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      5

      introduction

      Ever since its founding in the 1960s, the Delft Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering has taken a methodical approach to design education. But the methods were never uncontroversial. The Dutch writer Godfried Bomans asserted: “In the realm of the mind a method is comparable to a crutch; the true thinker walks freely.”

      Many designers share his thoughts. Good designers seem to need no methods. They tend to attribute their successes to intuition, creativity and expertise, and not to the use of particular methods.

      Now, nobody believes anymore that designers can do without intuition, creativity and expertise, as research into the problem-solving behaviour and thought processes of designers has convincingly shown how essential these capacities are. But that does not mean that methods have no role to play in design.

      Despite criticism and doubt – some godfathers of the ‘design methods movement’ of the 1960s became critics of their own work – methods have not disappeared from the scene. Methods are often used as means of teaching design. The development of better methods is probably the most important driver of design research. And it is not uncommon for design consultancies to advertise themselves on the basis of their specific methodological approaches.

      Since 1991, industrial design students at the Delft University of Technology have been raised with the book Product Design: Fundamentals and Methods that I wrote together with Johannes Eekels. The genesis of this book goes back to our lectures in the 1970s, but much of its content is still relevant. However, the field of design has changed greatly. Nowadays, industrial designers also design services and social and economic artefacts. In product development, the social and behavioural sciences have come to play a major role alongside engineering. Our awareness of the limits of production and consumption has increased enormously and unprecedented technological possibilities have emerged for the development of design tools.

      Such developments have led to numerous new methods. I am extremely excited that finally a new Delft textbook that also addresses these new methods has been published. But there is more to it. Methodological textbooks usually focus on detailed descriptions of methods and barely address their application. The authors of this book have explicitly opted for the latter perspective. As good descriptions of methods are sufficiently available, they confine themselves to short characterisations of methods and refer to relevant sources for more information. How should a project plan be designed given specific objectives and available resources, when and in what situation and how should a particular method be used, and what can and cannot be expected from the use of a method? This book gives answers to these and other such questions.

      Thanks to this specific focus, this book provides an important contribution to the literature on design methods. Given the success of the first edition, this book has a promising future ahead.

      Norbert Roozenburg

      Associate Editor of the International Journal Design Studies.

      First graduate at the Delft Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering in 1971.

      Foreword

      In the beginning of my career, I had the chance to work alongside the Australian designer Marc Newson on the simple, yet ingenious Ford concept car 021C. This was Marc’s first experience in automotive design. During some of the more intense moments, he described it to me as ‘trying to design 500 products at the same time’.

      Cars are incredibly exciting, but also amazingly complex objects. In a way, they are the pinnacle of design in terms of their complexity, impact on society and the way we live our lives. What Marc experienced is daily life for my international design team. About 550 members in 6 studios - from Sao Paulo to Shanghai - are working on 50 to 60 projects at any given time. Which is why I admiringly refer to our team as a creative design machine.

      In these projects we work upstream and downstream in close collaboration with market researchers, product planners, engineers, program teams, manufacturing, suppliers, marketing & sales, communication and many other partners. To many people the creative process is very elusive. Design models, approaches and methods help to increase the transparency and timing of the creative process, therefore it facilitates collaboration with the many other disciplines involved.

      To do this harmoniously and with a joined understanding of our mission, we use powerful design methods and processes. They are needed to guarantee that our projects address the right future challenges, target the right customers, advance the brand values and progress on time and on budget with the necessary quality while respecting the various rules and regulations.

      The car industry is in the midst of a profound transformation towards mobility that is more electric, connected, autonomous, and shared. There is a gradual shift from ownership to mobility as a service, driven by macro-trends such as the growth of metropolitan cities. We search for environmentally responsible solutions while providing freedom of movement and fulfilling people’s wishes to connect. And there is a societal desire to reduce accidents to zero, to improve well-being and give people back their precious time. These once-in-a-lifetime transformations are asking for new solutions. And new solutions need new methods.

      Of course, strong design methods don’t guarantee creative and effective solutions. This still depends on the talent, intuition and skill of each individual designer. But the methods provide structure that creates serenity, a space to think, and time to reflect. From my personal experience I know that it takes time to get ‘into the zone’ and to be truly creative.

      It is therefore my great pleasure to introduce you to the completely renewed 2 nd edition of the Delft Design Guide. I was not only happy (and a bit relieved) to recognize many

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