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The trends expertsAlistair Welch visits the West London headquarters of PDD and learns more about the consultancy’s approach and ambitions

“Our approach to design is driven by the needs, the desires, and the contexts of the people we are designing for,” says Maeve Keane, principal of design insight at PDD, in outlining the fundamental philosophy behind the consultancy’s ‘human-centred design’ offering. It’s a manifesto that has helped the business, self-styled as a product and service design innovation consultancy, to weather the turbulent economic conditions of recent years, indeed to strengthen its provision to clients and expand its geographical scope.

PDD, which has its lead studio and workshop in West London, has built up over 30 years of consultancy experience. Over time the business has diversified from its core of product and industrial design work to encompass capabilities in service design, design strategy and trends. Throughout its history PDD has enjoyed a strong presence in the medical and healthcare sector. However, its broader approach in recent years has won clients across a wide range of sectors including consumer electronics, FMCG, sports and transport. The consultancy is now very much a global business and is making strides in

exporting its design approach to the Chinese and East Asian markets.

Karsten Fischer, PDD CEO, explains that 45 per cent of the consultancy’s business is in the medical sector with a further 45 per cent in consumer goods; the remaining ten per cent predominantly comprises service design projects. Furthermore, 70 per cent of PDD’s business is outside of the UK, with over half of the total being in Northern Europe. “We have a healthy income stream across industries and geographies,” he says. “During the financial crisis after a short period of hesitation people did continue to commission work and we sailed through rather nicely.”

Maeve Keane goes one step further, suggesting

that to a certain extent the economic downturn may have actually been advantageous to PDD. “It has suited our service offering in a way because it has meant the people we are working with in client organisations have to prove so much more why this particular product or innovation platform is the right one to go for,” she explains. “Part of our insight driven approach is about identifying the specific consumer unmet needs; the specific trends that we think will drive that space; what it is about the design language – the finish on a product – that is important.”

As such, PDD offers its clients a traceability and accountability through the design process that allows clients to justify design decisions both

within their own companies and to customers. As part of the consultancy’s long-standing relationship with Kimberly-Clark, PDD designers worked on the packaging for a range of baby wipes under the Huggies brand. The project team built a visual semiotic map of the Huggies product and all the competitors products on the shelf and looked at the messages communicated by the images, finish, colour, typography and flow wrap. “Colour became a really big insight,” continues Keane. “Huggies had bright red packaging – in terms of visual codes it stood out from competitors, but it wasn’t communicating the ideas of purity and natural delicacy which is what all the baby wipes brands are trying to achieve. This led to a big

change in the packaging and ultimately to them developing a whole new product category space.”

This expertise in understanding and applying research in semiotics and trends has become one of PDD’s differentiating factors in the competitive design marketplace. “I think that is reflected in the type of challenges that people bring to us,” adds Fischer. “If you look at our heritage, we started as a product design agency 33 years ago – particularly over the last ten years things have shifted from just delivering a physical product to delivering products, services, and experiences.”

Clients are now more likely to approach PDD looking for help in defining an overall design strategy rather than for work on an individual product. “We will tell our clients, based on the research we have done, this is the shape of the future and this is where we see your place in it,” comments Keane.

PDD has packaged elements of its design provision as an educational programme under the heading of ‘Human-Centred Design’ (HCD). The workshop sessions run by PDD staff are aimed at individuals and organisations looking to design products and services that are sensitive to the needs, desires, and contexts of people. Maeve Keane explains that HCD is distinct from the more familiar phrase ‘user-centred design’ because the HCD approach is about all the different stakeholders in the process, not just the

end user. “We look at all the key stakeholders within any kind of design and system design and gather key insights about what they are doing, what are their needs, and what they desire,” she says. “We take that and look at how we can transform it into something that not only meets a real need but is usable.”

