The main task for modern product designers is how to combine creativity and functionality. This title showcases different types of products and industrial designs for the household and personal use, introducing projects from all over the world, including innovative furniture, lighting and accessories ranging from baskets to bookshelves, carpets, vases, stationary, and many more. Each featured object includes product descriptions, photographs and designers' sketches showing the design processes, as well as the materials used, a brief explanation of how the product was made, and an observation about specific creative design features that make the product unique. Like other publications by Wang Shaoqiang, the book features the latest designs from design studios across the world to which the author has access as editor of the prestigious Design 360º magazine. While most books about product design are structured like a textbook and explain how to design or deconstruct designs to better understand the processes involved, almost none provide a comprehensive overview of current design trends, instead offering a summary of modernist design history or the best designs from 1945 until the present. New Product Design is an exception to the rule. Through a wide range of stylistically and aesthetically bold designs, the book emphasizes the essential interaction between humans and objects. For without humans, we are told, objects are useless, empty and, ultimately, meaningless. And for an object to have meaning, we must interact act with it, use it, or, in the case of visually pleasing objects, react to them. In the pages of this book, the reader will encounter many daring examples of product design and products that interact with users in a multitude of ways, with the power to inspire new thoughts and ideas.

Wang Shaoqiang is a professor at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts (China) and Doctoral Supervisor at the College of Arts and Humanities of the Macau University of Science and Technology. He is a prolific editor whose titles focus on design, art and lifestyle. He is also the editor of Design 360° magazine and Asia-Pacific Design yearbook. He has been invited to lecture at numerous universities, design academies and organizations, and he has been a jury member for Chinas most prestigious design and illustration awards.