Insight from Richard Seymour - Seymour Powell

Some of Charlwood Design's team had the pleasure of meeting Richard Seymour, founder of leading UK industrial design consultancy Seymour Powell a few years ago when he spoke at the AGIdeas conference.

He was recently asked on what he thinks the big game-changers will be in industrial design in the next two to five years. His thoughts were really insightful:

“There’s a storm coming. The design world as we know it is separating into the Polymaths and the Guilds. The Polymaths are the broad-bandwidth thinkers who can see across cultural and technical boundaries to find meaning in new future combinations…and the Guilds, the specialist capabilities that can facilitate those ideas once they have been envisioned.
The designer as we know it is already an endangered species. What is a service and what is a product in the 21st Century is up for grabs. Where does the Product end and the Metaproduct begin? How many ‘services’ as we know them today are going to have to migrate to ‘this side of the glass’ and articulate themselves through physical metaphors of their virtual self? Is NEST an object, a service or part of a synthetic-aperture radar gathering big data for the highest bidder? I guess it depends who you are and what your agenda is.
The next five years may witness the most important shift in consumption patterns we’ve seen for centuries. Buckle-up Dorothy, you’re going to have to be on your toes. And if you’re going to continue to call yourself a designer, better work out what that means….”

RMIT industrial design studio

Charlwood Designer Luca Abate has been invited this semester to teach a design studio for RMIT industrial design students, giving the opportunity for students to experience life as a consulting designer. Focusing on future medical technology students will get a valuable insight into Charlwood Design’s product development process developing a new product from initial brief, to concept and through to prototype.

The design brief is inspired by a number of medical projects developed by Charlwood Design in particular award winning products for Simavita and Nanotechnology Victoria.

More information about RMIT upper pool industrial design studios available here. 

Insulin Inhaler - Designed by Charlwood Design for Nanotechnology Victoria

Air powered motorbike video

Charlwood Designer Dean Beanstead's award winning graduation project - the 02 pursuit, air powered motorcycle was recently featured on Scope - a children's science show on Channel 10.
Click here to watch the video - The motorcycle is featured approx 2 minutes in.

World Industrial Design Day

The team at Charlwood celebrated world industrial design day on 29 June by taking part in the DIA - industrial design practice group drinks at Mountain Goat Brewery. The event was a huge success with more than seventy designers and students and a great celebration of the vibrant industrial design community in Melbourne.

Image Courtesy of the DIA Victoria Branch

This is Your Life Cycle

 

Exploring life cycle assessment and eco-design for young design students.

Charlwood Design was the first Australian design studio to join the Designers Accord which rallies for the integration of sustainable design principles in all practice and production. Paul Charlwood drew on this model when he established the Design for the Environment Partnership between the Design Institute of Australia , Sustainability Victoria and RMIT’s Centre for Design. This partnership led to the software tool Greenfly to assist designers with eco-design strategies and the environmental impact of their products.