
Example: Guus Baggerman

Persona - Designers who are versatile in different design platforms - from sketching, rendering to even animation, willing to try designing on different programs to show their design adaptability. You may not be good at everything, but you are willing to try.

The Audience- Many companies today operate on different design programs; there is no synchronized design programs used amongst all companies. Therefore, your versatility in various skills range will attract interviewers from companies doing generalized design management strategies. So, the more programs you know, the more they want you because of your ability to adapt to different design programs.

Danger- Like the saying goes, “A jack of all trades, but a Master of none.” While showing your design adaptability, you may run the risk of having no distinctive design specialty, and may be trying too hard to impress. Therefore, play your cards like in a POKER game, only show out the cards you are confident of. That way, you will win the game.

4. Design Marketing Portfolio
Example: Mike and Maaike

Persona - Designers who are great at packaging their design concepts with cool and “catchy” slogans to attract the readers. Simplicity is the keyword that makes their designs wow.

The Audience- Such portfolios are good in enticing business and marketing associates. How you package your design concepts and styles may be their answer to attracting their target markets.

Danger- Your portfolio may sometimes be perceived as only “pretty’, if there is lack of credibility in your concept. So try to enhance your design concept like a ICE-CREAM - that needs to not only look good, but taste delicious.

A distinctive design portfolio shows your unique design persona and skills. So show us what you have by sending us up to 3 jpegs that are 800×600 or a website link of your design portfolio. Write briefly about your design persona and skills related to one of the styles above. Send your works to porro [at] idasia.org or post them here by April 1st 2007.

So be true to your design philosophy and let IDAsia.org be your platform to show who you are and what you represent in design!

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Made in China, copied in China
It is however, the China firms who are giving the major impetus to the growth of the design business within their country. While many Western products are being manufactured in China, the design comes from talent based in firms located in San Francisco or London. The locally-created goods have been, up until now, poor imitations of Western products or unabashedly copies of popular electronic goods and even motorcars. General Motors are currently suing China’s Chery Automotive Co. They feel the Chery QQ compact is a compact of GM’s Chevrolet Spark.

Two factors have brought about a change. The gradual introduction and implementation of copyright laws which recently resulted in a fine for a Shanghai company imitating the Starbucks name and logo is one pressure point. Now that Chinese firms see their own brand design being copied internally, the Government has an added incentive to crack down on such violations. A replica of Motorola phone designed in China was on the market just eight months after launch.

However, the real impetuous has come from a strong desire for Chinese companies to follow the success of the Japanese Sony Corporation and, more recently, Korea’s Samsung brand.

The Chinese want to compete on the world stage and have realized that their products must match those coming out of Europe and the States in terms of design. Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou are now hosts to hundreds of design companies. Many young ambitious designers from the West are coming to cities like these are they see more opportunities in this buoyant market. Other Chinese companies are giving projects abroad to the very firms who are helping the established international brands to stay abroad. According to the same BusinessWeek report, Lenovo has doubled its design team since 2002 and has already won international industrial design awards for its ET960 smart phone.

Haier, who manufactures white good has 120 industrial designers on staff and a further 25 people working in the research area.

Meanwhile, giants like General Motors who once thought what was right for the USA would be right for China, have revised their perceptions and created a design team within China to help create vehicles which have more appeal to the Chinese. Currently, this means tinkering within existing models. Their China team took the US model Chevrolet Venture and turned it into budged Buick car for chauffeur-driven executives. Currently, it seems this section of the market like ostentatious design which displays their wealth. This is not uncommon. It is reported that while German customers. These differences are common in all newly-developing markets with the nouveau rich and it is not until consumers grow more sophisticated that more understated design becomes the preference.

Sony also realized that it needed to understand the market better. Last August when they opened up a design centre, the three designers based there gave 50 digital cameras to young Chinese people and asked them to document their daily lives. The feedback they got has been integrated into Sony’s new designs for China consumers market and these will be market soon.

[ Extracts from the ‘Designer’ magazine December 2006 Education Special Edition ]

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For Asia to be at the forefront of global competition, companies have to constantly be creative towards greater innovations. Therefore, design is the key to answering this new competition. By translating the aesthetics, engineering and lifestyle of Asia into new ideas, these set to create unique economic design values to differentiate Asia’s market from the rest.

Therefore, design is critical towards fostering competitiveness and creativity in all stages of business - from product development to manufacturing, marketing and the design of user experience.

