Design Management in Australia: A personal reflection on our industrial design landscape

By Claudia Bonifer, Design Director, Tiller Design, Sydney, Australia

Australia’s economy has a strong emphasis on exporting commodities rather than manufacturing. Surprisingly though, Australia employs a similar percentage of its workforce in design occupations as Germany, with the only difference that industrial designers make up only 5% of people in design occupations, compared with 10% in Germany.
 
This article is a personal reflection on the Australian industrial design landscape. Having been trained and worked as an industrial designer in Germany, I moved to Australia more than ten years ago and continued my career in industrial design consultancies in Sydney. I quickly realized that even though the statistics don’t differ as much as I suspected, the design culture and design consciousness did; and with it the emphasis in project work.

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Design, Complexity, and Change

DMI Design/Management Annual 34 Conference
October 18-20, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

In just a couple of weeks, progressive and forward-looking thought leaders and practitioners will gather for DMI’s Design, Complexity, and Change. This conference will highlight their stories, and draw out lessons for how design can help us to reframe, rethink and reinvent our future. Join attendees from over fifteen different countries, representing leading professionals, consultants, and educators from organizations such as Businessweek, Capital One, ConAgra Foods, Fidelity, Legrand, Nike, Pitney Bowes, RISD, Sony, Boeing, and Vodafone.

Newly added to Annual 34:

Achieving a Considered Design Philosophy
Lorrie Vogel, General Manager, Considered Design, Nike

Coding as Design Practice
Ben Fry, Processing, & Casey Reas, UCLA
(Ben & Casey are the winners of the 2008 Muriel Cooper Award.)

DMI’s room block at the Marriott has now sold out due to the high demand, but we’ve secured an additional block of rooms at the lovely Kendall Hotel, right across the street.
 
Don’t miss an interactive workshop series, a lively contest to win a week in the Virgin Islands, a chance to interact one-on-one with selected design leaders, and a reception at the Frank Gehry-designed MIT Stata Center. Join us, because it will never again be business as usual!


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Save the date!
Design/Management Europe 14 Conference

April 21-22, 2010
London, UK

Block out your calendar for DMI’s European conference, which returns to London after a five-year hiatus. This year’s venue will be One Wimpole Street, in the heart of London’s vibrant West End and convenient to London’s major tube lines. The 2009 event in Milan was one of DMI’s most successful conferences ever, attracting over 160 professionals from two dozen countries. Look for updates about Europe 14 in upcoming News & Views!

Design Korea
International Conference on Best of Class: Balance of Theory and Practice in Design Management

Organized by KIDP (Korea Institute of Design Promotion) and DMI
December 3-4, Incheon, Korea

Design is playing a pivotal role in creating, distributing, and enjoying personal, corporate, and national wealth. This conference will bring together design and economic experts from around the globe to survey and analyze the social influence of design. The second day is co-organized with DMI, with co-chairs Thomas Lockwood, President of DMI; Rachel Cooper of Lancaster University; and Kyung-won Chung from Seoul Metropolitan Government. Speakers include Bruce Nussbaum, contributing editor of Businessweek, and Don-ryun Chang, President of ICOGRADA.

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Clive Roux New IDSA Executive Director

DMI is pleased to congratulate Clive Roux and the IDSA on his recent appointment as Executive Director. Clive has many years of international experience, including Chief Marketing Officer for Baumgarters and 15 years as a leader with Philips Design. He was introduced to IDSA’s membership and the design community at the recent Project Infusion conference in Miami. We wish Clive and the IDSA the best success for the future!

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Fredricks Design, Inc. and Callpod, Inc. have announced the launch of a strategic relationship to integrate power technology in products for the transportation, furniture, consumer goods and healthcare B2B markets… Quango recently launched a redesigned Web presence for the Association of Professional Design Firms… Corey McPherson Nash has partnered with The New England Journal of Medicine to reposition the brand message and to develop a marketing campaign… Ziba Design’s Work with Li-Ning, China’s biggest domestic maker of athletic footwear and sports apparel, was recently featured in Fast Company… Essential, in partnership with Fishman, recently won a reddot product design award in the musical instruments category…

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Webinar: Design Mind/Engineering Mind

Surya Vanka, Principal Manager, User Experience, Microsoft Corporation
October 7, 1 pm EDT

Great products have always been born of the synergy of the design mind and the engineering mind. Today, new synergistic designer-developer collaborations are emerging. Learn how to keep designer and developer roles working smoothly together, and discover emerging paradigms in user experience technologies and tools.

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Seminar: Creating Meaningful Brand Experiences and Producing Customer Happiness

Dave Norton, Ph.D., Principal, Lead Strategist, Stone Mantel
October 15-16, Seattle, USA

“The seminar helped me look at our situation from a different perspective and gave us a different road to succeed.” —Kyle Walker, Industrial Design Program Manager, Sun Microsystems, Inc.

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Seminar: Managing Creative Staff

Leonard Glick, Executive Professor, College of Business Administration, Northeastern University
October 20-21, Chicago, USA

“Len did a great job as a facilitator and motivator with a diverse group.” —Design Director, E. & J. Gallo Winery

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Seminar: The Trendmaster’s Guide to Great Design

Robyn Waters, President, RWTrend; and Gary Springer, President, SpringWater, LLC
October 29-30, Boston, USA

“Inspired us to take a fresh, new approach to this process which feels authentic, effective, and just right for our department at this time. It was fun too.” —Kevin Gillespie, Design Operations Manager, New Balance

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Seminar: Strategies that Transform Brands

Scott Lerman, Founding Partner, Lucid Brands
November 5-6, New York City, USA

“I came to renew, learn and gain insights—and I certainly got that and more. Scott provided a great framework with real life examples to illustrate the complexity of changing brands.”—Jill Roussy, Partner, Spark Ideas

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Seminars:
Creating the Perfect Design Brief
Making the In-House Design Department a Strategic Competency

Peter Phillips, Strategy Consultant
November 13-14, 2009
Offered by the Hong Kong Design Centre

DMI is partnering with the Hong Kong Design Centre to offer two of DMI’s popular seminars in Hong Kong this November. DMI’s popular in-house workshop, Making the In-House Design Department a Strategic Competency, is being adapted for a special one-day public session. Sign up for one, or sign up for both!

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Service Design: An Appraisal

By Roberto M. Saco, Owner & Principal, Aporia Advisors; and Alexis Goncalves, Consultant, Business Innovation
DMI Review, Vol. 19, No. 1, 2008

In this thoughtful analysis, Roberto Saco and Alexis Goncalves map the landscape of service design. They define the discipline and key players. They sketch its potential vis-à-vis growth and profitability. They elaborate on the multi-faceted realities of this work with examples form the Ritz-Carlton Hotels, Herman Miller, and Egg Banking. And they wrap things up with a discussion of key principles related to practice.

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