ID 462 Design Management Annotation

Design Innovation: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives on Product

Innovation by Design

In this annotation, I going to talk about the article “Design Innovation: Historical
and Theoretical Perspectives on Product Innovation by Design” written by Bilge Mutlu
and Alpay Er. Article is about design innovation. The relationship between design and
innovation; design as the core function of innovation, and innovation as the main driving
force in the new, a more balanced model in the innovation theory, which is currently
dominated by engineering oriented discourses.
Leonard and Swap investigate the relationship between innovation and
imagination. Within this framework, creativity is defined as "...a process of developing
and expressing new ideas that are likely to be useful. From this perspective, the result of
the creative process, "Innovation is the embodiment, combination and/or synthesis of
knowledge in novel, relevant, valued new products, processes or services." Almost all
innovation theorists agree that innovations take place in different degrees of novelty. In
its broadest context, design is defined as the intentional or inventive arrangement of
parts or details. Design is no longer an afterthought of marketing and business strategy;
it should be at the very heart of both. Like in the article says the old innovation norm
released itself to something different. It involved with business and marketing. The term
is referred to as design and innovation. When talking about design as a strategic tool for
gaining a competitive edge and ultimately market success. According to Oakley, design
effort is dedicated to assisting in the transformation of an idea into a viable innovation –
or the extension of the utility of an established innovation. And commitment as a fine-
tuning to get a result that is more precisely tailored to our needs. Like identified in the
article; design effort as a sole competitive strategy, which, through differentiation and
positioning, helps attain a competitive advantage in the market. I think industrial
designer should look at to the process from different angles. This going to help to create
new solutions, also ideas. Also design innovation and routine design activity need to be
separated in both methodological and practical terms. The difference between design
innovation and routine design activity is determined by the novelty factor that design
innovation comprises, while ordinary design active its does not necessarily have to
encompass such a novelty. I think in this stage novelty is something that we need to
think while this process.
To sum up, in this article there are lots of design and innovation related words
meanings with their explanations. Separating these two is not a good choice. In tune, we
should work with both of two, for practicality.
References
Mutlu, B. and Er, H. Alpay (2003). “Design Innovation: Historical and Theoretical
Perspectives on Product Innovation by Design”, 5th European Academy of Design
Conference, Barcelona, April 2003.