Meet the team

Whirlpool’s Global Consumer Design unit has a staff of over 150 people. This function has quadrupled in size over the last four years and expanded its capabilities to include interaction design and an enhanced usability function that includes staff with expertise in ethnography and anthropology. These functions were added in response to the design demands placed by increasingly sophisticated and complex appliances, together with the desire to engineer core product platforms to suit the widest possible range of brands and markets.

The Global Consumer Design function is represented in the US Mexico, Europe, India and China. Most of the organisation’s designers operate in brand studios, with 14 major brands and 30 sub-brands supported in this way.

Brand studios are responsible for taking the company’s core product platforms, which contain the majority of the product engineering and functionality, and modifying them to suit the language of each individual brand and the specific requirements of its customers.

Whirlpool’s Platform Studio, established three years ago, is staffed by designers, engineers, manufacturing and materials specialists. Platform development work typically begins five years before a product reaches the market. This provides an environment where the integrated team can set global standards for colour, materials and finish. They create initial design concepts based on market data, research and information, as well as trends analysis.

It is acknowledged that the design outcomes from the Platform Studio find a better fit with some Whirlpool brands over others. The Platform Studio’s role is to reach across to the brand platforms with their design outcomes and work with them to implement and test the concepts. This allows for cost effective modifications to suit diverse brand requirements.
Designers

Part of the programme to