Design and Practice: How product designers are adapting to real-world market shifts

Abstract

This paper explores how product designers can adapt to the needs of the evolving real economy through interdisciplinary learning and practice. Based on product design, the study investigates the shifting role of design in response to increasingly complex and dynamic market conditions. By initiating a design-driven service system to support marginalised artisanal producers such as housewives and students with limited production capacity, the author investigates how designers can co-create branding, marketing and sales strategies for artisanal products. The research combines an interdisciplinary approach and hands-on entrepreneurial practices to identify extended competencies that designers must acquire, including digital marketing, supply chain awareness, and user-centred service design, ultimately aiming to redefine the function of product designers as facilitators of inclusive economic participation and adaptive innovation.