Industrial Design: Commerce and a Way of Life

At this time every year, journalists in Taiwan file reports filled to the brim with terms like "design prowess," "soft power," and "aesthetic economy" as they tell us which international awards local designers have won. But few of these award-winning products ever seem to show up on the market.

In fact, only an estimated 10% of winners of concept awards-the category in which students compete-ultimately make it into production. Taiwanese consumers are more likely to encounter corporate winners, but rarely realize they've bought a prize-winning product because corporations don't usually market them that way. Not to mention that many of these products are primarily distributed online or overseas.

Yet Taiwan has repeatedly demonstrated its prowess in designing household items, whether wrapping paper, stationery, office supplies, ceramics, kitchen storage, or furniture. You could almost say that design has become a way of life.

Product design is a strange bird, a hybrid of practicality and aesthetics. It's easy to miss if you don't know where to look. But once you begin to pay attention, you see it everywhere.

The issue of design's value to commerce and as a lifestyle choice is both simple and complex.

Some 10 years ago, an American TV news magazine challenged IDEO, a design house that has been dubbed "imagination's playground," to come up with a new design for the lowly shopping cart in five days. The program wanted to see the creative process at first hand. With the clock ticking, IDEO developed a sleek-looking cart with five baskets and its own scanner (to allow consumers to ring up their purchases on the fly). Retailers were delighted with the product, but the larger business community took note of IDEO's approach to managing the design process.

The company's trick turned out to be no great mystery. They listened and observed carefully, brainstormed intensively, encouraged daring ideas and cross-pollination, fostered team intelligence, tried to establish an open, creative space. The process yields results and their approach has now been successfully transplanted to other industries, resulting in an explosion of highly designed products reaching the market.

In The Language of Things, Deyan Sudjic, director of the UK's Design Museum, posed questions about whether contemporary design was excessive and whether its significance needed a rethink.

These days, design involves more than originality; it's become the bait corporations use to attract customers and generate the business they need to survive. Design is also a language with multiple layers of expression and meaning. Apple provides a great example of the aesthetic economy in action. The company conveys information through its products' form, size, and simple black-and-white palette. White is elegant, black professional. Whenever a new product comes out, whether a new iPod, iPhone, or iPad, fans camp out overnight to get their hands on one. Apple creates and satisfies consumer "desires" with each release by "putting a veneer of fashion on the endless cycle of consumption."

Generally speaking, design is a means of generating sales. It's also a method by which designers improve product quality and functionality. But sometimes it gets weird, as when superstar French designer Philippe Starck designed a juicer for Alessi that looked like a cross between an alien and a spider. Critics said the product was difficult to use and recommended consumers instead buy an electric juicer for half the price.

Good design takes careful thought and requires constant honing. You don't just crank out something "different" overnight. Taiwan has turned itself into an internationally recognized design powerhouse in less than 20 years. This year is Taiwan's "Year of Design." Now that we are enjoying the fruits of our labor, we need to make our objective the use of our design skills in the service of society.