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Designing Business: Injecting and Connecting Business Frameworks into Undergraduate Product Design Education

By Shea Tillman.

Published by Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal

As creative problem solving and decision making is increasingly being used to fuel innovation within corporations, it is has become more important than ever for designers to grasp the business parameters in which their design solutions will be serving. While the value of design and the visibility of the design profession have risen within the ranks of the business world in the last decade, integrating a holistic business approach within an educational design program has become increasingly problematic. Core curricula expansions, the longer duration of academic terms, and the ever-increasing need to expand the design curricula offerings have contributed to reductions of specialized business courses within undergraduate design programs. Thus enters the concept of the business expansion studio. This interdisciplinary studio course shifts the efforts of student creativity toward developing a sub-branded product expansion for an existing company, complete with the visual components required to launch the idea. Students formulate and design business strategies, brand names, visual identities, packaging, point-of-purchase, and tradeshow exhibit concepts that become an outgrowth of their unique product expansion idea. This paper will explore and demonstrate how business strategy and marketing principles can be used as a creative framework within the educational design studio making creative projects more relevant while better equipping students for the business world. Specific examples of approaches integrated into a 3rd year product design studio course will be illustrated.

Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal, Volume 2, Issue 2, pp.53-64. Article: Print (Spiral Bound). Article: Electronic (PDF File; 2.060MB).

Shea Tillman

Assistant Professor, Department of Industrial Design, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, USA