Trends in Material Utilization From an Industrial Design Perspective

Abstract

Rene Polin will speak about trends in product design and material utilization. His focus will be on a few longer term, evergreen trends that are more than fly-by-night hot topics and how they relate to the world of industrial design and materials.

About the Speaker

René Polin has more than 25 years’ experience in the design industry. He is the President and Founder of Balance Innovation & Design – a strategic human-centered innovation and product design consultancy in Cleveland, Ohio where he is responsible for the vision and overall leadership of the organization.

He and his team have helped numerous companies strategically transform their businesses and become future-ready and are responsible for hundreds of successful products from baby toys to medical devices. If you’ve withdrawn money from an ATM, bathed your infant in a baby bathtub, hitched up your boat trailer, or crushed ice in your kitchen blender, there’s a good chance you’ve used something René and his talented team have developed. Some notable commercial successes are the celebrated Ninja Kitchen line of products, award-winning banking product and service solutions for Diebold, and an award-winning line of smart home products for GE Lighting.

René’s client list reaches far and wide with clients ranging from Panasonic, GE, Illinois Tool Works, Moen, Sherwin Williams, Crown Equipment, Hasbro, Lowe’s, Westfield Insurance, and Canadian Tire. He speaks about innovation and design regularly, highlighted by his 2015 TEDxCLE Biomimicry talk.

René holds a BFA in Industrial Design from the Cleveland Institute of Art where he also serves on the Board of Directors.