Abstract

Industrial Design is the act of creating new forms of mass produced products, often practiced after the principle of “form follows function”. There are many different but incomplete definitions of these functions that product form should follow, and in this paper a comprehensive structure of these functions for design education has been developed. Industrial Design students are currently taught that there are three functions of an artifact: the technical, production, and human functions. Marketing is often overlooked as an important function in the design process, and this oversight can lead to dismal after production results of a product, even if all other design functions appear flawless. Although most professionals know the importance of marketing, many have difficulty incorporating marketing into the design process. The integration of marketing into the Industrial Design education is imperative to ensure that the designs of the future will be successful and that graduating students will have the ability to discern which function is to be followed in the design process. By concentrating on marketing functions such as segmentation, positioning, buying behavior, brand and price factors, the probability of market failure after production can be minimized. In this paper a systematic outline of the marketing function as it applies to Industrial Design education is being proposed.