16 Manufacturers, 175 Products, 7 Weeks:

Reflections on a mission to Manila
by William Gordon

Last June through October, I worked in the Philippines through the Filipino Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) for an organization called CITEM (Center for Industries and Trade Exports and Missions). CITEM helps and monitors local exporters with factory visits, trade shows and promotion. I designed products for 16 local manufacturers located all over the Philippines, and ended up designing about 175 different products for these companies in a 7-week period. The factories then had 2 months for prototyping and production before they exhibited the products at the biannual Manila F.A.M.E. Internal Trade Show (Furnishings and Accessories Manufacturers Exchange), which occurred October 18th-21st. Out of the over 175 designs I produced, about 100 different products made it to the show. I designed home products including furniture, lighting and various home accessories using a wide variety of natural, indigenous materials.

I worked as a Merchandise Design Consultant (MDC) for Home Products. There is one consultant for each product area represented at the show (including Home Products, Fashion Accessories, and Holiday Décor) and the consultants design special product lines for manufactures represented at the show. These product lines are then introduced at "special setting" exhibit pavilions—also designed by the MDC's. The MDC program was started over 10 years ago to stimulate interest in the Manila F.A.M.E. show (as well as to create a link between manufactures and designers), and several other Asian product shows are now doing their own version of this program after realizing that design is one of the few elements that can keep them from being swallowed up by the Chinese goliath. (The routine is well known now: Small manufacturers in small Asian countries like the Philippines come up with new product designs geared for western buyers. Super low-cost manufacturing in China then quickly rips off the products from these Filipino manufacturers, and the cycle continues.)

The factories which CITEM represents employ approximately 100,000 people all over the Philippines. When you multiply this through an average 5-person family, its economic reach balloons to about a half million people. CITEM produces a F.A.M.E. show in Manila twice a year (once in April and again in October), attracting about 3000 buyers from around the world to see over 500 different exporters. The October Manila F.A.M.E. show I was involved in accounted for over $64 million in total sales. This is a major boon for the Filipino economy, which has seen a sharp drop in foreign direct investment in the past decade (in comparison with its neighbors) because of an unstable government, as well as a sharp rise in competition from its neighbors in consumer goods manufacturing. Southeast Asia is one of the next design frontiers, producing goods that fuse quality with creativity beyond just low cost. For a long time, Southeast Asian design had been relegated to handicrafts and regional products. But now, with the coincident movement toward more handcrafted, high quality products in the home, this region's expertise is being tapped for mid- to high-end products, as many brands grapple with the quality and creativity gap that exist with much of Chinese production.

My experience designing for Filipino manufacturing was one of the most enriching of my life. I learned that people-centered design has a middle component, living between ethnography and interface. Hand manufacturing is the reality in much of the world, and designers, sitting at their desks sending off PDFs to unknown destinations, may be a modern paradigm, but ultimately a hollow one. I would encourage designers to go and visit where their products are made, and, especially, with the people who make them.

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