Ashley Hall discusses ideas that relate to design practice and academic research exploring whether designers should seek to include cultural influences in contemporary mass-produced consumer products aimed at a global mass market. It is often assumed that designers are adept at drawing from a wide range of cultural influences for generating differences leading to novelty and innovation when conceiving new designs. However developments in a range of areas from design education to 3d software and digital printing tools alongside the global strategies of major mass manufacturers has drawn this into question with the production of increasingly ubiquitous physical products. Ashley Hall is Professor of Design Innovation and deputy head of the Innovation Design Engineering programme at the Royal College of Art where he directs the first year of the MA, IDE research, experimental design and the GoGlobal project.