Persuading businesses to invest in product design isn’t always easy. The end product isn’t tangible at the outset of a project, and overall costs are hard to pin down. Some people assume a designer just makes the product pretty after the real development work has been done.

It is enlightening to look at the profitability of a well known business that has put design at the heart of all it does. Apple Computers recently reported profits of $6bn on revenues of $26.74bn for the three month period running up to Christmas 2010. Read the rest of this entry »