4. UK Manufacturing, Royal Society of Arts, November 2006

This was first a speech for an RSA seminar on manufacturing and design which I then adapted for an article for the RSA journal.

One of the simplest definitions of design, which separates it from concepts of art or craft, for example, is that it is linked to the means of production. Forming and shaping the objects around us, it is the way in which we combine materials, processes or technology, within economic boundaries, to create things we want, need and can use.

It is not surprising, then, that the different disciplines of design are based around traditional processes of manufacture; so, graphic design relates to print and product design to the manufacturing processes.

But the traditional industrial base of design has now gone. In this century designers work virtually, their work on screen not paper, and products are manufactured on the other side of the world, not in the factory next door.

This raises some uncomfortable questions for Britain’s manufacturing and design industries. How can manufacturing industries sustain themselves when competition is so fierce? How can designers understand the manufacturing processes that make their ideas real, or be stimulated by new processes? Will design be the next service to be off -shored to cheaper and equally able economies?

Swings and roundabouts

The surprising fact is that the decline of our manufacturing industries over the past 20 years has been matched by the impressive and sustained success of the UK design industry. From the smallest design boutiques, single discipline specialists to the largest multinational multidisciplinary companies like Imagination and IDEO and now a new generation of service design companies like Livework and Engine, the design industry is thriving.

Formed as a response to the crisis of reduced demand from manufacturing and the increase in the service sector, the design industry of the UK has become an international, consultancy-based (rather than in-house), exporter of both economic value and of valuable individuals.

It has not all been in one direction. There are many examples where UK design talent has itself attracted in-bound investment: 10 years ago I founded Samsung’s European design team when it moved from Frankfurt to London. They are now a thriving office where we are design the physical products and user interfaces for Samsung’s global product range.

More recently, Nissan set up in Paddington, London and I have my own design team Orange.

All these companies are attracted to the UK by it’s many design advantages. The UK has a plentiful and high -quality pool of design graduates from it’s excellent design education system. London attracts both companies and designers from around the world thanks to its status as a cultural and design centre, within the context of the UK’s liberal economy, mid-Atlantic point of view and, though often forgotten or denied, European presence and perspective.

UK manufacturing endures

On the other hand, it’s also a mistake to think manufacturing has disappeared and is no longer possible in the UK. In fact, it is alive and, in some cases, thriving here. Demonstration Projects and Design Immersions, recent initiatives organised by the Design Council between manufacturing companies and designers, showed that the two industries can work closely and effectively together.

The projects bring teams of the country’s best designers in product, graphics and design management into companies for a single day to come up with a programme of design actions that the company then implements, with the support of mentors. The programmes are expanding still and are tangible evidence of how design adds value and sustains UK manufacturing, without competing merely on cost. Across a broad range of traditional and new companies, from Aga cookers and Shefield -based cutlery companies, to hi-fi or medical equipment manufacturers, design is being used effectively and successfully, recorded over time through a number of measurements from increased profits to greater customer satisfaction.

If more of our manufacturers are inspired by such evidence and wish to take advantage of the skill base of UK design more than they do currently, they can and indeed should. It is right that the Design Council, Sir George Cox and Gordon Brown use the findings of the Cox Review of Creativity in Business to shame or encourage them into action. There are some who believe the decline of manufacturing was caused by governments and taxation, but I believe it was as much the behaviour of manufacturing companies and their reluctance to embrace design as a tool to make products that people want.

Going solo

Design is now independent of the traditional manufacturing base, it does not rely on it, but has spread it’s wings and is an industry of it’s own.

How can the success of the design industry square with the corresponding decline in manufacturing? How can design sustain itself without proximity to the source of production?

The mistake is to connect manufacturing output with design quality.

