I was watching Mark Dziersk's presentation about industrial design and his view of the world through the lens of an industrial designer. Mark is a well respected industrial designer (he was president of the Industrial Designers Society of America from 1999-2000). Mark is currently VP of Design at Herbst LaZar Bell in Chicago. He is a great storyteller and mentioned many times the about the needs for multi-disciplinary team., well that is not that simple. I like one of his quotes: "There's no half insanely great products." How true? But there are many half successful companies...too many.
One question came across my mind. Should industrial designers be called industry designers? In particularly we’re talking about this network-driven post-industrial age. The role of industrial designer has definitely gone beyond usability and all above, their jobs is about uncovering new needs and adding emotive elements. He raised the question if there is a difference between industrial design and brand. I see where he’s going.
The relation of conceptual design and social interaction is an important issue that influences the future of industrial design management. Web 2.0 have made astonishing progress the last two years while advanced manufacturing technology emerges in an endless stream. The results are extensive amount of accessible data that can promote endless new ideas for innovation. The environmental effect and social moral concept of design, the manufacturing place and method of product, the materials, function and usage of product, as well as abandonment and recovery of product have become the new connotative meanings of conceptual design. This goes beyond traditional product design.
The design of product into the design of service, from the design of material object into the design of virtual product and the design of service into social interactions… a complete new mode of industrial design is emerging. The whole world is moving into the era of accelerated digitalization and extended collaboration.
I was reading the NY TImes article on Japanese industrial design guru Naoto Fukasawa,it is an interesting story on his design journey. He is being called a later day Charles Eames amd is highly respected in his field.According to Brown, "He is able to interpret the relationship between people and objects in a way that is at some level obvious, yet nuanced and sophisticated. His approach to to design isn't intellectual, it's human." This is an interesting one, I find that architects can design great things while striving for an unrealistic level of perfection, yet industrial designers are looking for all the human elements or solving little problems of our lives. Two very different schools...just my personal experience working with some of the best people in their fields.
The world of industrial design shows great culture consisting of humanistic spirit, appealing aesthetics, philosophy, science, human interactions, space and technology. The industrial design culture is a product of this period stigmatized distinctly with times. It is easy to see that the method and means of industrial needs to evolve. I propose we stop calling it Industrial Design.
