Industrial Design produced by SolidWorks
Its perhaps an odd topic to see on a Carlow related community web-log or in fact is it? Carlow as an Irish “design centre” has grown considerably in the last 5 years thanks in the most part to the good work of the design team at the I.T. Carlow.
I.T. Carlow now provides one of the few chances in Ireland to go on to complete an honours degree programme in the subject, an unattainable goal to most Irish designers who didn’t wish to study abroad just a few short years ago. The “Design Core” centre set up at the I.T. has in the most part encouraged industry to take the relatively small gamble of using essentially a student to carry out some prototyping design work through some cutting edge technologies such as Z-core and Solid Works, these provide tangible prototypes and 3D rendered visualizations in a matter of hours, the I.T. also houses a fully functional work shop which provides the ability to produce models of a presentation standard.
All these things are well and good but as a nation are we the Irish slow to accept what our European, Asian and American cousins take as a given? Industrial Design in Ireland seems to be seen as a frivolous after thought, maybe I write this through an embittered experience or a cynical stance (believe me I’m cynical) but are we backward at going forward?
Industrial Design has the potential to save companies millions of Euro over relatively short time scales through better production techniques, better packaging and more intelligent use of materials and so on, in fact the list of benefits could fill and article on its own. Irish business tends to look at short term savings, we tend to lack the foresight to see the “bigger picture”. Companies are bypassing the design process by producing products that are either post copyrighted designs (much like the generic drug issue in the news recently) or taking the risk of producing inferior and under designed products.
While I am an Industrial Designer I don’t claim to have the talent of some of the designers around me but when even a designer of my limited ability can look at products/packaging and wonder how or why they became to be there must be something wrong. The designers of Ireland are forced to live off scraps, almost fighting amongst themselves for the few morsels available. As I implied earlier on mainland Europe, Scandinavia, Asia and the US design is an integral cog in the manufacture of products, Industrial Designers are consulted at almost every stage of product manufacture there, look to car, computer, electronic design and you will see what I mean, thought has been placed into every component of the product which ultimately provides better, cheaper and more economical products that the consumer is happy to use.
One of the most valuable companies globally is Ikea which is essentially an Industrial Design company. Steve Jobs at Apple turned the fortunes of an ailing somewhat unfashionable company into a brand leader in electronics through Industrial Design. It is no coincidence that the elite, must have products are heavily designed from Nokia circa ‘96–’04 to Apple, Ferrari’s Pininfarina to Ikea’s dream kitchens. Why can’t we take a slice of that pie?
Unfortunately the Irish mindset is one of begrudging contempt for most things that people try to achieve, we tend to want people to succeed, but not too much Bono is a prime example as is Colin Farrell. Until our mindset changes I fear we are destined to be the perineal followers never the leaders, maybe in everything but certainly in Design.
So as I write on my American designed laptop, in my Scandinavian kitchen, drinking coffee from my Asian designed mug, looking into my courtyard filled with European designed cars I ponder what might have been and what could still be.
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