The best country for Industrial, product design is?? why??

Design Discussions students and schools
1

The best country for industrial design is?

  • Italy
  • Spain
  • U.S.A
  • China
  • Japan
  • Sweeden
  • Brazil
  • England
  • Any scandinavian country
  • Other? post it!

0 voters

Hey, I was just thinking wich country has the best market, schools, companies, stores, and everything about design, industrial design. Of course, where are the best industrial, product designers working at?

An important thing to know for me at this moment is also, what is the best country to study a master on product design, furniture design, enviromental design or interior design? where are the best design schools? and why?

The best country to work as an industrial designer… where you can make more money, where you have the best jobs and projects?

You can vote for you favorite, and if that country is not on the poll PLEASE post it and explain why! :bulb:

2

I’m not sure what answer you are looking for. The best place for Scandinavian design is Scandinavia. The best place for beautifully impractical but well crafted design… I’d go Italy I guess. The US is great for taking anything niche and making it a mass market blowout for 19.99, and sneakers and computers… each place has it’s own deal, you can’t compare apples to oranges.

3

Hi YO.
thats exactly what I want! justo to know whats the best thing of everyplace, and somehow just say… US has the strongest PRO (possitive things)… and ITALY the CONS (negative things)… and so you can say wich one is better… couldn´t you?

But now that you ask me, I would love to know which country is the best to study, wich one has the best schools… for example, I know (i´ve read) that USA is a great market, great designs, and well… theres a lot of money to make everything work… but the schools there are not as good as others… but thats what i´ve heard, and I would like to hear what you people have to say about it…

thanks for your post, and what you say about italy, I think so too.

hey, sorry if my english is not very clear… :blush:

4

I think the teaching systems vary widely country to country, and the US market is so large, the schools have completely different methodologies. It’s really hard to say and each poster will only be able to give you their opinion based on their very narrow experience of a global market. My take. From what I’ve seen happening from where I am and where I have friends in American studios large in small is that they are “collecting” designers from all over the world with different philosophies to offer well rounded global design. I have no clue if it will work… but it is an interesting trend. Not sure if this is going on anywhere else.

5

you guys are funny :slight_smile:

prof (from Germany)

6

Italy is not that bad…if you had the cleaver idea to not consider Milan as Italy.
I mean that apart the well know schools we still have some interesting place where design is still burning.

worst is that we still are under the egmony of all the old school of architects who placed into the show friends and closed friends.
we gave too much importance to Milan while around the country we are full really interesting design place.
Then in my opinion the awful thing is the we forgot the basical “arts and craft” attitude we had untill the 80’s…maybe early 90’s
The results are students going on master and university degrees…that near 30y/o are still in schools…that is different from a real on field experience that we had in the past.

Then we are 54milions if you want consider us a small country…we are under a big society crisi…politically speaking…but we are still alive.

7

Canada, eh…

:stuck_out_tongue:

8

I’d like to say Japan is King…

Their society is most open to accepting fringe innovation, new gadgets, crazy packaging… Hell they can make anything cool and affordable at a high quality. Where else can you put stuff inside a vending machine outside a store that sells that exact same stuff and sell it at 1000% profit!!

The Japanese are machines in their schooling and work. They take honor in most everthing they do. Yea, their culture is wacky, but isn’t that what makes them so f*ing cool?

Don’t get me wrong…the U.S. is a dominant force in design education and industry, but how much longer will it last.
And after all of that…

My bets are on China, India, and Brazil. These cultures are the underdogs of the design game and they are going to reign come ten years max. They are mastering design education by studying schools in Japan, U.S., and Europe. They have the largest markets to serve, and the resources to do so. The list of advantages goes on and on, etc…

Maybe you don’t think so, but that blind arrogance will only seal our (americans) demise. The U.S. needs to consider that they may not be top dogs much longer if we don’t take notice of the competition surrounding us.

And Deez…

How can you say that? Maybe it’s okay since we are one of the few countries that refers to the sport as soccer to say we are the best soccering kid in the class of the world, but haven’t you seen the World Cup recently?

9

Hey, well, I post this question just to know what designers thing about the design world… and just to open a space where people could just write why they think one country is better than other country but only for DESIGN, not to discriminate countries saying that they eat on the dirt…

Thanks for your comments but I think we all have to respect people (designers) opinions…

Please keep posting, and please, respect. :neutral_face:

10

Hola Mancho,

qué pregunta! Olvidaste el país donde se inventaron el diseño industrial!

