Product Design: Why Designers Can Do It – And Should

 

Our time and our industry like to categorize people as specialists. It’s an evolutionary process that’s been going on both on the creative side and the project management side for the last 30 years.

 

Clients no longer hire just an interior designer and an architect. They frequently bring on board experts in brand image, food and beverage, mechanical and engineering, marketing, e-commerce, purchasing management, etc.

 

Even within each of those disciplines, firms are become increasingly specialized. For example, the project team is expanding with the concept architect, the concept interior designer; the construction site manager; the product designer or specifier; the lighting designer; the art consultant; perhaps a liaison with local artists and artisans, etc. With so many players involved, nobody is responsible for the whole. The end result is not an “environment” but simply a series of images, produced just to be talked about on websites and magazines.

 

It is important for the designer who creates the vision for a space to make certain that every element in that interior contributes to a single, immersive experience. Although there are many current examples, a look back offers a compelling reminder of how true that it. The Bauhaus produced a remarkable number of architects who were also product designers. Then there were inspirations such as Raymond Loewy or Saul Bass who brought incredible innovation to the graphic arts, scenography, subliminal messaging and the society in general. These people are still examples to follow.

 

So, what does this have to do with product design? When I started on my own 27 years ago, I had had a generalist’s education in art and architecture at the Beaux-Arts in Paris, and I had the luck to start working with clients that were making decisions and taking responsibilities. They had solid professional experience and, I must admit, some of them taught me a lot how to manage both products and people.

 

I remain a generalist, not a specialist. Like a man of the Renaissance I believe Mente sano in corpo sano (a healthy mind in a healthy body) when it comes to design. I like to try many things, and learn various arts and crafts and cultures, so that they can all combine and nurture each other. I find inspiration in a good meal or a good book, in a movie, in a song and in a conversation, and above all in a pragmatic approach to life and to projects.

 

Some people call me a connector. I like to understand it in a wider sense. Yes, I do like to connect people that I think have a lot in common, and to start with a respect for others. But I also like to connect and combine the most unexpected things or ideas together, and imagine what the result will be (or sometimes just, be amused and observe what the result becomes).

 

And that’s what leads me to product design. No, most designers are not trained in the manufacturing process—which is why their product designs are often done in collaboration with expert firms who are. However, my opinion is that we designers have a general view on society, and we “feel” what is going on around us.

 

I am not talking here about the next trends (colors, fashion, lamps, etc.) for this year, but rather of what directions people’s lives will take: how the generations are evolving; how I can conceive a world where the elderly and the youth can have fun and security; how I can use the technological progress to make their lives easier; and how to develop spaces and products that make them more at ease with their present lives and more confident about the future.

 

Because we select material, furniture, light fixtures, on a daily basis in our work, and because we implement them in our projects, and because we direct our construction sites, we have a global approach when we conceive a product:

 

• Who is going to use it, which age categories, which countries?
• Where are we going to manufacture it and how, are we going to be “green”?
• How are these products going to be put together, then installed on the construction site, then maintained?
• What will be the life span of the product? What will be the norms and regulations it will conform to?
• How will our senses approach this new product when using it for the first time?
• What is the affective side as well as the effective side?
• How can we combine this product with its future habitat? (yes, it is almost like releasing an animal in nature)
• Are we aiming at a lot of people or a few? Mass-production or limited edition? Marketing or merchandising?
• How will it be distributed, sold, stored?
• And finally, how will it be packaged? Advertised? Which groups will talk about it, be the first to use it and advise it to further potential clients and users?

 

Social media creates ample opportunities for interior designers who want to launch their own products. We have so many outlets to show off our designs to the world—from our websites and newsletters to our social media accounts and links with our various business partners.

 

We also have more opportunities to go global and take out designs into a 3D world: displaying a new product that we have conceived at a fair, an event, or a show-room—often creating the visual context of the booth or space in which it’s displayed; finding the partners, enabling different corporate entities to work together; imagining the foods and beverages that will be served during the event to match the design! A total experience, with teasers and bloggers, cocktail-parties, but also serious and well-informed articles.

 

As much as the multiplication of media allows for a lot of freedom of expression, it also can make you lose in coherence and visibility. Therefore it is also our role and duty to always bring back the buzz to what it should serve: make people aware of a progress, make people aware of what is available, and make people aware of their first liberty, the freedom of choice through real information.

 

 

Source : boutiquedesign.com