Industrial Design: Contrasting the United States and Chinese Methods - From the perspective of an industrial designer who has both studied and worked in the U.S. and China

My professional experience is a combination of theoretical and practical education with employment in both China and the U.S. This duality gives me the proper perspective to both compare and contrast the problems and opportunities in the industrial design profession in the U.S. and China.

Chinese industrial design is experiencing rapid development on the grounds that China is becoming the world’s manufacturing center. Each year, an increasing number of international collaborations occur between the U.S. and China, requiring accurate communication and mutual understanding. However, due to cultural differences, uneven industrial design development stages, and dissimilar education systems, Chinese industrial designers, in general, work differently compared to U.S. industrial designers. This difference very often creates difficulties in international partnerships which results in wastes of time, cost, and energy for both sides.

Based on my experience and research there appears to be significant differences in the goals that drive US and Chinese designers in the product development process. Most US industrial designer respond to emerging trends in markets, refine branding, clarify distinction, and create intellectual property, whereas most Chinese industrial designers’ goals consist of observing the success of existing products in the market place. Thus, in the U.S., designers mostly focus on consumer research and have more of an influence on product strategy, opposed to Chinese designers who focus more on manufacturing and have greater influence on design execution. This thesis is to describe this difference and explain how China’s industrial design education and practice must be changed. In addition, China must learn from the Japanese by integrating their own cultural value into industrial designing, so that China can occupy a unique position in the design world to compete with other cultures. Furthermore, design promotional organizations such as the IDSA (Industrial Designers Society of America), could be more effective if Chinese designers would create dialog with designers in the U.S.