Suerte con to encuesta.

prof (desde Berlin)

11

Hi Mancho (again):

your question is too susceptible to that kind of stereotype blabbering that you get a lot of in those forums… You do have to get around and know a bit about some of those cultures you’re judging. That is awfully hard if all you read is your local paper and all you watch is your country’s TV and all you speak is your own language. I mean not you… talking in general.

You have forgotten Germany on your list, the country where design was invented. There was Bauhaus, there was the Ulm School of Design. We are not so very good at commercializing design as the Japanese are (except when it comes to the red dot and if awards), we are not quite as professional as the big firms in the U.S., and we don’t have the incredible economic power that China has these days (until the bubble bursts).

You have to mention the criteria by which you would want to have your question judged.

Many educational institutions around the world are highly structured. Many schools (and students) confuse structure with quality, and many students confuse flashy (automotive) renderings with good design.

The quality of design education depends in part on the quality of the incoming students and their intellectual capabilities. The U.S. have a wide spread - many extremely mediocre schools with mediocre students. They also have institutions like MIT.

In China there is a tremendous drive to add educational facilities paralleled with a dramatic lack of qualified teachers.

If you wish to work analytically together with extremely well-educated incoming students, you go to Europe, if they let you in. Here education is (mostly) free for the qualified, but schools are very selective (only 1 out of every 10 applicants are accepted into the design program in Germany, roughly).

I hope this doesn’t sound too arrogant, it’s just observations from several decades of studying and teaching in various places around the world, plus travelling a bit plus coordinating exchange with schools around the world.

So there is no “best” country, as long as you’re unable to define what is “good”. Or what is “design”…

Good luck, regards to Colombia (el país más bello del mundo),

prof (from Berlin)

12

Hi prof, Thanks for your post, it was so nice to read and a lot of things you say, well I just didnt think about them when I wrote my post.

Of course I forgot Germany in the poll, well, I had it there but the poll had to many answers and the system (core77) didnt let me give that many answers, and damn! I dont know why I deleted germany, sorry, I mean not sorry with you :wink: but sorry with design history, it was a mistake I didnt write germany on the poll!

It is nice to read this kind of answer you just wrote here! I hope I can go to Germany pretty soon, I’ll be in Europe in two years hopefully and well, when you are in Europe you have to go so many countries!

Ciao.

13

Well, if you come to Germany, make sure to visit our school. And/or talk to some of your Colombian peers who are on exchange here in Berlin…
Keep in touch.
prof

14

Umea design institute, Sweden is the worst choice!!!
You will know when you are there!!!

15

Simply think about Holland, they are not showing off like Americans, Japs, Italian…of course(they have a deluxe generation at sixties…but now they are redesigning the same bloody table made it by castglioni…), the Spanish are too lazy, germans too cold and the only good enviroment is Scandinavia but they have their own world soo diferent than the rest.

So I choose Holland…
a low profile design power.

You`ll see!!!

16

yay i cant wait for the useless yet beautiofully crafted milanese design. its been fantastic doing logical process driven design in north america, and now its time to switch it up a bit.

17

Toledotaegui

Yeah right, if it wasn’t for the Droog design and the Design Academy in Eindhoven then none would had ever heared about dutch design (by the way… don’t u think that everyone in that school is copy pasting droog’s style??? i wonder why… :unamused: )

You say that italians repeat the same Castiglioni table…but allow me to say that nobody can mix design and business better than an italian. They were the first to put design into business… to realise the importance of design inside industry. They were the first to introduce the lifestyle concept and the importance of retail space experience when they had Carlo Scarpa and Andrea Branzi to design shops in Italy and abroad…Only recently does the rest of the world realise these concepts…


i vote for Italy… you can find anything there!

but! as many people said before there is no definite answer … it’s up to you to decide where you fit best… I have some experience in Greece, Italy, Holland and Hong Kong… but still Italy is my favourite! (and then HK… but i do not think i would work there… but for studies rocks!!! try HKPolyU!!)

18

by the way… the word useless is not correct! maybe you could say not functional… cause usefulness is not directly related to functionality…but really… a fiat 500, a piaggio vespa an armani suit are not “functional” objects???

it’s just that italians are maestri and can design ANY type of design… name it whatever you want…

respect