About the author:

MARK DZIERSK is a Fellow of the Industrial Designers Society of America & Senior Vice President of Design at Herbst LaZar Bell Inc (HLB).
With a distinguished 20-year career in Product Design Innovation, he is a recognized expert speaker in the field of Industrial Design, responsible for all aspects of industrial design management at HLB, holds over 100 US patents, recipient of dozens of design awards, on the Board of Directors of IDSA, Executive Editor of Innovation Magazine, Adjunct professor at Northwestern University, and featured in numerous books, journals, & articles on design...among many other distinctions.

A Note from Linda Fisher:

The New Design Scene

By Mark Dziersk

"The opposite of security is insecurity, and the only way to overcome insecurity…is to take risks"---Sigmund Freud

Why is a profession universally accused of being dominated by extreme egos influenced so much by what other people think? Perhaps in this way design is a close cousin of acting. Both professions share the fragile external psyche of needing to be seen as pure genius and the crippling internal fear of being perceived as a shallow front.

Are designers undermined by insecurity, or does it serve to motivate them? Every design, after all, is a personal, intangible piece of the designer, an emotional expression. At the core, designers want and need approval. An affirmation. Success in the marketplace should perhaps be good enough, but it is not. Modern designers require the affirmation of peer groups, the acknowledgment of formal awards and titles. They need recognition, publication and praise. By allowing their egos to be nurtured and co-opted in this way, designers can present themselves as lacking the courage of true conviction. They can send a subtle message that they do not believe in the mission, the idea that when all else is equal design is the deciding factor.

Design circles today are dominated by the idea that China will be leading the charge in the near future. Some designers are paralyzed by the very thought. This "Asia envy" is forcing designers throughout the world to change the way they approach the practice. It is forcing design to take risks.

Today, more than ever, it is important to help corporate businesses recognize that they are dependent on designers to define the problems to be solved, as well as to solve the problems. After a decade spent focusing designers' attention on learning software skills, facing this kind of New World order can create all kinds of anxiety. Schools that have been emphasizing the teaching of tactical skills for years will find their worlds thrown into turmoil. Change can be scary. Altering behavior can be risky. It fuels insecurity. If it is true that the back end of the design process may move off-shore or be delegated to low-cost providers, what does this mean for the future of design?

Design is a global and humanistic endeavor that creates artifacts, artifacts that reveal the collective ethos of a society when analyzed decades later. For example, today's water-cooler conversations about how Americans as a society are becoming heavier will be seen years from now in new designs. Wider airline seats and larger hospital gurneys. But what chronicles the collective mindset of the profession that creates these artifacts?

It seems today that globalization has been the explanation for every business challenge and that this is a new experience. But challenges to the design profession have been presented by globalization in the past. Before the Great Depression, globalization was every bit as prevalent as today. Globalization was predominant after World War II and was later mitigated by the US prosperity of the 1950s. In the early '70s, Japan was the competition. Today we are told it is China.

The challenges facing design will be overcome if designers are willing to analyze them, change their thought processes and take some risks. Therein lies fertile ground for the growth and vitality of the profession. Design is a profession that has been written off summarily too many times. Twenty years from now design will still be vital as long as designers believe in it and bring credibility to it. If the boardroom is expected to sit up and listen, the performance must be credible and professional. After all, when products from competing companies cost the same and work equally as well, design will be the only thing that makes a difference. This has always been the case, and there have always been challenges in making that case.

Making the case

Design today is facing a great many "new" challenges. The flexibility of design education institutions and the uncertainty of the economy come to mind immediately, but perhaps the thorniest problem currently, is in design journalism.

Much of what passes for journalism in the design field is nepotistic and uninspired. Part of the problem is the way it is created. Magazines frequently employ freelance writers who are simply not invested in their assignments. These reporters, sometimes called "stringers," often choose to focus on star worship and getting the scoop over their competitors, as opposed to researching and writing articles full of meaning and content. Professional writers take on a topic not because of interest, rather because of necessity. They are hired for one reason alone: they can write, and many design journalists are obsessed with writing about the latest trend, regardless of its value or long-term implications. This focus on what is "of the moment" does the core value of the profession a great injustice.

This is where design, as a profession, needs to rise to the challenge. A reality TV-People Magazine's equivalent of media coverage is dominating design publications. The other extreme: sincere articles written in endless streams of gray type that (if ever read) would bore an actuary. It is shortsighted on the part of our profession's thought leaders that only these limited kinds of journalistic endeavors are propagated.

The answer to this problem lies within the design community itself. Many designers have something important to say but are simply not inclined to sit down and hammer out 1200 compelling words. It's a hard thing to do. Writing in a way that will keep a reader's attention for more than 30 seconds is a talent that must be practiced. Let's face it: designers are great at creative problem solving, but are not usually great writers. What designers excel at is finding solutions for problems and innovating.

Questioning Convention

At its core, innovation is about questioning what we are told and asking the right questions in the right manner. That means challenging conventions and thinking in new ways about how to ask questions in the first place.

Take examining a question through debate, for example. How can we reinvent the technique? Imagine an empty warehouse serving as a metaphor for both the design studio and the back alley. The passion at the core of the ritual is re-ignited and debate is reinvented. It is a "fight club," an adaptation inspired by popular culture. Two debaters circle each other like boxers, the crowd yelling in animated -- even supercharged -- participation. It challenges preconceived notions and dictates. This is what design is all about. New ways to approach the "same ol' same ol'."

