IMAGINiT Industrial Design Solutions Blog

Industrial Design: Strategic or Tactical?

imaginitfeeds@rand.com (Shad Hardy) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 15:23:47 EDT

Industrial Design is always under fire by Engineers and business people for adding extra cost and time to product development with a un-measurable impact on sales. I mean, how DO you measure aesthetics, feel, form and emotional impact of what we do for a living? The outside world only sees us as the people that "draw pretty pictures." Lean manufacturing sounds like it should cut out the fat of any manufacturing company making them limber and ready for any market change. Industrial Design is one of the ways that a company becoming lean can leverage less to be more competitive. For instance, lean manufacturing companies in Australia have found that there are 4 main areas of improvement for being lean and becoming more competitive. You will find these steps listed below in the order of implementation.

Focus on efficiency
Focus on quality
Focus on flexibility
Focus on design (Industrial Design)

Excerpt from the white paper "The Impact of Industrial Design Effectiveness on Corporate Financial Performance" by Robert W. Veryzer:

These results provide strong evidence that good industrial design is related to corporate financial performance and stock market performance even after considering expenditures on industrial design. Further, the patterns of financial performance over the seven-year horizon suggest that these effects are persistent.

What do you think about green?

imaginitfeeds@rand.com (Shad Hardy) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:48:07 EDT

I'm talking about the green initiatives that most companies are putting together to make them look savvy, up to date and credible like they all of a sudden care about the environment. Industrial Design along with the Architectural groups are at the forefront of making products, buildings and other things more palatable to the consumer and put a stop gap in us making holes in our ozone and mounds of garbage that we don't know what to do with. Here is a listing of articles that I found interesting on the color green as it relates to Industrial Design.

Sketchy Situation

imaginitfeeds@rand.com (Shad Hardy) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:16:00 EDT

Industrial Designers love to draw. Why? Because it's the quickest way to show our design intent, the form, the look and feel of a product and it is just plain old fun. AliasStudio has some really great functionality that will get you sketching faster than if you were using marker and paper (without the intoxicating smell of Xylene). Let's talk really quickly about set up. First, you have to have a Wacom tablet of some kind. The newest ones are great with the little buttons on the upper corners. They are grey in color. The best, if you can afford it is the Cintiq display. Second, you need at a minimum Autodesk's DesignStudio to sketch. Here's the secret to sketching really fast that has less to do with a 3D modeling like interface... after getting into sketch mode (Ctrl+2) and selecting a pencil, marker or eraser you hold down the SPACE bar. Voila, a quick, hockey puck like interface that will give you everything you need to adjust your color, brushes and a bunch of layer filters you can use really, really fast.

A Report From the Field IDSA Kansas City, MO

imaginitfeeds@rand.com (Shad Hardy) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 16:00:25 EDT

Sold out a week ahead of time! That's the story. The Industrial Designers Society of America's Midwest Regional event is huge. There are a lot of designers here willing to hear from the trend setters of design. It's the face of the new IDSA. They're doing great. It's a well-organized, fun and informative event with big name presenters including yours truly.

"...We are really trying to show Industrial Designers they have the power to lead the development of a product through technology"

IMAGINiT Technologies Industrial Design Road Show Brings You Something Amazing at the IDSA Regional Events!

imaginitfeeds@rand.com (Shad Hardy) — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 15:59:25 EDT

The IMAGINiT Industrial Design team will be spending their April weekends in the cities of Kansas City, Columbus and Portland playing a large role the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) regional events. Be prepared to see things that your parents don't know about, things so amazing that you won't believe them with your own eyes. I'm talking about Industrial Designers and Engineers working together in unison. I'm talking about technology working for the good of two disparate teams. Please be aware that this will be a unique opportunity to witness how technology can blur the lines of responsibility on how a product can be made more efficiently, accurately and be delivered sooner to market.

Our diverse technical staff made up of one Industrial Designer and one Engineer will show an entire workflow using AliasStudio, Inventor and Showcase. They will be showing how a product can be developed from the ground up in an environment that will in fact blur the lines of who's who.

Here are the events we will be attending;

http://www.idsa.org/events.htm

IDSA Northwest District Conference
April 4-6
Kansas City, MO

IDSA Mideast District Conference
April 11-13
Columbus, OH

IDSA Western District Conference
April 25-27
Portland, OR