Pantech Group, one of the leading mobile phone company in South Korea, announced plans to work with a cadre of leading industrial design firms to enhance its overall design competency and to support the development of new trend-setting handsets for the domestic and international markets.

Pantech has commissioned a group of internationally renowned design consultancies - which includes Lunar Design (U.S.), Fuse Project (U.S.) and Design 3 (Germany), along with an additional five domestic Korean design firms - to inform its industrial design team on creative strategies and processes, ideas in styling, and trends in design from around the world.

Pantech's initial objective in working with the group of design firms is to inspire its internal design team. But the company may leverage aspects of the concept models that are created in future production, as part of its ongoing development as one of the world's leading mobile phone manufacturers.

As part of its efforts to nurture prospective designers, Pantech earlier this month sent a group of talented students to the U.S. to allow them to study with leading designers and consultancies. Pantech also plans to work with the prestigious California College of Art for the joint research and development of advanced designs for three months from July.

In March this year, three of Pantech's products - the PG-6200 handset, and the 'WIDE CUBE' and 'Transformer' concept models - were honored at the renowned iF (International Forum) Design Awards for excellence and innovation in the design of cellular phones.

At last year's iF Design Awards, Pantech was also honored for two of its flagship phones, the PH-L4000V camcorder phone and the PH-S4000 MP3 player handset.