The 17th International Conference on Engineering Design, ICED'09, was held August 24-27 2009 at Stanford University, California, USA. The Conference is the flagship event of the Design Society, a society dedicated to contributing to a broad and established understanding of development and design. The ICED series of conferences has a long tradition, which started in 1981 with the first ICED in Rome. A total of 379 papers were presented at ICED'09, each double-blind reviewed by multiple reviewers. The papers included research papers and case studies on a variety of topics concerned with design thinking, theory, and practice, with a premium placed on evidence-based research. The papers are published in a total of ten volumes of Proceedings, in addition to electronic publication. This volume is the first of two concerned with Design Methods and Tools, and contains 43 papers on topics relating to tools and methods for design application including modelling, selection, the stimulation of creativity and innovation, simulation, optimisation and other related topics.