As the founder of Frog Design, which’s the world's most prominent and successful strategic design agency, Hartmut has worked with some of the most prestigious global companies over the last 40 years, which includes Sony, Apple, Louis Vuitton, SAP and Lufthansa. He is also a founding professor of the HochschulefuerGestaltung (University for Design) in Karlsruhe, Germany and from 2006 to 2011 he served as a professor for convergent industrial design at the University for Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria. Hartmut also received an honorary doctorate in Fine Arts from the Parson School of Design, New York in addition to various lifetime achievement awards around the world. On World Industrial Design Day, World Design Organization announced and presented 2017 World Design Medal to Hartmut, who has defined the modern consumer aesthetic and continued influence among young designers.

“Craftsman copies, master steals”, Picasso’s remark gives audiences endless association to the artistic world of design. In his lecture, professor had displayed deeper part of the design industry, the strategic design. Through introduction of his works and his experience of working together with Steve Jobs, Prof. Esslinger shared with audiences with the importance of creativity and brand, and how to integrate science, ecology and economy together and pointed out that design must have meaningful function. Beside, master expressed that he hope to nurture a series design elites even leaders in education, enterprises and government sectors through a series professional training and transform China into the leader of innovation oriented design and branding fields as well as improving some existing disadvantages in China.