UK product design needs indigenous industries to prosper

I was very interested to read Jim Dawton’s piece on product design in the UK (News Analysis, DW 10 January).

Only a handful of names in the UK could be considered as having raised the product design bar, in international terms. The problem is that we don’t have any factories left. Consultancies in the UK can turn out ground-breaking Web design and brochure graphics, but as a graduate product designer I have found that the only way to make it big is to work overseas.

Consultancies producing good designs should win jobs, but, sadly, work produced in-house is often cheaper and this is reflected in their sparse portfolios. I think we need another Industrial Revolution.

Charles Rist, Product designer, by e-mail