Industrial design is a uniquely interesting field. Whether a designer is in the process of engineering something as complex as a camera or as simple as a flower vase, behind every product are bounds of applied knowledge and countless hours of work all with the intention of perfectly blending functionality with aesthetics. After all, this is the foundation of industrial design- making superior products that draw in customers for their high quality, unique features, and stunning optics.
For this reason, it comes as no surprise that industrial design relies heavily on creativity to create a product that checks all the boxes of innovation. However, in some instances, this fact may present you with a particular obstacle while designing products- mental roadblocks. Unfortunately, wherever creativity is involved, creative slumps are also common when one feels uninspired, which may lend to a product design that doesn’t meet its full potential on the spectrum of ingenuity. Of course, this is bad news for any business owner looking to create a groundbreaking device that performs well on the market and among end-users. However, if you find yourself in one of these situations during the product development process, luckily there are some steps you can take to help overcome this issue.
Need to jumpstart some inspiration? Here are three methods from an industrial design company to tackle your next creative slump while designing products.
Creativity And Industrial Design
Before we can get into the solutions, we first have to fully understand what role creativity plays in industrial design. Why is creativity so important? In everyday life, creativity allows us to perceive the world through a resourceful lens. In doing so, we can call forth inventive and original ideas that allow us to problem-solve with ease and efficiency. This is exactly why creativity is so necessary to industrial design services. Without this single skill, you are unfortunately susceptible to several potential issues. For example, if your prototype’s mechanisms are flawed and thus obstructing its features from performing correctly, you might find yourself at a loss for how to repair the problem without the aid of creativity. Similarly, creativity is what allows you to think up ways to reinvent your design concepts and formulate innovative product features that will help set your design apart from its competition. After all, one of the cornerstones of a successful business is having an original product. In order to spark interest in the market and call the attention of users, your product needs something unique about its promise that similar businesses are not offering, and creativity is what allows us to devise these features.
This is all to say that creativity is extremely integral to product design. This skill singularly facilitates the entire process and ensures your designs are inventive, functional, and distinct. However, as important as creativity is, the downside is that it is a particularly hard skill to hone. Having a creative mind takes years of practice, and some even claim that it is a natural-born talent that cannot be learned. In either case, creativity does not come easy to many of us at all times, and these moments of being uninspired are when pesky mental roadblocks spring forth and interrupt the product design process. The good news is that there are certainly some steps you can take to work through, or even completely avoid, this setback, and we’re here to explain them.
How to Avoid Creative Slumps During Product Design
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Conduct market research to aesthetic inspiration
Market research is always among the first steps in product design as it is the step in which we can gauge important information to help guide the rest of the process. However, this task can be particularly useful when you are at a loss for the visual aspect of product design. By inspecting your competitor’s products and taking note of their looks and how customers responded to their stylistic choices, including materials, colors, details, and more, you can spark your own creativity. Of course, the goal is most certainly not to copy anyone else’s design, rather it’s to get a better understanding of your own vision and what aesthetic expectations you have for your final product.
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Render multiple sketches in case your prototype does not work
As previously mentioned, creative problem solving will most definitely be necessary in cases where your prototype isn’t functioning as planned. If for whatever reason, its mechanisms aren’t working properly, you will need to figure out a way to bypass this issue by reworking the design. Sometimes, the answer may be obvious, but in others, you might just look at the design and feel stuck. There are several ways you can go about this, but a tried and true solution to this problem is to simply scrap the prototype and test a new sketch. This is why it’s incredibly important during the ideation stage to come up with multiple potential sketches, that way you have other options to return to in case of future design hiccups rather than mentally exhaust yourself to come up with another solution. After all, it’s commonly said that the best way to get out of a creative rut is to view things from a different perspective, and what better way to do so than to shift your focus to an entirely different design instead.
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Outsource Product Design to an Industrial Design Team
For some of us, creativity is just plain hard to come by no matter what the circumstances are. If this sounds like you, then there is no better tip than outsourcing your product development to an industrial design company like DesignStein Studios. Instead of having a design process impeded by a lack of inspiration at every turn, you can relax knowing your product development is in the hands of our professional designers. After all, our entire field revolves around using creative problem-solving to engineer stunning and original products, both in their functions and aesthetics. A designer’s innate creativity is an invaluable asset to product development, especially to a business owner who may struggle with this skill themselves. Overall, by outsourcing this work, you will have the opportunity to launch your project into levels of innovation that otherwise would not have been achieved, resulting in a product that perfectly embodies the vision you have in mind.
To learn more, give Design Stein Studios, one of the top preferred industrial design companies in California, a call at (714) 375-4846 to schedule a consultation.