Design boundaries in Brazilian SMEs. A case study in the furniture sector.

Most design approaches have their foundations in the United States and European western countries (e.g. Design Thinking; Design Culture, Strategic Design). When dealing with different contextual frameworks we face diverse constraints and problems as we explore the design potential in enterprises. In this paper, we clarify some design constraints in a Brazilian enterprise through a case study, aiming to provide an initial framework for further discussion about design in this context. We suppose that different conditions for design development in a firm, such as the lack of product strategy, portfolio development and management, commercial skills, the difficulty to reproduce design into production, and the informal way of framing its business, lead to the need of situated design practices that require design know-how. The implementation of the new design into production and market does not rely only on “good” design practice by itself. It requires considerable effort from other areas of the company on diverse levels.