What do you do when you want to build a global brand? What do you do when increased competition from me-too products decimates your profit margins? What do you do when your product loses itself in the clutter on the display shelf? As more and more Asian companies are finding out, the answer to all three questions - at least in part - may lie in one notion: design-led innovation.

Yoshio Taniguchi’s recent work on theMuseum of Modern Art in New York isthe new face of Asian design in the West

As Asia is becoming the manufacturing shop of the world, companies are realising the need to create their own distinctive identity in front of the global consumer. They no longer want to stay at the bottom of the value chain and earn a pittance as contract manufacturers for large, established brands. Emboldened by overall export-led growth, several Asian original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are now scaling up to be original design manufacturers - the highest end of the value chain. They want to nurture their own brands. It's this quest that has riveted their attention on design.

The rest of the world is looking at Asia because this is where the fastest-growing economies are. It makes sense to locate design shops close to the manufacturing plants. More importantly, these economies themselves are large markets for a lot of goods and services. "There is curiosity about Asia and design out of Asia because of the vibrant economic activity," says Manoj Kothari, director at industrial design house Onio Design. The government of Sweden, for one, has kept aside Kroner 150,000 to fund Swedish firms that want to study Chinese design. While you read this, an exhibition in Boston, US is celebrating Chinese design.

While the Asian design industry grows up, the needs of the market are forcing a wedge down the middle of the community. As a result, it is now divided broadly into two schools of thought - universal design and personalised design. (See 'Universal Vs Personal'). Universal design, which is mostly technology-led, bases itself on a collective aesthetic that is likely to work in several markets with just minor variations to suit the local palate. In this camp, function strictly precedes form. What's emerging out of this camp are user-friendly, universal products which keep a group of consumers firmly in sight.

Winning by humour An Asian success story in the world of design Laugh and the world laughs with you. That seems to be the credo working at Propaganda, a Thai design hotshop that has tickled the funny bone of the design world . This product design company, set up in 1996, first won worldwide acclaim with Ap-peel, a fruit bowl and knife set. It won at the prestigious Red Dot awards for industrial design in 2002 and caught the eye of the world. The design shops's success lies in its ability to give everyday objects a new lease of life by casting them in thought-provoking, new designs. The products exude a sense of youth and quirkiness in their choice of materials. And all the while, they communicate a universal sense of humour. Look for yourself. Propaganda has a toothbrush holder shaped like a tooth with holes in it. The simple moral: if you don't brush regularly you will have holes in your teeth. Mr P is an adhesive tape dispenser shaped like a man. The tape rolls out where Mr P's tongue would be and can be snipped at his feet. Who would have thought that such products could educate or entertain? Did you?

The Center for Universal Design at the NC State University in the US has put out a set of guidelines. On the list, topmost is the guideline that design should render a product useful and marketable to people with diverse abilities. It should also accommodate a wide range of individual preferences and abilities. And its size should be arrived at after allowing for ample approach and usage space.

In contrary, personalised design puts the consumer at the centre of the universe and seeks to cater to him only. It takes into account the fact that people increasingly want their own choice of features. It could be ringtones, colour, icons, or the choice of product accessories. The thought behind such personalised products usually have a strong cultural influence. Japan was the first Asian country to use technology to personalise design. The most potent example of that is Sony Walkman. And with Aibo, a robotic assistant that can be personalised to fill even the owner's emotional needs, personalisation of design has come a long way.

Again, pure market needs are herding design shops into cross-national alliances. One such Asian group is the Design Alliance, which was formed to pitch for work at the Summer Olympics scheduled to be held in Beijing in 2008. Pune-based Elephant Design is part of the Alliance. Recently, the Alliance was approached by a multinational to research graphic trends in emerging Asian markets. Says Elephant Design director Sudhir Sharma: "Cultural nuances are definitely important for tapping these markets."

While independent Asian design shops revel in this groundswell of interest, they would do well to remember that the increased business is coming from the new-found design focus of corporates. The corporates, for themselves, are focusing on design to drive topline growth and attain recognisable brand presence in new markets.

