Identifying and investigating the current status of industrial design

The current status of industrial design has been identified, investigated and assessed in this thesis through the development of a literature review and three focused studies. Numerous relevant topics have been covered, including the definition and identity of industrial design, how well it is recognised, the significance of design movements and how they relate to the status of the discipline, what industrial design currently represents and industrial design leadership. Following an extensive literature review of the discipline, including its history and associated pivotal design movements, three studies were conducted to identify and investigate the current status of industrial design.

As a means to address the literature review findings, a preliminary study (Study I) was implemented to scope the status of industrial design from a range of participants with varying degrees of experience in and of the discipline, termed the 'design community'. Study I comprised an online survey based on open and closed-ended questions of n=120 participants, including design students, design academics, design practitioners and design historians. Key findings pertained to industrial design lacking identity, the absence of a consistent definition of industrial design, and the lack of an overarching design movement. Following the completion of the study, a draft publication was submitted for peer review and was subsequently published in the Journal of Design Research.

It was considered necessary to assess the consistency, repeatability and validity of the conclusions drawn from Study I and to expand upon the findings. Study II was conducted with experts to identify a well-informed perspective on the current status of industrial design and assess whether expert participants agreed or disagreed with the findings from Study I and why. Study II was conducted via semi-structured interviews of n=20 'design expert' participants, individually possessing over 15 years of design-related experience. Participants for Study II hailed from a broad and often overlapping range of design-related experience, including Practitioner, Academic and Historian backgrounds. Key findings from Study II strongly confirmed the results of Study I, with expert participants broadly concurring with the faltering position of industrial design identified in Study I whilst also highlighting contributing factors as to why it currently resides in this situation.

The final study (Study III) was used to substantiate the results from Study II by identifying whether the perspectives of 'design experts' in tandem with the 'design community' were generally synonymous with a broader scope of participants or if they existed in isolation. Study III consisted of n=100 participants and used an online Likert-Scale survey to assess the degree to which 'design familiar individuals' agreed or disagreed with a set of statements derived from the expert conclusions from Study II regarding the current state of industrial design. The study's results highlighted a high correlation between the participants' perspectives within Study III and the conclusions from Study II. The critical finding of Study III evidenced that the issues identified throughout the research are recognised and agreed upon amongst a range of individuals familiar with design and are not solely held by those with more expertise and experience in design.

Results from the research identified a shift within industrial design from the late 1960s – 70s that marked the beginning of the discipline's decline. Identified factors responsible for the continued erosion of industrial design include the deindustrialisation of countries that pioneered it, a shift in social consciousness, and the failure and corresponding crisis of industrial design leadership. According to the results from Studies I, II and III, the status of industrial design continues to deteriorate unaddressed, resulting in increasing disorientation with the discipline's definition, identity, function and purpose. Correspondingly, findings evidenced no unanimously accepted definition of industrial design, nor does there appear to be an overarching design movement (or, at the very least, one that is unanimously recognised or accepted).

The results of the studies effectively highlighted industrial design's disarray and resultant fading from relevance in the modern world. Such a situation is further evidenced by the difficulty of finding industrial design as a standalone discipline within practice or academic curriculum. It is often replaced by newer, more refined, more recognised, more consistent and more defendable disciplines such as product design. 

Moreover, findings identified that within academia, non-designers and career academics have infiltrated the discipline, often in positions of influence and power. Furthermore, the research highlighted that a political push for inclusivity in academia and practice have driven out concepts of excellence, talent, and creativity in favour of quotas and box-ticking. The internal conflicts and disarray within industrial design combined with the external threat of deindustrialisation and the post?industrial age have resulted in a discipline without an identity or defendable existence. The fact that society has continued unhindered despite the evident faltering of industrial design further questions its relevance, suggesting that even highly competent industrial designers may soon be equivalent to gas lamplighters in a world of electrification.

Findings have been discussed further in-depth following the conclusion of each Study and covered the shifts within industrial design, as well as the current status of the discipline, implicating factors, issues facing it, and potential prospects.