More Designers, but Less Design: Designers Need to Think and Act Globally

Although there are more and more designers, products with design quality are hard to come by for most consumers on the globe. This is because developed design capability is not where there is production capability - an important observation, considering that design products are the largest chunk of creative industry exports worldwide. In Europe, where design is getting recognized as an important corporate asset, there is little large-scale production capability left, while it will take some more time once China has a design capability to match its massive industrial output.

For premier companies, design is considered a vital corporate asset which has to be protected - not least as these companies have substantially invested in design. These pictures illustrate part of the problem: Chinese car designs, looking quite familiar.

Bayerische Motoren Werke, Munich, and Shaanxi Qinchuan Auto (Build Your Dreams), Shenzhen

Since many years, Chinese companies are aware of the appeal of Western, but also Korean and Japanese brands and designs for Chinese customers. Approaches are mixed: Lenovo bought the IBM hardware business mainly for its tech know-how, but got the valuable IBM brand name rights only for a few years. British carmaker Rover's remains was bought by Nanjing Auto, while competing Shanghai Auto got the design rights of two Rover models. The Rover brand however, it's most valuable asset, went to Ford. Chinese companies until now shopped for foreign companies mainly to boost their technical know-how and seem to have underestimated the other main factors for attracting global consumers: Design and brands. Not having gotten the Rover brand, Shanghai Auto is now selling the Rover 25 and 75 models under "Roewe" - the Chinese pronounciation of Rover.



Global brands such as BMW have a substantial image and design edge over home-made Chinese products with local Chinese customers, a similar problem Korean industry faced with local consumers when opening its market in the nineties. Korea invested heavily in design - and now has both locally desired and globally recognized brands such as Samsung and LG.

Some Chinese companies are getting aware of the importance of design, such as Gangzhou-based GAG, which started to develop a - kind of "not intended for production"-looking - prototype with a young car design studio in Shanghai. Above-mentioned Shanghai Auto also recently came up with a new "Roewe" which was designed and engineered in Britain and is not based on the old Rover designs. Also Chinese brands Geely and Chery did show new concept cars. There is no defined identity or design language yet, but it is a start for Chinese companies to understand the importance of developing design capability. Early learning in design, especially in Asia, works via imitation - see also my articles Alchemy of Cultures (2001) and Imitated, Commodified, Experienced (2005).

The first Chinese companies are now moving from the imitation to an exploration stage, where many different design approaches are tried in a quite chaotic manner. Eventually, they will move to state of synthesis and dominant designs will appear. As can be seen in Japan and Korea, this is not a linear process; it is rather a learning loop, where outer influences repeatedly play a role - see for instance the LG Prada phone, the first co-branded phone with a fashion company, and Samsung's later Armani phone. Samsung also presented it's own iPhone-inspired product.

LG Prada phone, Samsung Armani phone, Apple iPhone, Samsung F700

On the road towards the knowledge economy, many developed countries have also developed design capability. At the same time, industry has steadily declined, not least because of cheap competition from Far East. Design capability is now concentrated in the North and West of the globe, while production is concentrated in the South and East.

Will all Europeans and Americans become knowledge workers, while the Chinese are merely producing the knowledge output of the West? Not likely. I think that on the long term the situation will become equalized - some production (for instance in the area of green technology - the next industrial revolution) will need to come back to the West, while the East will pick up in design capability.

In the meanwhile, designers need to orient themselves more globally, and national design organisations in developing countries need to open their markets to international designers. I doesn't make much sense when talented Western designers in the current economic downturn struggle for local commissions while at the same developing countries need the injection of talent. Designers need to think and act globally.




Some are ahead already: Tata, the Indian car maker which came up with the remarkable Nano, a more convincing (and much cheaper) micro-car solution than Mercedes' loss-making Smart, will soon tap into the talent pool of London by opening its first international design studio there this fall. Expect Smarter and better designed cars - made in India.