Complete guide to industrial design: Keys to learning about industrial designers

A comprehensive compilation of product design. Learn everything you need to know about industrial design, industrial design universities and online industrial design, with deep reflections, case studies, bibliographic references, enriching discussions, and practical recommendations.

Less is Less, More is More
The time is coming – to retire the nearly centenary motto «less is more».
Some Ideas are Too Big
We all have ideas. Some have great ideas. What is the difference between an idea and a big idea?
Invisible Design
After the “premium” stage where design acts as quality mark, good design should become a “commodity”, a component of the welfare society we take for granted.
The Equal and the Different
To provide a real basis for the idea of “originality”.
Craftsmanship and Design
Craftsmanship can not be limited to reproduce past tools and essentials. There is a minor market of handmade products that design should attend to.
The Citizen Designer
In the dark days that live Mexico, emerges a discussion about how designers get involved with social conflicts.
The Seventh Commandment
The tribute, robbery and theft of authorship, have blurred boundaries in the design practice.
Reality of «Reality»
Missing the authenticity of pre-marketing, we have created an equally artificial aesthetic of tradition and handicrafts.
A Navel Too Big
Isn't it too much to ask design to “make the world better”? Isn't there in such request an exacerbation of its goals (and of designers) above its possibilities and concerns?
And Where are the Opportunities?
Somebody has a problem and somebody has the answer to that problem, but... ¿How can we do to meet this couple?
Fewer Products vs. More Services
A possible new horizon for the world and for the Design.
The Challenge of Communicating Value
A question to which creative entrepreneurs have no answer to: the value of their proposal.
Design and Everyday's Life
Designers can make a real contribution to everyday's life quality projecting low-tech objects where the shape itself allows function.
Sign Consumption
Culture adherence to the speech of globalization require reviewing purposes and values design assumed.
Realities and Conventions
Even though we refuse to accept it, there is indeed life in other brains: the culture of scorn harms us designers.
What is social design?
Design's social impact is a research area not covered enough by designers.
CLAP International Design Awards
We launch the the first excellence awards for design, branding and communication professionals in Latin America.
Design: Accomplice or Ally to Consumption?
In response to the article “Sign consumption”, the question arises: which is, or should be, design's relationship with economical culture?
A Passion for Design
Who doesn't want to feel passion for what he or she likes, and loves?
Recipe Book to Get Over the Crisis With Design
Professionals from 14 countries give their opinions and reflections about the profession and its relation with businesses and society.
From the C-Word to the D-Word
Designers must take care of the words we use to talk about our work.
Are We Destined to Fail as Entrepreneurs?
The growing number of creative professionals that venture into entrepreneurship raises doubts and concern.
Zero Waste Packaging: Possible or Not?
Although to eradicate packaging waste may sound impossible to achieve, sustainability is a path to take and make improvements over time to reduce environmental impact.
Views and Reflections on Design Education: Local Voices from Puerto Rico
Limited inquiry that explored ways of knowing, experiences, and procedures in teaching design in Puerto Rico using a critical reflective practice approach.
What is Southern design?
Conventionally, design is a form of development that trickles down from the North to the South. But the strength of tradition in Southern cultures provides rich resources.
When Conviction Gets in the Way
Not all pathways lead us to the same design, nor we all have to design through the same pathway.
Design Contests
Contests aren't the cause of the main structural problems of the design profession, but an excellent reflection of such problems.
Accomplice Design or Ethical Design
How long are the designers going to keep collaborating with a system which leads us to an Earth disaster?
Design and Intelligence Development
Human beings are born with several potentialities marked by genetics; nevertheless, today we know that we can develop some others through certain stimulus, like design.
Sundays Smell of Roast Chicken
The least one can ask of a chair is for it to be functional and ergonomic but these qualities no longer suffice Today a chair will have to adjust to the shifting tastes of society
Innovation on Design Is Not Inside Design
Nowadays, is common to listen in almost every conversation “innovation” term. Everything must be “innovative”. However, innovation is not the same for everyone.
Keep the User in Mind to Overcome the Crisis
The user – buyer – needs new incentives to purchase a product. It is not enough for it to be functional, it needs to fulfil the values and the lifestyle of the user
Made in Spain, a Reality
We let qualified professional to leave and we reduce our manufacturing autonomy. And that obviously affects local industrial designers and weakens the companies’ room for manoeuvre.
Creation as the Human Essence
In a world surrounding us with material, creation has become part of our essence, a key piece in the evolution of mankind.
Wood’s Future Is in the Rear Mirror
If we want to be recognized, searched, and valued, we should remain faithful to our tradition, recover the virtues of craftwork and with them meet the requirements of the consumer.
Management vs. Leadership
We don't need to manage the present but we should lead the future.
About Effectiveness
Being efficacious entails doing the right things; being efficient, doing them correctly. Being effective means being efficacious and efficient.
Design and Chess Blindness
Low-tech design paves today a path designers should have never left, but businesses are still dazzled by a technological sensationalism that forgot to give answers.
Forum, “Fuero” and “Foras”!
On the shared construction of a design without geographical, academic or professional boundaries.
Industrial Design Shortens the Crisis
Industrial design, or to put it better, the application of design to industry have had a stimulating effect in the past.
The Roots of Industrial Design Colleges in Colombia
Looking back from two theories about its origin.
Green Models in Classroom
Design teachers must spread pedagogical processes for a green world to reduce the impact of our academic exercises on the local environment.
Design Thinking Is Not Design
Clarifying the role of DT in the design process and the correct use by the designer.
Planned Obsolescence
Design should no longer respond to market interests anymore, but to the human needs that as a global community we have created as time goes by.
The Ornaments
An incitement to reconsider the role of the ornament on design works.
The Vignelli Canon, a Tribute
Though we can learn from many designers, few have left us a legacy more clear and visible.
We Must Learn to Play the Game
In the market there are good and bad designers, good and bad clients, all sort of competition and prices. All of them are some of the components of the game to play.
Paul Ricoeur and creative search
The origin of the creative act from a philosopher's perspective.