There seems to be a closely held belief that closeness to detailed manufacturing processes aids creativity. Perhaps this is true of particular industries such as ceramics, but, in most cases, manufacturing, engineering and technology and barriers to be overcome. For too long our engineers and technologists have restricted and prevented a customer-centric design process and that is one of the reasons we have lost our manufacturing output and can invent, but rarely deliver, technical innovation to the mass market.

During the traditional development processes used in the UK it is not designers who shape and form, but the many engineering and technology decisions made early on in the process, which are based on assumptions and guesses about the people who will use products and services. Design is habitually brought in too late, used simply to paint and decorate products for which the major decisions have already been made. Thus we have products that are easy to build, designed by technically minded people, but are not desirable or usable.

Our car industry is an obvious example. We can make great cars for more customer -centric international companies, but our own companies did not know how to design cars that competed internationally.

Know your customer

The reason UK designers are so successful and are likely to remain successful, is their intimate knowledge of customers in the local markets of Europe. Products designed with the western market in mind can be manufactured in China for globally minded organisations based in Korea, Japan or Taiwan, but they have to appeal to people in Europe and the US.

Similarly, it is difficult for us to design for Korean or Chinese markets, unless our own cultural values are desirable in that market. In the world of luxury goods, our values often are, but in the world of consumer products, attitudes to technology, behaviours and even basic needs are very different.

In Europe, we have different cultural values, fashions, social behaviour and acceptance of technology. We have different aesthetic tastes, a desire for understatement and simplicity of use, suspicion of technology, an ageing population, multiple cultures, an environmentally conscious attitude and many other drivers that require specific design empathy.

So, what is important is not how close we are to the source of manufacturing, but how close we are, physically and mentally, to our customers. The designer’s ability to empathise, observe, uncover and deliver solutions that fit the real people around them is what is valuable to global manufacturers who need to make the right thing for markets that are unfamiliar and subject to changes that are difficult to anticipate.

When Korea or China draw their design map of the world, they will look for designers who understand the markets in which they want to succeed. Is it the historic design nations of Germany or Italy? Is it the new spirit of Spain or the Czech Republic? Our historic design tradition is still cliched, a combination of Conran and E-Types, with a hint of wind-up radios and Dysons and perhaps now a sprinkling of the Ive factor. Eccentricity and introversion combined.

Finding our strong points

The challenge is to build on the strengths we do have: Pragmatism, an inventive and challenging approach to creating solutions, a desire to make technology usable, a sense of customer service, professionalism, tolerance, a relative lack of national pride and a willingness to contribute internationally.

I think the UK does have the greatest design consultancy industry in the world but, if we want to sustain our global design presence, we must not rest on our laurels. Our academic institutions, for example, do not represent the cutting edge of design thinking. The Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago works closely with industry to bring user -centred design processes to their heart. Stanford University in California has opened the D-School, teaching design thinking and methodology to businesses and, closer to home, IVREA and Domus Academy in Italy show us how to put technology into our real lives. Our academics show no such leadership, confidence or desire to impress at a global level.

The UK design industry itself is fragmented, vast in numbers but with few big international names. It is too reliant on specialisms and specific disciplines such as product, packaging, web or user interface design. It's business model, of paying simply for the time it takes to design, does not adequately reflect the potential benefits or indeed risks associated with the end product and does little to encourage long -term relationships that are the basis of most great design.

Design is increasingly being valued as a strategic tool. Companies are likely to appreciate, for example, that design co-ordinates products and services to create the customer’s total experience, which can then deliver the promise and differentiation of a brand. This means designers need to take a broader view, balancing business objectives with brand and customer needs, rather than just designing an object or service in isolation.

But I am optimistic. Our designers remain flexible, entrepreneurial and ready to respond to both threats and opportunities. They will get on planes and go wherever they need to, so that they retain the right to design the world’s products and services, from airports to iPods and from vacuum cleaners to information services. I now work in Paris, building a design centre for my parent company France Telecom. With an international team, I will be working out “what’s next” for a world where you’ll get TV on your mobile and text messages on your TV. Batting for Europe, keeping us ahead of cheaper and equally competent competition from the US and Asia.

