What’s in A Name?

If you’re an industrial designer, let me know if this has happened to you. You’re at a party and you’ve met some new, cool people. Inevitably, the question comes up, “What do you do?”.

You tell them you’re an industrial designer and there’s some back and forth about whether it’s designing industrial machinery or bridges.

You slide iPhones and other Apple hardware into the conversation and name drop some products you’ve worked on. There’s some nodding, then everybody leaves without really understanding what it is you do.

Why is that?

I think it’s that opening phrase, “industrial designer”. I think it’s a problem of languaging.

This week I read Become Known for a Niche You Own, a book on how writers differentiate themselves by carving out an entirely unique category that they can totally own. They do this through the strategic use of language.

The authors define languaging as “The strategic use of language to change thinking”. and creating “distinctions between old and new, same and different”. They give some recognizable examples:

Netflix - you’re streaming vs appointment viewing

Starbucks - you order a grande latte vs. a medium latte

Pfizer - you suffer from ED not impotence

The TLDR: language is a powerful way (perhaps the most powerful) to steer people’s thinking about what you are selling.

Reading this brought my job title’s languaging problem into sharp focus.

“Industrial” sounds so obscure. It sounds 20th century and puts us in the “old” category. Industrial design is an accurate description. It is designing for things to be made through industry. But it isn’t a relatable description.

There’s no daily experience that comes to mind in the listener when you say that. You lose people in that first sentence.

Perhaps “product designer” is the better way to phrase it. People know what products are, and can envision one that they use daily and enjoy. I can tell them that there was a designer behind every decision that makes up that experience.

That’s what I do.

Since I graduated college, “product designer” has tended to refer to digital design. I don’t think UI/UX designers have some malicious conspiracy to take over the term, but at least in tech circles, they have become the de-facto owners of it.

There’s no reason we can’t share, though. As screens become even more pervasive on physical products, the distinction between the design disciplines may also start to blur.

I think I’m going to go with “product designer”. At least at parties.

See you next week!

Anson

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