Just as we moved from agriculture to industry 80 years ago, we now find ourselves in the middle of an industry-to-information transformation. We are in turn required to reinvent design anew. Finding creative ways to define problems, methods for identifying needs and asking the right questions are the new design imperative. Innovations in research and concept creation methods are the order of the day. Today, more than ever, it is imperative that designers participate in defining the problem to be solved, as well as in solving the problem.

Designers need to bring the same level of creativity and expertise to this challenge that they have previously given creating renderings and form. For the profession this is a distinction between thinker and doer. The future and the past. After a decade of learning software skills in our design schools, this kind of redirection requires awareness and commitment. Programs that have for years been emphasizing the teaching of tactical skills will need to emphasize problem solving as the new priority directive.

We must begin with problem definition and move to strategy. The idea of teaching design planning and strategy is currently foreign to almost all design schools, but it is critical to the health and survival of the profession. It is not "nice to have," it is a "must have." Of course, the ability to see an idea through sketching and sketch models will always be important. But are prototyping skills and mastery of 3-D CAD still relevant to a design education?

Question: How many industrial designers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Answer: Why a light bulb?

Persuasion: a priority.

Once you have an answer to the problem based on asking the right questions, the next issue is convincing your audience that you've found the right answer.

Designers need to use drama, multimedia, simulated use, virtual models, graphic support, lifestyle boards, competitive set illustrations, position maps, scripted dialogue- whatever it takes to make their point. The end result will be better products and systems making it into the marketplace.

The better designers are at communicating and persuading, the more important the innovations will be in products and services in the global marketplace. In turn, this will create "Design Driven Brands" whose growth is fueled by positive consumer experiences.

Companies that invent and groom a brand around products that are not based on unique or innovative design are doing it exactly backwards. Better to create brands around terrific interactions people have with truly well-considered solutions than to invest millions in creating brands with promises that are not supported by the experience when used. This applies to all products, systems, environments and software applications.

When something looks or works just right, people tend to be more emotional about their relationship to it. They come to love it. The products themselves become tools of persuasion. This inspires loyalty and creates repurchase, reuse and the passing along of the secret to others. Many people make a personal emotional investment in the company brand that has brought this level of experience to them. Powerful stuff.

It doesn't do anyone any good for potentially powerful Design Driven Brands to be watered down in the creation stage by strong personalities or poorly made arguments. Designers need to become as persuasive as brand managers as advertisers have been for the past two decades. New tools and creative techniques need to be developed and proven techniques refined.

Many years ago, Norman Bel Geddes, one of the people credited with founding our profession, was working on an assignment for the Standard Gas Equipment Corp. The company manufactured many products, all from multiple tools and individual assembly. Bel Geddes had a terrific idea for cutting cost by building products from a shared platform using modules. The problem: it meant scrapping many, many tools already in use while creating new ones. He anticipated great resistance to this new thinking.

To illustrate the merits of his idea and win the day, Bel Geddes used a simple but effective design technique. He directed his shop to create cardboard boxes representing all of the tools required to manufacture the current product line, literally hundreds of them. He then filled the lobby and entrance to his office with all of those models. Inside of his office, Bel Geddes created only 16 boxes representing how all of those products could be made from a platform strategy requiring many fewer tools. The client, after crawling over the mess in the lobby was instantly persuaded by the simple, strategic answer to the problem. The point was made, and the project proceeded.

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We'll be adding new articles on an ongoing basis. Read past articles in our archive:

• Top 10 Tips for Growing Your Graphic Design Studio with Direct Mail Postcards by Martha Retallick
• Do You Have What it Takes to Survive the Dot-Com Bomb? by Martha Francis
• Don't Knock Opportunity: Go Grasp It! A Good Press Success Story by Doug Fuller
• Warming Up to Cold Calls by Doug Fox
• Know Your Rights: Intellectual Property Basics by Jean Perwin
• The Path to the Podium: An Insider Shares Her Secrets for Scoring Prime Speaking Slots on the Competitive Conference Circuit by Lynn Wolff
• Growing Your Business: The Most Exciting Event in Your Life by Herbert M. Meyers
• Are Consultants in Your Future? by Emily Cohen
• Public Relations: The Soul of Your Firm by Elinor Selame
• Dealing with Change and Uncertainty by Jeffry Corbin and Danae Loran Willson
• Referrals: A Valuable Part of
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• Level the Playing Field with Technology by Allison Cheston
• Building Leadership Through Association by Jaye Donaldson
• Write Your Message; Reach Your Clients by Marc Gobé
• A Crash Course in PR for Design Firms By Steven Morris
• Design Business: A Survivor's Story By Lee Sucharda, Jr.
• Practicing What We Preach: "Branding & Promoting Your Design Firm" By Rob Wallace
• Strategic Public Relations:
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• Branding, Marketing & Design: Survive, Prosper or Die … The choice is yours! By Bill Capers
• Proactive Marketing: "Staying Alive Today and Tomorrow" By G. Martinez
• "Designed in Taiwan" By Scott Henderson
• "Steering Your Business & Maintaining Control" By Nikki Jason

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