“Doing design is easy, but making design functional in the marketplace and across cultures is difficult,” said Eric Chan, founder and president of Ecco Design and keynote speaker at the May 8 Philadelphia University symposium “Innovation: Design as a Competitive Advantage.”

Chan focused on projects for such companies as Toyota, Virgin Airlines and Samsung, and discussed how design and technology innovations were combined with branding and marketing initiatives to achieve global success with new products.

Chan and other speakers at the event, sponsored by Philadelphia University’s East Asia Business Center, shared information and advice for businesses and designers who want to create or expand their international business opportunities in this challenging economic climate.

“The integration of design in other disciplines makes them better and makes design better,” said Philadelphia University President Stephen Spinelli Jr., in opening remarks in The Tuttleman Center Auditorium. The University’s plan for a new College of Design, Engineering and Commerce, he noted, will create curricular structure around achieving innovation.

At the symposium, John Goldschmidt Jr., an intellectual property attorney with Dilworth Paxson LLP, advised the group on protecting their ideas, products and brands through the use of patents, trademarks, copyrights and other legal methods.

The other speakers included Joseph Ciquera, FedEx manager of international sales; Peter Christian, vice president Schramm Manufacturing; Scott Henderson, Scott Henderson Designs, MINT; Alix Kocher, Neilsen-Kellerman – Precision Electronic Instruments; and  Peter Bressler, BreslerGroup. Susan Christoffersen, associate professor of economics, is director of the East Asia Business Center.

For more on the Philadelphia University East Asia Business Center, go to www.PhilaU.edu/eastasiabusinesscenter.