In this special design issue, two truths seem to emerge. First, in order to make great things, technology companies must practice collaboration. Bill Moggridge, a cofounder of the design consultancy Ideo, implores us, "Put together a team with a great engineer, a crazy designer, a good businessperson, and a good human-factors scientist or psychologist of some kind, and put them in a room and get them to try to work together" (see Q&A). Second, behind companies with well-designed products are leaders who care deeply about design. No company exemplifies that better than Apple, as Daniel Turner reports (see "Different").

For the February/March 1983 TR, Ralph Caplan, a former editor of Industrial Design, wrote "Designers and Engineers: Strange but Essential Bedfellows," in which he asserted the importance of those same two truths.