At Strate, we design objects for people. We regard Industrial design as propositional forces and as the ability to question the design methodology. Through this methodology, designers have become actors who work between the users-consumers, and the different protagonists from professions such as design engineering or marketing. Before designers put pencil to paper, they identify scenarios of usage and think about the objects that will be pleasant to live with. Between sensitivity to shapes, understanding of processing techniques, ease in the means of expression and the command of information technology, designers navigate on the frontiers of the possible. These frontiers are set by the designer’s own knowledge and abilities as well as by those of engineers, technicians, sociologists, marketing professionals, semiologists, and all the experts of a project team. To play their part, designers have to learn their art well. That is to say how to blend an artistic specificity with the business environment. As educators, we have to transfer knowledge combining: - An artistic education, through training in drawing, volume and creativity; - A business culture, that is to say, teamwork, professional spirit, quality, marketing and product strategy; - Business ethics, sustainable development, eco-design, management and fair trade. As we master the art of teaching today’s paradox of manufactured aesthetics, we express concern for recycling in productivity studies, for ethics in product strategy, and for accountability in a product launching committee. Designers will not only bring meaning to their creations but to the whole creating process. This is how we master training in the art of design.

+ Jean-René Talopp
   Président