What's In A Name?

A question I am often asked is 'why are there so many different types of designer?' And that is a very much more difficult question to answer than it sounds. It covers a lot of ground. I usually respond by saying that people love to be specialists. We could call ourselves industrial designers but people think that is about designing machines rather than designing for manufacture. Those in the know will question why we don’t call ourselves UX (user experience) designers. Some question why we are not called 3D designers.?We call ourselves product designers because we end up with products at the end of the process. It's simple but it fits the bill.

But that is just the tip of the iceberg. Would you actually know what to look for if you had a product that you wanted to upgrade or improve? Or if you had an idea for a new product? Where would you start? Would you look at manufacturers or tool makers or would you know to look for a product designer? And if you did know to look for a product designer – where would you look?

Thankfully it doesn’t seem to be too much of an issue for us – the majority of our business finds us whether it is by referral or B2B platforms etc, but it did get me thinking today.?Do other industries have similar issues? Injection moulders being confused with tool makers. Electronics engineering crossing over with electrical engineering as well as all the other engineering disciplines being inter dependant on each other and striving for separation.

Searching for a supermarket, restaurant, hairdresser, computer repairer etc is easy. Because we know what they are.?But outside of your own industry – do your target market know what you really do?

And just in case any of you do want to look for a Product Designer – please check out our website, www.hillsidedesign.co.uk FAQs, which will answer a lot of your questions.