Is this the basis for a long-term future of Britain? Absolutely. Better to be a contributor to global success than the keeper of our own failures. Whether in manufacturing or services, red brick or virtual economies, the position of the UK design industry is vital to our economic success and global position. Feed it, sustain it, forever update it but, most of all design it, our design industry will remain successful.

DesignWeek's annual survey of the UK design industry

In-house design is a rare and uncelebrated aspect of the UK design scene. It’s a simple fact that most designers in the UK work in consultancies. The UK is unique in having such in-balance between design consultants and designers who work inside companies. This was not always the case but in the last two decades the growth of the UK consultancy industry has been mirrored by the decline in numbers of in-house design teams.

The growth and success of the UK design consultancy contrasts with the decline of manufacturers, the traditional employers of design. But the UK trend away from in-house design is not shared internationally. In the last decade it is corporate design teams in continental Europe, Japan and the US who create the trends, anticipate the future and set the benchmark for design across many disciplines.

In the fifties and sixties it was the corporate teams led by the likes of Dieter Rams at Braun but in the seventies it was a new breed of independent gurus such as Sotsass for Olivetti and Richard Sapper at IBM who held sway in global corporations. In-house design teams became boring, uninspirational, too close to production reality to be innovative. But in the last ten years a revolution has taken place in corporate design teams and the teams at Apple, Nokia, Samsung and Philips now represent the pinnacle of design achievement, replacing individual design gurus of the 80’s like Philippe Stark or envelope pushing consultancies in the 90’s such as IDEO.

In sheer numbers, in-house design teams represent a small proportion of the design industry. Design teams at Nokia or Philips can be up to three or four hundred strong, but others, even Apple, are closer to twenty or thirty in size. In-house design teams are valued by companies because they have knowledge of brand, understanding of the company’s implementation capabilities, technical and financial, and can build differentiation across many different products or services. That knowledge however can work against a companies interest when it limits innovation, is unable to see the wood for the trees and is myopic or unable to sense trends and changes in customers. For that reason, consultants continue to play a major role in most in-house teams with their fresh, away from the politics, input. The revolution in in-house design teams in the last ten years is how they have become as creative and fresh as consultants as internal culture has changed and business leaders have understood that design creates differentiation and delivers the promise of the brand.

In recent years the UK has become the home of several global design teams. Traditionally strong in house teams such as Black and Decker, led by Laurie Cunningham in Spennymoor in Durham, have been joined by newer brands that see the UK, and specifically London, as a natural centre for international design teams. Philips have had a studioin London for many years, as an outpost for the campus in Eindhoven, Holland. The Samsung studio led by Clive Goodwin thrives and although the Ford Ingeni studio came and went, Nissan look firm in Paddington under the leadership of David Godber, with Andrew Mcgrath’s Orange design team nearby. Nokia’s head of design Alastair Curtiss recently announced their move to London in the next few months.

The UK also boasts a strong tradition of retail led in-house graphic and packaging teams.. Boots, the Body Shop and Waitrose are award winning, innovative teams who have built a global recognition for design excellence.

But in house design is not just a story of large design teams working for global brands. A multitude of smaller companies employ individual or small teams of graphic, web or industrial designers to help them with the everyday requirements of packaging, website and product design. These are the unsung heros of the design industry, but pulling together the diverse design activities that many companies forget about, with limited resources but able to create awareness across the company and build up empathy with real customers make them highly valuable people. We rarely read of the design team at manufacturers such as Richard Burbidge or Don Whitley but these individuals and teams are regenerating and sustaining traditional manufacturers and developing new service innovations.

