Creativity for a new era

Increasingly, sustainability turns out to be a key factor for the success of our product culture. However, as a consequence of globally changing conditions - such as shortages of raw material resources and increasing consumption - the traditional concept of industrial design, as an essential element of that product culture, hardly seems to be viable in the long term. The present study poses the questions that address which success factors mostly influence the sustainability of products and which changes in the field of product design are necessary in order to foster these success factors by design. The results of the study confirm that designers are usually not professionally trained, neither on the job nor at university-level, to undertake the areas encompassing the success factors, nor do they have a significant influence on them. The aim of this study is to provide indications for the readjustment of design education in both form and in the development of new didactical measures.