The course, which is a distillation of PDD’s most effective techniques developed over three decades of professional practice, is intended to be readily applicable so that the students, who are often senior level designers and engineers, can go back to their organisations and apply some of the tools they have learned straight away. Furthermore, running the HCD workshops has had the bonus of helping PDD designers to sharpen and deepen their competencies, particularly in client relationships. “It has helped our team on the industrial design side to improve their facilitation skills,” says Karsten Fischer. “With the changing needs of our customers whereby out work is not just about physical product delivery but also in shaping business strategy – those facilitation skills are

Throughout its history PDD has enjoyed a strong presence in the medical and healthcare sector

We look at all the key stakeholders within any kind of

design and system design

Far Left | Karsten Fischer, CEOLeft | Maeve Keane, Principal Design Insight

Opposite | PDD’s London studio and workshopBelow | PDD’s Hong Kong office

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sharpened through these workshops and that has made us better consultants.”

Whilst PDD has had a foothold in the East Asian market for some time working with major South Korean brands including Samsung and LG, the consultancy is now addressing in earnest the potential of exporting its design model to China and surrounding markets.

PDD’s Hong Kong office has now been operating for 20 years (and currently has a staff of 11) and the consultancy recently opened a satellite studio in Shanghai. “The challenge is really

for us to better appreciate what is happening in the Chinese market place,” comments Fischer. “It is enormous in size and has many subsections and geographical pockets. Sitting in London it is impossible to appreciate where we might find a good entry point. Additionally, many of the services that we offer haven’t historically been of great interest to Chinese customers because the appreciation of research, trends, and design insight hasn’t existed there.”

When PDD first entered the Asian market it worked with brands that were looking to break into the Western European consumer market. Whilst seeking out companies looking to move west remains an important entry point for PDD to the Chinese market, Fischer argues that China is changing rapidly and this could have great significance for the value its market places on

design consultancy. “There have been significant changes as the level of prosperity increases rapidly and consumer expectations rise,” he says. “Brands in China are beginning to recognise that they need to invest more strategically in their products. It will take time and our competitors have similar challenges; there’s only a select number of us in the Chinese market place and our task centres around raising the profile of what innovation consulting can do.”

The consultancy’s global scope means that understanding trends at an international and regional level is fundamental to its success. PDD recently launched an interactive trends map, a tool that visualises the insight team’s trends research offering clients a more immersive experience of trends data. “The vast majority of the work that we do is outside of the UK,” explains principal of design insight Maeve Keane. “The research and trends teams are trying to get under the skin of different cultures. Increasingly, because of the size and geographical spread of the organisations we are working with it is more difficult to disseminate those insights. We developed this tool to give clients a flavour of how we might develop a format that is more interactive.”

The tool is currently in its beta version and an interactive map addressing beauty trends across the world, how regional nuances impact a consumer’s attitude and behaviour, can be explored on the PDD website.

Working with flavour and fragrance house Givaudan, PDD harnessed its trends expertise to redefine the Swiss company’s trends framework. Givaudan operates in a small but incredibly competitive industry fighting against two major competitors for huge contracts with global giants

like Coca-Cola and Kraft. “One of the ways Givaudan can differentiate itself from competitors is by showing customers that they know what’s going on in the world,” comments Keane. “It’s fascinating work in the sense that you are going from broad macro consumer trends about wellbeing right down to the level of flavour.”

She continues: “They saw us as the trends experts. They needed an external agency that was experienced in both doing trends research and translating for application in product development.” Givaudan do not manufacture a tangible product, rather the company develops flavours and fragrances. Nevertheless, they were attracted to PDD because the consultancy’s product design heritage informs the work they do in trends meaning that all design insights have an end application in mind.

Despite now being far more than a product agency, the background in industrial design remains significant to PDD’s identity. Maintaining an in-house workshop, complete with rapid prototyping and 3D printing facilities, is a boon to clients and PDD designers alike. “We continue to be a very hands-on business,” says Karsten Fischer, “Whilst people do sit in front of computer screens, it continues to be a very interactive, physical place here. Ultimately, we can create something that you can put on the shelf within six months: that aspect of being tangible is hugely important.”

This industrial design heritage is the core around which PDD has developed a multi-faceted design offering. Having emerged stronger from the recent years of economic uncertainty, the innovation consultancy is now poised to continue its expansion into global markets. |

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The consultancy is now addressing in earnest the potential of exporting its design model to China and surrounding markets

Opposite top | Design for Huggies babywipes packagingOpposite left | Design strategy and product development

for BelronBelow | An HCD workshop in action

Below | Interactive trends map