Design can create a lot of value in industry. It can make products safer as well as easier and cheaper to manufacture, but it can also add value by making them distinct and by helping companies manage their products and service portfolios better.

Famous examples of design-driven companies

  • Crown Equipment, an American forklift manufacturer. It has improved its equipment for decades by investing in industrial designers, on https://www.crown.com/en-us.html
  • Metso is a Finnish paper machine manufacturer, which builds industrial production lines. Its former head of industrial design once estimated that about 20% of their customers buy their product because of its design. Less components due to smart design, makes it easier to manufacture, easier to maintain, and less error prone, on https://www.metso.com/
  • Italian kitchenware manufacturer Alessi was known for very high-quality stainless steel pots and pans etc., but in the eighties and nineties started to hire "ludic" designers to create toy-like emotionally expressive goods that changed the kitchenware industry, on. https://www.alessi.com/it_it/
  • The Italian chemist Giulio Natta invented synthetic polymers, but his discovery first entered the homethrough furniture designed and manufactured by companies like Kartell, Driade and Magis.
  • Apple is an obvious case study. It reinvented the PC industry in the nineties, and mobile phones ten years later. What distinguishes Apple is its relentless attention to user experience, which has a technological basis in both hardware and software.
  • IKEA and Zara are marvellously good examples of fast-moving low-tech consumer goods. Their design captures trends in a flash and rolls them out to the market. It may not be very innovative, but their business model would not work without designers.

Design NEXT will work as a connector between industry and UNSW design

Design NEXT can connect industry with UNSW in many ways. Please contact designnext@unsw.edu.au, if you are interested in:

  • Bringing a project into the classroom
  • Hiring a student for a design project
  • Organising a competition
  • Sponsoring a PhD student
  • Working with university experts in a research project
  • Locating design expertise at UNSW

UNSW Enterprise: the next step after coursework

UNSW has a sophisticated support ecosystem for innovations. Design NEXT participates in this infrastructure, which covers design thinking, hackathons, makerspaces, and also provides various small-scale instruments for funding and spaces.

Social engagement

Design NEXT will start building a social engagement program in the second half of 2019. It will provide students with the opportunities to work globally on the grandest challenges of the planet, including energy, inequality, aging, and environment. The focus will be centred on Asia and Africa.