This chapter addresses the following questions:

• What is the composition of design teams?
• What are the settings of design teams?
• What is the contribution of each team member throughout the design process, from onset to realization?

People tend to associate designers with the Arts more than with the technical precision of engineering, despite the fact that design disciplines--from architecture to interaction design--require mastery of both domains in equal parts. In academic settings, design departments have been traditionally a part of the art schools, although ironically often viewed there as inferior trades, comparted to the pure artistic mission of the real arts--painting and sculpture.

Opposing this common view of design as somehow inferior to the arts, is the fact that designers since antiquity were expected to acquire a broad and deep education, as well as extensive practical training, in a wide-range of technical domains. Vitruvius wrote 2000 years ago that:

Architects were probably the first experience practitioners whose work required the coordination of multi-disciplinary teams to complete large complex projects. Architecture requires the blending of engineering and art into an outcome that to the user, the "experiencer", reflects only the art, and masks the engineering complexity of the framework that supports it.

In past centuries, the scope of knowledge to be mastered--science, engineering and design combined--was small enough for a single person to master. The architect did not have to do all the work, but after years of training that began in childhood, moving up from a starting position of lowly apprentice, he was very familiar with the details of each of the collaborating disciplines.

Today, the term "Renaissance Man", which used to describe polymaths - people who, several centuries ago, were thought to possess deep knowledge in all known areas of academic inquiry - has been replaced by the trendy "unicorn", meaning a person who is skilled in business, strategy, research, design, and development. Like the imaginary animal, such people don't exist, but the desire to fuse all this knowledge in a single person is still very strong.

The blending of design and engineering disciplines applies to every aspect of life. As specialization became prevalent in all disciplines, companies that create every-day products needed to form multidisciplinary teams of specialists.

For example--back in 2004, Adidas, the global maker of Activeware, announced the Adidas 1, which was coined the first "intelligent shoe" . The product promised to change the experience of running in a profound way. Each shoe was equipped with sensors in the mid-sole that continuously monitored the runner's motion, and dynamically adjusted the firmness of the sole to the running conditions. The shoe even had a user interface that allowed the runner to adjust the settings manually.

The preceding image lists some of the domains of expertise that the design team had to include. Members of this team represented expertise in fashion, footwear, software and user experience design, engineering, bio-mechanics, and running. Although at the time, the Adidas 1 and the concept of an intelligent shoe fizzled, footwear companies continued to invest in improving the experience through high-tech and design. 

This chapter features design practitioners from various design disciplines. These are the personal stories of real people, from all over the globe. Some are seasoned professionals with many years of experience, and others are making their initial steps in the field. Each is involved in some aspects of the design process and contributes to the collective effort of a team. They all share the passion to simplify complexity--beautifully and skillfully.