The success of government support towards Asian design

To promote design, Asian governments have set up design promotion organizations to work closely with the education and business regime to cultivate a pool of design expertise for the nation. Also, design initiatives like annual design competitions and exhibitions have been set up to help promote the nation’s design excellence and attract designers from other countries to enter the Asian market.

Amongst the different Asian design initiatives established, Korea’s Good Design Awards and Japan’s Good Design Award have been very successful events which have proven the point of promoting national design excellence as well as opening up their markets to attracting design entries from worldwide.

The Good Design Award system was first started in 1969, Japan by JIDPO (Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization), in the attempt to recognize one’s design and quality excellence. Then in 1985, the Good Design Award system was also started by KIDP (Korea Institute of Industrial Design Promotion) to promote improvement towards living quality and competitiveness of Korean companies through intentionally demonstrating the high quality of product designs.

The establishment of such design award systems and design promotions supported by the government over the last few decades has helped:

• 1. Established Design Branding of good designer products through credible Asian design award recognition. For example, the G-Mark trademark is a successful brand that consumers recognize as a symbol of design and quality excellence.




• 2. Drawn in design entries from many other countries Worldwide, making Asian design exhibitions like Design Korea, Good Design Awards (Japan), China Industrial Design Week, Design for Asia Award (Hong Kong) and Singapore Design Festival (Singapore) well-known global design events.




• 3. Set up the Foundation of other design initiatives and government support in other parts of Asia through Inter-Cultural Collaboration. For example, the chairman of the Good Design Awards Jury, Mr Toshiyuki Kita, is also in the international advisory panel (IAP) of DesignSingapore to advise upon the establishments of design initiatives in Singapore.

In today’s 21st century, design has become a dominant competitive factor of a product, which defines a nation’s economic strength and design talent pool. Therefore, government support is vital in the active promotion of Asian design; to successfully promote its unique design strengths and creative design talent pool.

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It’s this time of year where companies who sell products worry about what they are going to sell this Christmas. The company I work for is no exception. Projects in-progress get a swift kick in the behind, furthermore we all start scraping concepts together to prototype and show. Not the most ideal situation but at least things are happening and every year I am reminded how Santa must feel like.

As I am knee deep in design and designer management, the issue of “do companies in Asia truly understanding and embrace the value of design as a business strategy?” keeps on popping up in my mind’s eye. It’s in such a time when the truly skilled design manager can navigate the stormy waters of product development and still keep a balance between design intent and business economics.

I’m no expert in this design management thing, but after my recent in-depth discussion with the “head” of the BMW DesignworksUSA Singapore studio, I must admit that its nice to be validated by an industry expert that some of what I’m doing with this design strategy is at least heading in the right direction.

It’s a pity but I’m still thinking of a way to collaborate with DesignworksUSA, seeing as they have a huge font of knowledge in design strategy, but their fees are a real issue for the small to medium size companies that really need their help the most.

Anyways back to the discussion at hand. Unlike what most people in the west think, most companies in Asia (Singapore included) all know the value of what a great design can to for the company. But the real issue is that it’s not merely about designing a product, but an all encompassing 360 degree design strategy that satisfies all aspect of the company’s requirements.

As the head of DesignworksUSA Singapore, nicely puts it to me, “creating that special magic for a brand”.

Now again most companies know this or are not far off but this is much more difficult to implement so much so that designing a product actually becomes the easy part.

Here are some strategies I have found useful and successful in managing and fostering design as a business strategy in an organisation. It should not matter if you are an in-house employee or an external design consultant the processes and thinking are the same.

Designer as the lead
This is an interesting one. No matter what they tell you, unless you are reporting to a designer, you will need to take the lead. This is simply because no one understands the design process better than you. Convincing them to listen to you is the problem.

Really there are a lot of fly by night managers who think they know how it is to be a product designer or design strategist, after creating (I would not even say designing) a few products. Personally the smart ones I respect actually hire trained designers to help them.

It’s similar to the perennial problem in Asia in that every body thinks they are an Interior Designer. Building contractors, furniture retailers, real interior designers, and architects all seem to be able to do Interior design. Some more qualified than others.

This means if you take the lead you will have certain responsibilities outside your general designing job. So you will need to ask yourself if you want to do this. On the upside, you will start to understand the bigger picture, become and overall better designer and you will find you will actually stop complaining about the management’s lack of understanding or respect for a designer!

Reporting to the top
In all the most successful design strategies I have heard or read about, the implementation of it always came directly from the top. This also almost always applies to getting strategies to work in any form.

