Sergey Smirnov, founder of SmirnovDesign, talks about how to develop a design culture in industrial design, what technical aesthetics are responsible for and how to maintain a balance between form and content.Imagine an architect who is invited to make a creative contribution to the construction of a building after the 12-storey box has already been erected.

The main thing is done, it's time to decorate the facade, install some decorative columns, turrets, porticos. Everyone understands that "architecture doesn't work that way."

Before starting the design, the specialist studies the landscape, the urban environment, the master plan, the owner's reasons, engineering networks and a million more parameters. Moreover, the payment model for his work is also completely transparent. 10% of the construction budget is for design, 10% of the amount spent on design is the architect's fee.

In subject design, especially in instrumentation, the principles of interaction with the customer are vague, and pricing is based on vague guesses and assumptions. The fact is that in the USSR there was simply nothing resembling the classical economy of small developments, the interaction of design bureaus and large industrial partners. Instead of the market, there was a state order. The design culture simply had nowhere to go. The result is natural: the state and big business often perceive design exclusively as decoration, which is fundamentally wrong.

Technical aestheticsAesthetics and functionality cannot be separated.

To achieve a business result, both factors must be taken into account. It is impossible to do this without qualitative research. It is the designer who is responsible for taking into account the interests of the end user of the product. In fact, the designer is the main lobbyist of the user's interests in the production process.

Let's take medical equipment as an example. Who is its user? A doctor, a patient, a nurse, a warehouse worker who thinks how best to place it? Or maybe an official making a decision on public procurement, or a manager who saw the device at an exhibition? In fact, they are all users. And the designer should take into account the experience of each of them when developing a project.

Technical aesthetics is not art for art's sake. In the same medical technology, beauty is primarily responsible for trust. The type of device, whether it is a tomograph, a ventilator or a device for measuring blood saturation, should "emit" fluids that can calm the patient, giving the doctor the necessary credit of trust. The manufacturer who can better convey this message through shape, color, texture will get a competitive advantage in the market at the exit.

However, it is very difficult to convey this idea to 90% of entrepreneurs and technical developers. The industry confuses design with styling and naturally does not understand why everything is so long and expensive.

Protectionism or market stimulation?In my opinion, it is impossible to solve the problem without solutions from above.

For example, I have long proposed a scheme in which the state simply buys designers' work hours and "distributes" them to manufacturers selected according to certain criteria. Thus, with small budget expenditures, several important tasks are solved at once. Designers get jobs, industry gets a product with a good design, the best representatives of large industry and creative industries get to know each other and get opportunities for collaborations, business scaling and launching new projects. Have you created a workable prototype? Get extra hours and expand the staff. Has it been exported? Get even more hours.

This is not protectionism, but quite reasonable stimulation of the market, overcoming cultural failure and the opportunity to build links between business, industry and designers. This is how they act all over the world. It is necessary not only to create platforms, allocate grants and build creative clusters, but also to increase the demand for designers, their role in business processes.

From avionics to packagingOne of the important steps in this direction was the Design Factory project, organized by the Agency of Creative Industries under the Department of Entrepreneurship and Innovative Development of the City of Moscow.

This is a competition where real industrial enterprises formulate a task for designers, and design bureaus try to satisfy the request of the industry and develop relevant projects. Recognized masters of industrial design are called upon to help them in this. It is noteworthy that among the 80 companies that have placed orders within the framework of the "Factory", there are both large and medium-sized businesses. Thematic range: from avionics to packaging, from small architectural forms to state corporations.

Let's put it into practiceThere are many other measures necessary for the design to develop.

We at the Union of Designers of Russia have even prepared a "Roadmap for the design industry", which may be visionary and overly optimistic in some ways, but it is very inspiring. Of course, we need to develop education, focus it on practice and real sectors of the economy, so that students do not have to look for an internship at the expense of the curriculum. It is worth actively pursuing legal and technological opportunities to solve problems in the field of intellectual property.

However, the main problem is the notorious cultural gap. Many people still do not understand that even if a million hours have been spent on programming, assembling an iPhone, and only a thousand on design, it is design that turns a household appliance into a cult thing.

Of course, this problem cannot be solved overnight. During the previous century in the West, a variety of players invested in design, developed this culture, strengthened the idea that any thing should be thought out to the smallest detail. In the USSR, not so much attention was paid to design. Yes, VNIITE was ahead of its time in many ways, but a significant part of the ideas, even working layouts, went not into mass production, but into the table. However, the designer cannot realize his ideas without practical application.

I believe that one of the missions of my generation, its super task, is to overcome this problem, to make sure that the brilliant ideas of our designers go to the benefit of society and the economy. If we do this, our country will have no equal.

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