Commercialization's challenges
Winning an award can send a de-signer's spirits soaring, but fewer than 10% of the award-winning ideas of the last few years have been successfully turned into products and brought to market. Are students' innovative designs doomed to remain "paper tigers" forever?
Cheng Jin-dean, an associate professor with NTUST's Department of Commercial and Industrial Design who has worked for Sampo and the US's renowned frog design and run his own design company, says that there are two major reasons why student designs are not widely commercialized: first, students don't understand the commercialization process; second, manufacturers have little interest in investing in design.
Another issue is that when awards panels evaluate entries, they start with the concept: whether a design provides a new, innovative and feasible solution to one of the many inconveniences of everyday life. Production of the design simply isn't a key issue.
Therefore, the primary concern of participating students is originality. It takes an experienced manufacturer to determine whether a design can be turned into a product, what sort of manufacturing techniques and costs it would entail, and the ultimate pricing of such a product.
Commercialization also requires finding a manufacturer with an "adventurous" bent. You have to estimate manufacturing costs, market size, and profit margins, and can't depend on sales materializing simply because your product is critically acclaimed. Manufacturers vary in their appreciation of good design and their willingness to devote resources to it. Even those stirred by a new design may not have the kind of business model that allows them to develop it. "Firms that have always made their living selling products for NT$30 apiece aren't going to switch overnight to producing highly designed products that cost NT$30 to manufacture and sell for NT$100," says Cheng Jin-dean.
Take Feng and Cheng's balance stick, for example. Stable, three-legged canes are an extant product category. Their weakness is their large footprint, which is poorly suited to stairwells and narrow arcades. The balance stick's single leg is easily maneuverable on all kinds of pathways. Moreover, the whole world is facing the problem of aging populations, making the potential market huge. Once news of the balance stick spread, nearly a dozen manufacturers from Taiwan, Canada, Denmark, and elsewhere scrambled to get in touch with Feng and Cheng about producing it.
Comic-book-style "Jump from Paper" handbags are wonderfully playful.