Either as an in-house designer or a design consultant you will need to always report to the top or to at least the decision maker. Even better is for a senior designer to be part of the board of directors and thus really be able to spear head a design strategy within an organisation.

The reason behind this is the nature of innovation and creative thinking. Innovation is about a phase change, a different mindset and a different way to do things. This will invariable rub people the wrong way, thus to implement innovative design strategies it needs to be commanded from the top. It’s the only way.

A consultative product development style never creates revolutionary products only evolutionarily ones.

Do you think the iMac or iPod would have found its foot hold if Steve Jobs was not the CEO? Do you think the design of the iMac would have been approved if Jonathan Ives did not report directly to Steve?

Designers communicating the value of design better
If there is one and only one skill a great designer needs out off school, is the ability to communicate the value of design better.

There is a lot of focus in schools on the hard skills like drawing, computer skills and to a certain extent form development. Though this is important, it is also important to develop a design sense and the ability to turn this design sense into a language people can understand. The training the soft skills should also be a requirement.

As designers we also need to be able to communicate a lot better with non-designer people such as CEO or marketing managers. Something designers are not very good at.

Designers come with so much “emotional baggage” of the quirky, ranting and raving designers the advertising industry so loves to show they have. Industrial Design is a different industry and we cannot adopt the same general design mindset.

We need to get off our high horse and talk to people in a language they can understand. Treat every job and client as an education process as believe me most people know about design but don’t really know how its done. Also people generally fear designers, but in a good way.

Putting a dollar value to design?
Ultimately design, marketing and advertising all suffer from the same thing and that it provides an intangible benefit but with real tangible implications.

Yes you need money to create designs. So how do you then justify your design’s form, colour, finish when many decisions are made based on what the product cost as it affects the margin or profit.

There are a few ways to do this. The first and most important step to justify your design is to formulate a design strategy that encompasses all aspect of the business, and then develop a strategic product route map to support your design decision. See we are back to strategy again. The strategy should include the influences of the brand, design language, manufacturing requirements and even logistics. As you can see the most successful design strategies satisfy almost all the corporate requirements set out.

Another great way is the cost incurred with your design allows an increase in selling price that in the end betters the ROI of that product. There are a lot more ways, but I wont go into them here, do contact me if you are interested to know more.

Design does not occur in a vacuum
Finally, I think this point sums it all up nicely. A lot of designers fail to understand that their design work has a lot of implications within organisations.

I’ve seem many a design consultancy fail, by providing great designs that never make it as their approach never considered the fallout effect within an organisation.

Here again communication is vital, and a good designer needs to carefully consider the effects and also ask himself is the company ready for such a innovative strategy? If not perhaps another strategy is required to make the company ready for the big strategy.

A strategy to implement the main strategy!

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Sponsored By: Design Sojourn | Strategic Industrial Design Blog

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Red is an extraordinary color. It is the warmest color of all. It is the color of Mars. It is also the color that is associated with blood and fire, and hence often symbolizes danger.

Yet in cultures, such as the Caucasians, red is also the color for passion and lust. That is why we give out red roses and girls put on red lip-color. While the Asians, especially the Chinese, regards red as the prosperity.

So red is probably the only color that stands between two extremes, danger and love.

Bono and Bobby Shriver, Chairman of DATA (Debt AIDS Trade Africa) have created (RED) to raise awareness and money for The Global Fund by teaming up with the world’s most iconic brands to produce (PRODUCT)RED branded products. A percentage of each (PRODUCT)RED product sold is given to the Global Fund. The money helps woman and children affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Examples of (PRODUCT) RED products:

iPod nano (PRODUCT) REDTM Special Edition
Apple contributes $10 from your purchase price to the Global Fund, to help fight HIV/AIDS in Africa.

American Express REDpass
Every time you shop with American Express RED we will give 1% of your total spend to the Global Fund.

Motorola RED MOTORAZR and RED MOTOSLVR
With each sale of a (PRODUCT) RED phone, pricing and availability varying by location, Motorola will make a direct contribution to The Global Fund.

It is interesting how Bono and Bobby Shriver, who aren’t designers by profession, could come up with such an iconic brand identity (RED). Red that can symbolizes both the danger of AIDS as well as the passion and love for charity.

For more info on (RED), check out its official website: http://www.joinred.com

Discuss this topic at the IDAsia.org Forums here.

Sponsored By: Design Sojourn | Strategic Industrial Design Blog

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