The Wall Street Journal recently looked at businesses seeking innovative problem-solving ideas from design firms. Why? Because designers try new things, watch users closely and test their changes.

"The essence is that design must be worked with seriously in order to win respect," according to the new 5 Key Design Trends report from Swedish design authority The David Report. "This applies to designers but above all, producers. Functional design processes, profound culturally connected trend insights and knowledge about human behaviour is paramount."

The only way for companies to succeed is to deliver what the customer wants. Designers can figure that out. Here are some of the key areas designers are focusing on to connect with consumers successfully.

Elegance and Simplexity
At the 2008 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA), a strong return to minimalism and elegance was evident. Perhaps best representing this big trend were Apple's gold-winning MacBook Air and iPhone and the silver-winning Whirlpool Duet front-loading washing machine.

Apple's first phone succeeds at combining a phone with an iPod and Web browser, and the company's "user-friendly interface and attractive products puts them way ahead of their colleagues and competitors," according to The David Report. "That's why Apple can pride [itself] with having dedicated brand fans whose lives depend on the latest products or updates."

Last year, in Forbes, Steve McCallion, executive creative director of industrial design firm Ziba Design, noted a trend toward "simplexity." The idea is to design products that have many functions but are approachable, ergonomically correct and easy to use.

This emerging theory, which proposes a complementary relationship between complexity and simplicity, was as recently as this month addressed in terms of its role in design. Global innovation consultancy frog design emphasized the continued importance of the concept by trying to surface the best terminology to describe it and other evolving design concepts.

Today, designers are placing new weight on a simple, easy-to-use approach to the complex, seeking fineness in function, brilliance in the everyday and, quite simply, better ways for us to use things.

Personal
Today's consumers demand products that are not only functional but also original and individualistic. And because today's consumers want products that are unique to them, the business of design continues to favor "mass customization," an ongoing effort by manufacturers to avoid commoditization and make their product more attractive by producing low quantities of specific products in a profitable and high-quality way. (Source: frog design)

Trendwatching.com points to M&M's, the personalization service of which "allows customers to pick colors and have texts and logos printed" on the candy. But it takes it "a step further by enabling customers to have their own likeness printed on the candy. M&M's Faces lets customers upload one or two photos, pick their colors and add up to two different texts to be printed on separate M&M's."

Trendwatching continues: "Using a simple interface, they can zoom in or out to select which part of a photo they want to use. A 'graphic specialist' then tweaks the photo file, creating a sketch-like rendition that looks good on small pieces of candy."

Socially Responsible
"[E]co-awareness has been embraced not just by treehuggers and celebrities, but by sizeable parts of the global middle classes, too," says Trendwatching.com. "Sure, certain overpriced organic nice-to-haves will suffer, but we'll most likely see a surge in what we've dubbed ECO-CHEAP: cash-strapped consumers going out of their way to save money on energy bills, motorized transport and other waste-prone, eco-unfriendly activities," Trendwatching continues in another briefing.

The growing demand for more environmentally friendly goods has led many manufacturers to find cost-effective ways of improving their environmental performance and that of their offerings.

But beyond reducing the effects on the nature surrounding us, social responsibility is also an awareness of people's needs and global fairness.

And at this year's IDEA, the creation of socially responsible products and prototypes — whether they helped the electoral process, eradicated disease, bolstered village education for the poor or enabled the physically challenged — was particularly important to this year's IDEA jury.

Now more than ever, companies have a significant responsibility, both ethically and ecologically. So does the consumer. "This is something that designers need to take into consideration," says The David Report. "To not design just for the sake of designing, but to keep the producer and later the consumer in mind."

Transparent
Tangentially related to social responsibility is what Trendwatching calls "infinite transparency."

". . .[E]very day brings us innovative new ventures that work at bringing even more intense forms of transparency to demanding consumers," Trendwatching says.

Although increasingly more consumers are demanding environmentally friendly products, many also remain skeptical of companies that claim to be "green." It's understandable why.

"There is a word that explains the act to try to make money out of people's desire to do the right thing," says The David Report. The word: "greenwashing."

"Unfortunately, not all manufacturers have made the investments necessary to provide more environmentally preferable products," according to Scot Case, founding board member of the International Green Purchasing Network and Director of Procurement Strategy at the North American Green Purchasing Initiative. "In order to compete in a market that demands 'green' products, some manufacturers have resorted to creative advertising instead."

And as early as last year, greenwashing was taking place at a quicker clip, according to government contracting Web site GovPro.com.

The David Report and frog design also cite transparency as a growing trend to watch in design and business.

Resources

5 Key Design Trends
by David Carlson and Claes Foxerus
The David Report, October 2008

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

Designer Neologisms
by Ignazio Moresco
design mind (frog design), Nov. 12, 2008

2008 International Design Excellence Awards

Design Museum.org: Dieter Rams

Design Trends 2008 (slideshow)
frog design, October 2008

Innovation Avalanche
Trendwatching.com, July 2008

Eco-Iconic
Trendwatching.com, June 2008

How to Counter Greenwash: Measure What Matters - and Make it Visible
by John Thackara
Doors of Perception, July 24, 2007

Beware of Greenwashing: Not All Environmental Claims are Meaningful
by Scot Case
GovPro.com, July 1, 2007

Trends for 2009: Radical Transparency
by Tim Leberecht
design mind (frog design), Nov. 16, 2008

Businesses Take a Page From Design Firms
by Phred Dvorak
The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 10, 2008

Additional

Industrial Designers Society of America

UK Design Council

Core77

Design News

Cool Hunting

Dexigner

Nussbaum On Design

Trendhunter

Earlier/Related

Top 7 Design Trends

A Darker Shade of Green