The Master of Product Design Labs at the IED Madrid has a new Program Leader: Clive van Heerden. Aged 54, the British designer boasts an admirable professional career in the world of design and research.

He is the former Director of Design Led Innovation at Philips Design. One of his main responsibilities was to lead the Probes programme, made up of wide-ranging research initiatives, with the aim of identifying long-term systemic changes and anticipating the lifestyles of the future.

Clive and his team have enjoyed great international recognition. Time magazine named Emotional Sensing Apparel one of the best inventions of 2007. And, among other awards, they have consistently received IF Product Design, Red Dot Design Awards, and recently the Red Dot Luminary Award (2011) for the project Microbial Home.

BIOGRAPHY
During his time at university in South Africa, Clive studied Political Science and Industrial Sociology at the University of Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg. In 1986 he moved to London, where he was granted a research fellowship at the CCIS (Centre for Communication and Information Studies) by Westminster University, and he graduated in 1991 with an MA in Interaction Design from the Royal College of Art in London.

Clive arrived at Philips Research in 1995, with the aim of bringing designers into the technical research process. In 1998 he transferred to Philips Design to direct the research activities linked to Soft Technologies design, where he brought together a team of experts from a range of fashion, textile and engineering disciplines. Clive has also been in charge of the Philips Design branches in New York, Redhill and London.

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