Special: World Industrial Design Day with David Kusuma (Part 1)
In this uproarious world becoming expressive day by day, it so happens that some of the most basic terms lose their voice to trends, buzzwords, and disruptions. One such term is Product Innovation. Every year, thousands of products are launched into the market, yet only a few of them can sustain the ultra-competitive market.
This is the first part of our special episode featuring a diligent personage David Kusuma; Vice President of Research and Product Innovation at Tupperware. He also mentors WDO, which promotes design values envisioning designing for humanity for a better experience. He shares with us how the future of product innovation is going to cater to the needs of the users. He also tells us about how WDO is building a partnership with United Nations Agencies and additionally collaborating with Aerospace to advance the aspects of industrial design and set a new horizon in the domain; driven by the sustainability of the product, making it both imperishable and recyclable.
Rohit Lalwani: How has the world of industrial design evolved since you first entered the sphere?
David: The profession has a much higher level of sophistication today than before. When I graduated, we were focused primarily on product design. Product development is trying to make the best product we could for the manufacturer’s ability, for the cost, and the user function, but today, there are specializations of design that didn’t exist before. For example, UX and UI. These are some of the most prevalent focus areas today for designers. If you look at Universal Design and Human Factors, they were really emerging. The industry has found a strong value in design because they know good design can sell your product and service. Leading Business schools have also included design thinking into their business curriculum.
Design Research is much more widely used to expand our capabilities, understanding, and knowledge of what is important to consumers.
The discipline is highly engaged in issues surrounding things like the circular economy with solutions based on principles of designing with waste and designing for pollution. The profession has an important calling in my opinion for the 21st century and also into the future.
Rohit Lawani: One of my understanding of the field is that the term ‘Industrial Designers’ arose after the Second World War. It’s been part of the economy since the Industrial Revolution. What I have known is that in the 1900s the term Efficiency and Standardization came up and towards the 1980s we moved towards Minimalism and Aesthetics. What are the terms that according to you for the Industrial Design of this era?
David: If we also remember the Bauhaus, we must also consider terms like mass production, simplicity- the truth of materials. The Bauhaus was looking at a model where people of every background and every demographic could enjoy products that could improve their life regardless of their socioeconomic status.
Minimalism and Aesthetics are essential but I like the words Design for Humanity. In WDO terms, this means designing for a better world. This includes not only social improvements but also establishing design policy, which is something extremely important for the future. It can even break down long-term social norms and cultural barriers, things that limit progress on basic quality of life. We are charged to focus on what provides the highest benefit so that the impact of our contribution can be felt globally.
We need to focus on global issues that are most important to the greatest number of people like as example global income, poverty, and discrimination all of these items that focus on basic human dignity rather than nation related interests. There is a lot of suffering in the world today, and there are great opportunities for design to make a difference. Global issues can create economic status stagnation in corners of the world. We must look at better data and metrics because currently, there is a lack of statistical information even in the design profession. There’s an urgent need to begin collecting detailed statistical data so that we have a clear picture of the current design landscape and future trends. On social and economic improvements, there has been a lot of talk about connecting KPIs.
Rohit Lalwani: I am intrigued to understand that with sustainability being at the core of Industrial Design, where do you see the field in the future?
David: On the topic of sustainability, I envisioned a strong emphasis first on education.
The part is on teaching responsible production and consumption, the sharing of best practices, and case studies so that we can raise design understanding, increase our capability.
There is a world of opportunity to rethink and redesign all the different things that we are involved with, and we need to return to Basics and core responsibilities.
I am astonished to see how a new toothbrush is made up of six or seven different materials. Which means the product cannot be recycled easily. People in the world are more tuned into sustainable objectives than they ever have before. Repurposed, recycled, and upcycled products have become popular, and there’s a movement called steampunk, which uses a lot of leftover junk, and this continues to happen.
Rohit Lalwani: The WDO has been a prime organization and at the forefront of responsible consumption and production, what is the organization’s role going to be on bringing changes in the mass markets?
David: Our world is characterized by unprecedented population growth. We have decreasing natural resources, and we have continued rapid technological changes. The WDO is ready to play a leadership role on some of our planet’s biggest issues related to economic issues, social and environmental changes. That’s because we have a large network created by diverse member organizations around the world, and we have long-standing pillars of professional design associations. We have designed promotional organizations and educational institutions. We also have a very strong city agenda. We’ve recently added city membership to our pillars, and we have a program. That’s how we become a very well-recognized World Design Capital Program that offers the platform for sharing ideas and storytelling from around the world, and we have a growing corporate membership as well. During pandemic WDO has been working very feverishly, building partnerships with other world bodies like the UN-Habitat, UN Women, World Packaging Organization, and International Space Station. UN Women is an exciting project, looking to utilize design as a tool to develop solutions or combating gender inequality; there are two parts to that problem. First, UN Women tells us that a majority of gender discrimination is born out of hundreds of years of cultural acceptance. Secondly, how can design offer a gateway to behavioral change? Sustainability is top of mind for most companies today and some of our member corporations, who implement very strong initiatives either independently or together with WDO work towards sustainability objectives.
In the 2nd part of this article, David Kusuma talks about the critical principles required in the working and designing for space. If you don’t want to miss out more on Sustainability and Product Innovation head to the 2nd part of our WIDD special article. For more details, do visit the profile.
