Now more than a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve already seen the novel ways in which industrial designers have adapted to a virtual setting: from shipping samples and prototypes to home addresses to scheduling rotating timeslots for individuals to be at the studio to access tools and machinery. But with vaccines currently in distribution and a light at the end of the tunnel now visible, many big questions have started to emerge In March 2021, we asked members of our design community “How is your design team/studio/office planning to return to work post- COVID?” Their responses, some lightly edited for clarity, are collected here as the main focus of this issue. It’s important for us to share our experiences, learnings, expectations, and strategies with one another so that we might emerge from the pandemic in a position to begin our “new normal” with efficiency, momentum, and success.
