Global
Like so many other industries, industrial design is swept up in the increasingly global economy. It is international design, and today's Delhi-based designer might be working with a Minnesota-based manufacturer.

"Within the context of globalization, industrial design has taken up a significant role in the development of products and services for target groups, whose needs have become more diverse," noted a recent call for papers from the International Journal of Product Development, for its special issue Transformations in Industrial Design: Emerging Trends, Approaches and Challenges.

For many, this has led to more Web-based communities for the design process. For large companies, it is more efficient and more profitable to cater to regional and niche markets than it is to go after the entire global market. Increasingly more designers are starting to cater well-designed products to consumers in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Green
Even back in 1990, "an emerging concern for social and environmental issues" was considered one of the "five facets" of contemporary industrial design.

Today's designers have the tools to make sleek new products that also pollute the planet. Alternatively, and arguably the most dominant trend, they can design cradle-to-cradle objects that help preserve the planet.

Manufacturers are increasingly using sustainable materials, focusing on cleaning up the production process — companies such as Herman Miller are promoting their values through design — and considering the environmental impact of shipping and production.

In building design alone, according to the Autodesk/AIA Green Index, the number of architects incorporating sustainable design practices into their projects is quickly rising, with 90 percent of architects expecting to incorporate some sustainable elements by 2012. AutoDesk is joining other companies like GreenBuild and Lucid Design Group to develop software that allows designers and engineers to measure environmental impact and help make green design an easier process.

In 1993, Herman Miller helped fund the start-up of the United States Green Building Council (USGBC).
Credit: Herman Miller

Personal
Companies need new and unique configurations to fit their increasingly sui generis needs because today's consumers too want products that are unique to them.

The business of design continues to favor "mass customization," or the ability to produce low quantities of specific products in a profitable and high-quality way.

That could explain why Audi preaches patient manufacturing:

Such processes may apply to many applications, not just factory manufacturing — potentially ranging from desktop publishing to specialty foods production.

People want it their way; they want products that express their own sense of self. Today's consumers demand products that are original, functional and individualistic. "One-size-fits-all" is dying out — if it isn't already dead. The only way for companies to succeed is to deliver what the customer wants. Designers can figure that out.

Businesses are looking to companies like Converse and Nike iD shoes, Neighborhoodies and even M&Ms and Mini Coopers to add a "build your own" element to their brands.

Interactive
Creative companies are asking, "What do we want our customers to feel?"

In Trendwatching.com's November 2004 newsletter, as IMT noted more than two years ago, the innovation Web site declared that letting customers have a say in product design and development was on the verge of hitting it big.

It was right.

This should be basic business: Watch customers, and interact with them; talk to them; listen to them; act on their qualified input. Leveraging all intellectual capacities, some companies are both reactive and proactive with their customers to build better designs.

The influx of online labs — modeled after those like Concept Lab Volvo, Boeing's NewAirplane.com or Google Labs — is evidence of user-input solicitation, inviting people to give comments on what they like or don't like about the company or product.

Credit: Volvo Concept Cars

Threadless, for one, is a particularly successful online T-shirt retail store that, for the past few years, has selected new wares from user-submitted designs, which are put to a public vote. Talk about democracy. The community/project/business is expected to make $15 million by the end of 2007.

"Simplex"
Industrial designers seek fineness in function, brilliance in the everyday and, quite simply, better ways for us to use things.

"Simplicity and directness is a strong current in contemporary design," Ellen Lupton, curator of contemporary design at the Cooper-Hewitt National Museum, told Forbes earlier this year.

In the publication's recent 10 Industrial Design Trends You Can't Ignore, Steve McCallion, executive creative director of industrial design firm Ziba Design, noted a trend toward "simplexity." Despite the unnecessarily hokum term for it, there are noticeably more products that have many functions but are approachable, ergonomically correct and easy to use.

Like Apple's iPhone. Apple's very first phone succeeds at combining a phone with an iPod and Web browser, and its touch-screen user interface and multimedia abilities as of this moment appear unmatched.

For instance, consider Nikon's recent surprise hit, the D40. Since its late-2006 release, Nikon's DSL digital camera has received rave reviews from consumers — camera experts and amateurs — for its smaller, lighter, more ergonomic build quality without compromising its ease of use and high functionality.

Feminine
TrendWatching calls women "the mega niche ... the underserved market of all markets."

Companies are hip to this fact, too, and therefore are targeting girls and women in interesting ways.

"More and more manufacturers are creating sleeker, feminized versions of their clunky, chunky products, and both men and women are biting," notes Forbes, citing Motorola's lipstick pink Razr cell phone. (Image credit: Motorola)

Design Basics offers woman-centric home plans for builders, LG has released a Prada phone, and Wicked Women Choppers are designed to address the most common complaints that have been expressed by women riders for years: motorcycles are too heavy, too high, too wide and women can't reach the ground comfortably.

Even beer makers are actively pursuing the female palate, with sweet and fruity flavors and pretty new packaging. (More on packaging in our next issue.)

Check out Geeksugar.com, Rethink Pink, Marketing To Women Online and BlogHer.

Health
Many companies are designing and providing products that "take the insult out of middle age," as the May 2007 issue of International Design Magazine put it.

"Expect the number of DIY health monitoring services and first aid devices to skyrocket, as [baby boomers] and their families will do everything to prevent deteriorating health from messing up their 'third' life," says TrendWatching.com.

The innovation Web site suggests:

Check out the Philips HeartStart Home, a $1,150 defibrillator designed for use by virtually anyone to provide immediate treatment for sudden cardiac arrest. The device provides voice instructions that guide responders through every step of the defibrillation process, as well as reminding them to call for emergency help and providing CPR coaching.

For those whose vision is slowly losing focus, ID magazine noted the iBeam McK watch: "Push one button and a 2x magnifying lens springs open perpendicular to the face; push a second button to trigger a bright white LED flashlight."

Brain Fitness, an online mental calisthenics program from POSIT Science, is meant to improve cognitive function in folks in their sixties, but younger boomers can keep gray matter at the top of its game by practicing Brain Fitness exercises.

In the first-ever report of its kind, futurists and analysts at research and consulting firm Social Technologies released a series of 12 briefs this month that shed light on the top areas for technology innovation through 2025. No. 1 in the top 12: personalized medicine.

As with every innovative tool, however, there are potential problems, and medical designers need to work with actual flesh and organs to test their products effectively.

Sources

Industrial Designers Society of America

UK Design Council

Core77

David Report

Design News

Cool Hunting

Dexigner

Design Mind

Nussbaum On Design

Trendhunter

Trendwatching

Additional Resources

10 Industrial Design Trends You Can't Ignore
by Lauren Sherman
Forbes, Aug. 8, 2007

1000 Words: A Manifesto for Sustainability in Design
by Allan Chochinov
Core77, April 2007

Overview of the Top 12 Areas for Innovation through 2025
Social Technologies, Nov. 5, 2007

Call for Paper: Transformations in Industrial Design: Emerging Trends, Approaches and Challenges
International Journal of Product Development

Current Trends in U. S. Design
by Gianfranco Zaccai, 1990