Conran, Dyson and Ive got it all wrong – if we believe Myers

I was fascinated to hear from Simon Myers (Business Insight, DW 4 October) that you have to be ‘production-led or ideasdriven’ to thrive as a designer in the 21st century, and that a client-demanded fault line has developed which insists that you must be one or the other.

Hmmmmm. Well, I guess that tips Jasper Morrison, Julian Brown, Sebastian Conran, James Dyson, Dick Powell and Jonathan Ive into the crapper then. Myers is right about one thing though – a fault line is developing. Not the one he perceives, but one that divides designers who realise that what they create must be produced effectively and economically, and those who think it’s someone else’s job to work it out.

The design world doesn’t need hairy-arsed nitwits who think that if a product isn’t cost-engineered to virtual uselessness then they won’t create the client’s gross margin. In an age where virtually everything is mutating into something else, we need inspired vision and brilliant technical comprehension, joined-up and ready to lead.

Richard Seymour, Co-founder, Seymour Powell, London SW6