Once Asian companies entered sophisticated design-driven markets of the West, they saw the need to conduct their own detailed design research. LG, for one, has established R&D centres in Korea as well as in the US and Japan.

The brightest of the recent examples is the re-invention of Samsung Electronics. Under the stewardship of chairman Kun-Hee Lee, the company focused on design as a way to create a global brand way back in 1993. The next year, Samsung hired US design consultancy IDEO to help design computer monitors. The company also started an in-house design school - the Innovative Design Lab - in 1995. Lee declared 1996 the year of design revolution.

By the end of that decade, the company had spent about $126 million to develop its global design programme. Its design staff, now led by a chief design officer, has tripled between 1998 and 2004. Design no more gets the short shrift from product engineers that it used to - the chief design officer now vets every new product.

To consumers around the world, the effect of all this has been palpable in the slick, user-friendly gadgets Samsung has brought to the market. This year, its products have already won more than 30 international design awards. To Samsung, the biggest effect has been on its topline, which grew from $16 billion in 1997 to an estimated $53 billion in 2004.

Samsung's Asian peers like LG of Korea, Haier of China, and BenQ of Taiwan, which were also OEM suppliers to western brands not long ago, now manage their own brand portfolios. Before launching their own brands, however, each of these companies conducted extensive market research on the markets it was entering.

It's not only Asian corporates that have risen to the challenge. Several Asian governments, too, are trying to promote themselves as hubs of design excellence. As a result, we have well-articulated design policies from countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and China.

In Asia, consciousness about design dawned in the Land of the Rising Sun. Japan was the first to recognise the value of design-led branding. Trying to rub off the image of being masters of reverse engineering, the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry instituted the Good Design award as early as 1957. So far, more than 28,000 products and projects have won what has come to be called the G-mark that is awarded for "improving ties, fostering industrial development and promoting export and trade by enhancing the quality of products on the market". The export-led boom that Japan experienced in the 1960s and 1970s is now a part of economics textbooks. But it took quite a while for the next Asian country to pick up the cue. Faced with stuttering exports from companies that were reaching out to the world for the first time, Taiwan started a campaign in the early 1990s to make the 'Designed in Taiwan' logo globally recognised. Its OEM industry was already becoming a significant player in global manufacturing, especially in high-technology products. The country's future industrial development, however, rested on shifting to higher value-added products and services. And the government recognised design services as an important part of this transformation.

Although the country has several programmes to promote product design excellence, greater importance is now being placed on the cultivation of professional talent and industrial policy. Design is one of a dozen service industries targeted for fast-track development. Within the sector itself, a number of segments have been identified as potential winners: industrial product design, computer-assisted design, packaging, contemporary fashion, industrial arts, corporate identity systems, brand visuals, graphic visuals, advertising, the Web and multimedia.

The effort has paid back in spades. According to the 2002 industrial design survey by the Taipei Technology Institute, the country's design services industry's total annual production was at New Taiwan $1.4 billion; there were 6,583 design services firms and studios (including studios of individuals), which employed approximately 11,290 people. In 2002, there were 39 design-related departments or programmes running at colleges, which collectively turned out 5,893 graduates every year. The ultimate results of the movement are becoming more visible now. Besides higher revenues from contract manufacturing as a whole, the country now boasts of one of the best-designed consumer product brands in the world - BenQ.

Around the time Taiwan started its design campaign, South Korea was drawing up its first five-year plan to use design to gain a competitive edge. In this phase, the nation established a national design policy, provided support to small and medium enterprises for design innovation, and enhanced public awareness of design through exhibitions, awards and publications. In the second plan (1997-2002), it brought design to the masses by creating awareness, enhancing design education, and encouraging industry to embrace industrial design. The efforts have borne fruit in the country's industrial revival that came after the crippling Asian crisis of the late 1990s. No wonder the leaders in that transformation were global brands like Samsung and LG. During the latest five-year plan (started 2003), Korean companies are estimated to have spent $488 million on design already.

