Together with Tim Selders, Frans Joziasse founded PARK advanced design management in 1998.

Regarded as one of the pioneers of design management consulting, PARK has worked, and is working, for clients such as Johnson Controls Marketing & Design (DE), BMW Group Design (DE), PANalytical (NL), Roca Design (ES), Hyundai Design Center Europe (DE), SieMatic (DE), Audi Future and Trend Forschung (DE), Bugaboo (NL), and LEGO Concept & Design (DK).

Frans holds an MBA in Design Management from the University of Westminster (London). He has lectured at several universities in Europe and the US, and at Conferences of the Design Management Institute on industrial design and strategic design management. He has been cited for numerous awards for design excellence by the Gute Industrie Form in Hanover (Germany). He was a member of the Board of Industrial Designers in the Netherlands from 1992 till 1995, and was made a member of the University of Westminster’s advisory panel and Quality Assessment Agency for their MBA in Design Management in 1999 and 2001.

In 2001, Frans developed the module ‘Strategic Design Management’ for the MA Design Management at the INHOLLAND University, in Rotterdam, where he teaches the module since then.

Together with his family, Frans lives in Hamburg, Germany.

Q: Could you please outline briefly what your initial intentions were when you founded PARK together with Tim Selders in 1998?

A: We wanted to fill the gap between design and business with a management consultancy.

Q: Did that become reality?

A: Yes, it did after a few years. In the first years, this service to the design industry and the business leaders was very new. Business leaders raised questions like can design been managed? Designers raised questions like do we need a link between design and business? All questions that seem very obsolete these days. Also, the fact that we decided not to offer the design hands-on work as well was not understood by many potential clients. Today it has proven to be the right choice, and we’re still convinced that our independence and specialization in the management of design, designers and their environment is strongly needed.

Q: Where do you see the core areas of your activity and expertise today?

A: We have moved slowly into mainly three consultancy areas:

1.design process

2.design organization and resources

3.design strategy

Of course, these areas are very strongly linked and cannot be considered separately. Design can only deliver real added value to the business if these areas are an integral part of the business.

Q: It often feels to me as if Design Management is a discipline that is seen as neither quite here nor there – neither designers nor non-designers seem to entirely understand and appreciate it. How do you feel about that, and what do you think might be possible reasons?

A: I do not agree with this statement. I think there are a considerable number of global top-500 companies who perfectly understand the concept of design management. And in most of them, it is integrated on all three levels of the business, operational, tactical and strategic. The challenge is still to get the right people with a mix of business as well as design background doing the design management job. I think it is the SMEs who find it difficult to see the need to professionalize design and manage it as they manage for example Finance or HR. At the same time, the owners of some SMEs have understood perfectly that design is a competitive advantage, and deal with it in a more implicit way, hence not referring to it as design management.

Q: What is your view on the established Design Management associations - do you feel that they are actively and efficiently communicating with the industry, or are they more concerned with navel-gazing?

A: I only know the Design Management Institute in Boston, the global association for design managers. I think they do a good job in getting design management on the map with their great conferences and a very good journal, the Design Management Review. They tend to concentrate a little bit too much on the US. Also they reach more to design managers/directors and less to business people. The design associations either do not do enough, or do not do a good job at all. I favour the work of the British Design Council, which does execute real solid research about the value of design for business, for example. In contraast, the segregated situation in Germany is has resulted in some 16 institutes and one central organisation that in my opinion do not really get out of their creative, arty box…which is a pity, and a missed opportunity for a country with such a strong tradition and great industry such as Germany.

Q: Regarding Design Management education – are you happy with how the subject is being taught?

A: We’ve recently seen an increase in the number of Design Management Masters and Bachelor programmes in Europe and the US; we currently count around 40 of them. In many cases, it seems to me more a commercial activity for universities to earn money than about really offering quality. Many students are from Asian countries that go back with a basic skill set and some knowledge…hence there is a great opportunity for providing a really good professional education with experienced teachers.

Q: In your recent interview with PAGE magazine, you mention the challenges of integrating customer insight in the design process in certain industries. How do you feel about working with multi-disciplinary teams to achieve holistic and sustainable concepts?

A: Yes, to me this is the only way to do this. Companies that still believe that sticking to silo thinking to maximise efficiency will lose the game. Keep the teams multi-disciplinary and flexible at the same time…this is how modern companies manage and stimulate their workforce.

Q: Could you give an example of an active design culture within one of the companies you work with? How does that become manifest in their everyday work?

A: It is easy maybe to mention LEGO as an example, as the product is so much a design icon. The reality of the designer at LEGO is very tough though. LEGO is facing extreme competition from other toy companies and other industries. Meaning that the financial pressure is enormous, also on the designers. At the same time, design is an integral part of all decision making, which means that designers are not only the creative force in a trendy building but need to be craftsmen, engineers, commercial managers, consumers and visionaries at the same time - not to mention being able to communicate with top management. And the latter is seldom the case.

Q: What advice would you give young designers at the beginning of their careers? Is there anything specific that you would recommend they do in order to deal with the challenges of their first job applications and interviews?

A: 1.don’t think that design is holy;

     2.preach that design is holistic;

     3.don’t think design can solve all the problems in the world;

     4.think out of the box;

     5.communicate about the process, and not only about the end-result;

     6.be honest with the consumer and yourselves;

     7.read the Financial Times;

     8.get a copy of the corporate strategy of the company you work for or of your client;

     9.get an appointment with the CEO;

   10.go abroad and learn from other cultures.