Marrying Off Industrial Design

The Infusion of Design, Marketing, Branding, Engineering, and Product Development

Cliff Shin, IDSA | Kansas State University, Department of Interior Architecture and Product Design

Working at an in-house design center in a large corporation gave me a whole new perspective on the design industry. I came to realize that new products could not be launched without collaborating with other fields. Literally, I had to learn marketing, branding, engineering, and product development in addition to the design work I was paid to do. In this presentation, “Marrying off Industrial Design”, I can’t avoid talking about marketing and branding because, lately, the brands have a strong association with their design.

M&A (Mergers and Acquisitions) in business have been very active. Especially because of the current global economic crisis, M&A can be one possible solution to survive in a tough market. The alliance of two brands creates very positive energy and benefits to customers, and not just for industrial design. When industrial design meets fine art, fashion, architecture, and jewelry, it opens new possibilities to all the design industries and new experiences to the customers. This has happened for several decades now.

Lately, we see it more often and it is becoming a trend. The paper will cover a few successful design collaborations in the past. As society changes fast, collaboration has expanded and diversified. I will analyze the reasons for collaboration. Then, the elements of collaboration need to be acknowledged. Because of the popularity of collaboration everyone thinks that collaboration will be the perfect solution; however, there are several side effects that we have to think about carefully before beginning a collaboration with others. At the end, I will raise several larger questions about collaboration in the design industries.

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