The recent UK Government White Paper on ‘Standards, quality and international competitiveness’, followed by the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between Government and BSI and the subsequent launching of the National Quality Campaign has emphasised the need for the country to have a strong home market dependent on the correct standards and quality assurance procedures, thus avoiding import penetration and at the same time competing successfully overseas. The key ingredient in this success is design, and the paper stresses the need to design for the quality required by the market and the techniques that are available to the designer to enable him to do so.