Product Design offers a broad and comprehensive introduction to the field of product design and the key role of product designers. It follows through all the stages and activities involved in the creation of a new product -- from concept design to manufacture, prototyping to marketing.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• What is product design?
• What does a product designer do?
• Creating a product
• The main stages of product design
• Interview: Julia Lohmann
• About this book
• 1. Historical and cultural context
• The Industrial Revolution: 1750s to 1850s
• The Great Reform movements: 1850s to 1914
• Modernism to pre-war luxury and power: 1900s to 1945
• The post-war period: 1945 to 1970s
• Post-Modernism: 1970s to present day
• Interview: Satyendra Pakhalé
• Emerging twenty-first century design trends
• 2. Research, brief, and specification
• Product design research
• Research methods
• The brief
• Identifying customer wants, needs and demands
• Interview: Stuart Haygarth
• The Product Design Specification (PDS)
• Common elements of the PDS
• 3. Concept design
• What is a concept design?
• Concept generation
• Concept generation methods
• Drawing techniques for product design
• Technical drawing
• Interview: Nendo
• Modelling
• Prototyping
• Concept evaluation and selection
• 4. From manufacture to market
• Detail design
• Design and manufacture
• Common materials
• Manufacturing processes
• Interview: Raw-Edges Design Studio
• Marketing and selling
• 5. Contemporary issues
• Green issues
• Interview: Max Lamb
• Ethical issues
• Universal design
• Emotional design
• 6. Design education and beyond
• Studying product design
• Design rights
• Interview: Tim Brown, IDEO
• Developing your design skills
• Engaging with industry
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Further resources
• Useful addresses
• Acknowledgements