After World War Ⅱ and the introduction of self-management, Yugoslavia entered a process of economic transformation that manifested in the de-monopolization and decentralization of the central state; a change in the distribution of income; the liberalization of prices and the market; and an opening to Western influence.1 The new market and economic context needed to include design as a strategic tool to ensure the competitiveness of local production and to increase its success on the market. Despite the persistent efforts of theorists and design practitioners in Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), the fusion of design and industry never took hold in its full capacity or for the long term. The tradition of neglecting design (in production and the economy) had almost irreversible consequences. The economic imbalance that occurred beginning in the mid-twentieth century, reinforced by the confusion between ideology and economy, resulted from the coexistence of two bipolar systems: state planning and an economic model with some elements of free market.2
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