Integrating Culture and Global Awareness

Integrating Culture and Global Awareness into Industrial Design Education Preparedness meets opportunities

Yi-Ping Wong, IDSA, In2 Innovation

Abstract

Industrial designers are facing a great deal of challenges and threats as they enter the workplace
today. The challenges that the designer faces include designing products that works, achieving
success in the marketplace, and making products sustainable. Increasingly, the role of the
designer is shifting its emphasis: designers now must help companies define and support their
successful market strategies. Most challenging of all is recognizing the new global competitive
threats that face industry and industrial designers alike. In a very quick timeframe, the
perspective of industrial design companies has become global. Products that are produced in
China are more prevalent in the market in other countries as well. As a result of this dramatic
shift in production, manufacturing in China has become a perceived threat to industrial design in
the United States. However, rather than seeing China as a threat, there are profound
opportunities for industrial designers to learn and develop a global relationship with their Chinese
counterparts. This is a time to ask how prepared are our young designers when opportunities are
presented?

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