LG Electronics has opened a new European Design Centre in Covent Garden, London, UK. The purpose of LG’s new Design Centre is to create European designs based on European consumers’ requirements. The designers will also be called upon to adapt products that will appeal to the European market, but which have been developed elsewhere.

 The opening of the Centre also reflects LG’s new business strategy, with increased investment into research and development feeding into regional design capabilities. LG will be investing over US$4.8 million into design programs in Europe in 2008 alone. The first fully European designed product, a mobile handset, is to be unveiled this August.

LG’s European Design Centre will house a multi-national team of 22 expert designers by 2009, from across Europe. The current team already includes British, Irish, Italian, French and German designers. They will design products for LG’s entire range of consumer goods including; mobile handsets and devices, flat-screen TV’s and audio systems, white-goods and other home electronics. It joins a global network of 6 Design Centres, which are part of a wider network including 29 Research and Development Centres. All together these Centres employ 16,000 staff - almost a fifth of LG’s global workforce.

“Our new European Design Centre has been established to provide our design team with the optimum creative environment, which includes extensive libraries and leading technologies to aid in the design process. There are significant cultural and technical differences between Europe and other markets. As a result, for LG to grow its market presence in Europe it must invest in and be sensitive to the consumer’s requirements, while responding to technical and cultural differences,” said Mr James Kim, president and CEO of LG Electronics Europe.

LG’s Design Centre in Milan has now been closed but it was confirmed that all staff at this facility were given the opportunity of similar positions at the new European Centre.

Source:cellular-news