With a newfound desire to make the 'Designed in Singapore' tag a brand in itself, the island nation produced a white paper on becoming the design hub of South Asia in 2002. It's part of a grander plan to grow as a knowledge-based economy with a distinctive identity. Now, the country has despatched officials to different corners of the world to invite design houses to set up studios in Singapore. The Indian design community has been invited too. "A delegation from Singapore asked us to set up a design studio there," confirmed Sudhir Sharma of Elephant Design.

In a somewhat similar mould, China is positioning Hong Kong as an Asian economy geared for value addition. As part of the plan, it has given $256 million to the Hong Kong Design Centre for promotion. In November 2004, the Design Centre organised its second Business of Design Week. This time, 19 different countries were represented, including first-time entrant India. A competition and 24 concurrent exhibitions in various design disciplines were held to create excitement in and about Asia.

Universal vs Personal There are two broad design trends blowing through the post-globalisation world. Labelled universal design and corporate design, their inspirations and consequences flow from opposite directions. Here is a look at the two schools of thought. Personalised design: This school deifies the Age of Empowerment, where individual choice supersedes group preferences. Historically, it flows from strong, culture-based industry design. Products in this category may cater to form before function. Some of the best examples of personalised design can be found in the mobile phone handset industry. There, manufacturers race each other to bring out features like personalised ringtones, colour choices, and wallpapers targeted at specific population segments. The thought comes through in several designs put out by the $3.7-billion BenQ, an electronic products manufacturer based in Taiwan. One recent example: the Joybee 102R range of personalised MP3 players. The inspiration came from male and female lifestyle accessories like necklaces and even pocket watches. The associations come from the use of futuristic materials and a wide colour palette. The tagline: "Show your creative side and make yourself the centre of attention." The centre of the universe, some may say. Universal design: Those who seek to serve a large number of people from diverse cultural influences are the main practitioners of this school. Technology, which has proven itself to be a great equaliser, is the main motivator. Products that follow this trend are consumer durables, office equipment, etc. - in essence, things that are likely to be used by a number of people. Under chairman Kun Hee Lee, the $40-billion Samsung is one multinational that has put design up on a pedestal. It has established an in-house design school that works closely with the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, US. One of the recent award-winning products to come out of this stable is the HLM 437W, a digital light processing TV. It packs wide-screen viewing in a stylised ultra-thin frame that helps the product stand out from plasma TVs, its closest competitors. It has a compact digital projector powered by a stamp-sized digital micro-mirror device that generates high-resolution images. Its 1280 x 720 digital format converter takes in all kinds of inputs. Its operations are also 30 per cent quieter than other TVs. Target: the world at large.

Compared to all this, the design movement in India has been fragmented at best. Although the National Institute of Design, set up in 1961 as the country's premier design school, has for long advocated sustainable design and social consciousness, its effect hasn't percolated all the way down to those who were to implement the vision.

Now, with outsourcing opportunities sprouting in various industries, design has hopped aboard the growth express too. The first draws for western corporates were the cost advantage and the faster turnaround time. But there's more. "European design houses usually follow broad design movements. It is after all the place where most of them [the movements] originate. But ironically, because of that reason, their ideas are getting staid. They are now looking elsewhere for fresh interpretations," says Onio's Kothari. Companies are now seeking unknown and small design houses with a brief to interpret a product in a completely different way.

Onio started in 1995 with an association with VNV Design, a Taiwan-based company from which it gleaned technological knowledge and lessons on how to handle offshore clients. Now, it has a portfolio of work done for companies as far afield as the Netherlands, Germany and Australia. Recently, it has designed an ergonomic office chair that it has patented in the key global markets. Says Kothari: "This project came to Onio through the Internet, when a German approached us with an idea and asked us to translate it into a product. The mechanism is so simple that it's a surprise nobody thought about it earlier." This is among the deals that Indian designers are leveraging now for more international business.

From here, it's a long way to establishing 'Designed in India' as a global brand. The rest of the stories in our package show how some are going about it. It's just a matter of time before good industrial and product design comes to roost in India. Some say the time is at hand. We will let you read through and decide for yourself.