Make It New

A Seat at the Table

Today, design and designers are synonymous with Silicon Valley and its innovations. But for much of technology manufacturing’s history since the 1950s, tech companies viewed the role of design in product development with skepticism. The few professional designers who came to Silicon Valley in the early 1950s had to fight to prove that design could do more than create packaging for the engineers’ beloved electronics.

In 1951, Carl Clement became Hewlett-Packard’s first professional designer. The approach HP took to design at the time was emblematic of the era. Design was an add-on. Clement and the nine-person design team he assembled during his first decade at HP had to prove to management and engineering that design could add quantifiable worth to products’ safety and function. An “integrated modular system” that improved the appearance and performance of HP’s instruments was an early design victory. Design also helped HP manufacture equipment more quickly, conserve storage space and save on shipping.

Designers remained low in the product development hierarchy throughout the 1950s, ’60s and early ’70s. The customers who purchased most Silicon...