One developing trend for in-house design is their role as design managers. Most companies do not have the rate of product or service development to justify large permanent design teams, but managing brand, co-ordinating briefs and identifying and instructing external agencies is a key role for the design manager. In the airline industry figures such as Joe Ferry and Mike Crump have instigated innovation, created differentiation and achieved great success for their respective companies Virgin and British Airways. But when costs have to be cut, BA were quick to dismantle the design management team that created the company saving Club World flat bed.

In Britain and the rest of the world, in-house team s are in ascendance. Stewardship of brand values, creative facilitators within companies, bridging marketing briefs and implementation, generators of innovation and with the time to consider the future, designing from within is no longer the boring or safe option but increasingly attractive to young creative designers keen to see their work delivered. At the same time consultants have discovered that in house design teams are good clients, sympathetic and able to interface with the rest of the company. Consultant and corporate designer, whether they work for global brand or local SME, look ready to forge new relationships to the benefit of both.

6. Apple's iPhone, New Design, January 2007

"I’ve been waiting two and half years for this moment" were the words of Steve Jobs as he launched the iPhone at his global keynote speech in San Francisco. So had we all, the rumours of Apple’s entry into the mobile phone world had been around just as long, to the point were we thought they wouldn’t do it all. But suddenly it was here and within hours the share price of Nokia and Motorola had taken a severe thump downwards as the world collectively gasped at the cool simplicity and elegance of Apple’s solution.

As Jobs said in his intro, “if you want to do great software, you have to start with hardware”. Apple have taken this literally with every major product innovation; the Macintosh with a mouse, the iPod with the wheel and now the iPhone with our natural pointer, our fingers. In each case, they have stripped our preconceptions of what a product should be and gone back to first principles. What do weuse it for and how do we really want to use it?

The iPhone does this again. In competing with industry giants such as Nokia, who sell in vastly greater numbers than Apple, mainly because the network operators hide the true costs of handsets through subsidies, Apple thought out of the box. iPhone is a screen you touch, with an interface that concentrates on doing stuff you actually want to do and no more, beautifully. It’s design is almost invisible, the camera a simple hole in the back. It does things conventional phones don’t even think about, like allowing you to connect two calls with exquisite simplicity, or go directly to a voice message, without having to listen to a voice mail box telling you how many calls you have and then listening to each in turn.

We know that only 10 percent of phones functionality is used. We know that most people hate the way their phones work. Even Nokia, the worlds favourite phone brand, suffer from returns due to people not being able to use them. And yet, in the mobile phone world, usability means revenue. Some phones are used 5 times more than others for texting, simply because they are easier to use. For the operators, this means income. Usability is not just a nice to have.

But despite the importance of usability, manufacturers have been unable to step outside their boxes and take the perspective that Apple have. They insist on confusing soft keys, tiny navigation cursors, strange icons; inconsistent meaningless and infuriating terminology, the separation of physical form and on screen interface. Into this myopic, technology and feature stuffed madness, Apple have cast light that will make others cower.

Of course Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and the rest massively outsell Apple. And of course this expensive, possibly fragile but impossibly cool iPhone will not make a significant dent into their market performance. But they need to watch out, people will see that it doesn’t have to be the way it always has been. The mighty Microsoft will admit to the impact of Apple on the quality of PC software. Now the phone manufacturers will be forced to respond, to think out of the box and remember that it’s not the technology, it’s how you use it, that is everything.

There are people who get bored with those who praise Apple. They can show you countless products that have more features, to a higher specification and at a lower price than an Apple. You can have what ever you want in a mobile phone, a music player, TV, internet, Instant Messaging, but that is not the point. Apple have shown us yet again that it’s how you make it work that makes the difference. So the iPhone is important, it shows that there is another way, you can design and innovate to achieve that thing that technology never provides, simplicity, joy and beauty, the greatest drivers of commerce and success. But most companies, struggling to find their imagination, tied to feature led competitor matching with little effort to gain insight in what their customers actually want, and frozen in collective inability to strike out, will be scratching their heads wondering how to do it better, but at least they have something to copy now.