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This paper is aimed at academics, students and practitioners in order to discuss ideas that relate to design practice and academic research exploring whether designers should seek to include cultural influences in contemporary mass-produced consumer products aimed at a global mass market. It is often assumed that designers are adept at drawing from a wide range of cultural influences for generating differences leading to novelty and innovation when conceiving new designs. However developments in a range of areas from design education to 3d software and digital printing tools alongside the global strategies of major mass manufacturers has drawn this into question with the production of increasingly ubiquitous physical products. The discussion contrasts a number of diverse experiences from the author’s design and research practice working with highly skilled craftspeople in endangered practices through to global mass consumer products to assemble a picture of how industrial designers in the 21st century deal with cultural influences in their work. It questions the value of incorporating specific cultural influences in mass produced global products and asks whether we should continue the practice of earlier generations of designers in using our skills to enrich the lives of users and enhance product values by introducing expressive cultural influences. This develops the arguments of transnational design activity in relation to the homogenizing and heterogeneous globalising polarities produced through industrial design activity and ultimately suggests a reappraisal of how anthropocentric values are communicated in mass produced products.

Ubiquitous Tendencies: Cultural Inspirations and the Future of Industrial Design for a Global Mass Market