What makes Richard Eisermann passionate? He tells Gay Sutton that he would like to make London the global leader in design.

Richard Eisermann, the Design Council's director of design and innovation, becomes evangelical when he talks about design. And he's not talking about creative artistic tantrums here, he's talking about bridging the gap between the customer, creative design, engineering, manufacturing and marketing. So the process begins and ends with the customer and includes all the steps in between.

"Design," Eisermann explained, "involves learning about and understanding the customer or end user very thoroughly, and this knowledge then plays a central role in product development and manufacture. When I was with IDEO in the States, we were raising awareness of manufacturing considerations at the beginning of the design process, so that the entire process would be as efficient and innovative as possible. It's important to get the manufacturers next to customers, and to adapt what you are designing and manufacturing to get the optimum performance. It also helps for the designers to understand what steps are involved in manufacturing."

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