New BEDA Board 2012-2014

At its General Assembly hosted by Cité du design in Saint-Étienne on Friday 09th March, the BEDA Members elected the new Board for the term 2012 to 2014. Nine new members were elected from a list of twelve candidates.

Joining the current President Deborah Dawton (DBA, UK) and Vice President Isabel Roig (Barcelona Design Centre), the full Board is as follows (in alphabetical order):

Robin Edman, SVID, (Sweden)
Severin Filek, former BEDA President, Design Austria, (Austria)
Ilona Gurjanova, Estonian Association of Designers, (Estonia)
Salla Heinänen, Ornamo, (Finland)
Kitty De Jong, BNO, (Netherlands)
Christina Melander, Danish Design Centre, (Denmark)
Michal Stefanowski, SPFP, Association of Industrial Designers, (Poland)
Szonja Szesztai, Hungarian Design Council, (Hungary)
Ingrid Vandenhoudt, Secretary, Design Flanders, (Belgium)

Following the election, I had the opportunity to run a workshop session for the development of strategy thinking as a contribution to the work of the European Design Leadership Board which will be reporting in June 2012.

Congratulations to the new Board Members.

How to Grow - Creative Industries initiative

Have a look at the new and rapidly expanding website for small and creative enterprises wishing to grow in Europe. During the last week of February they ran the 'Know How Programme' - a series of streamed lectures and interactive sessions for the Creative Industries. I had the chance to give one of the webcasts and I believe these will be appearing online in due course.

The site is also a portal for the Creative Industries in Europe and you can find useful information on the recently launched Creative Industries Alliance. The link allows you to access information on European programmes for the creative industries as well as on the Policy Learning Platform.

National Design Centre for France

Eric BESSON announces the launch of a design action plan and the creation of a National Design Centre.




This news sent to me yesterday by Moira Moreira of APCI following the announcement by the French Economy Minister at the closing day of the APCI conference back on 9th January.

Quoting from the information provided,

"The creation of a National Design Centre, much like its English, Danish or Korean equivalents, would make for a lever leading to exemplary design policies as well as a French design promotion tool.

Created from the APCI in liaison with all design players, it will aim to assert the strategic role of design in the economy, improve the competitiveness of French companies thanks to the introduction of design in their strategy and enable design professions to develop.

The Ministry of Industry will support this project’s launch with 1 million euros worth of funding."

Congratulations to Anne Marie Boutin and the whole team at APCI on making this important step happen for the integration of design strategy at the national level for France.

This is is good news for design in Europe.

Doing a webcast at 3pm CET

I have been invited by EDC in the Netherlands to give a webcast at 3pm today on the web platform www.howtogrow.eu. I am going to talk about the design policy journey in Europe, on changing design practice and on design learning for all.

This morning has been important with the launch of the European Creative Industries Alliance and the announcement of four new programmes for design funded by the European Commission.

An exciting time for design in Europe.

Vorsprung durch Branding

Not on his forearm. Not on his back. But on the back of his hand below the line of his shirt cuff.

This taxi driver in Graz was happy for me to photograph his hand and he proudly told me that he owns an Audi. I wasn't so sure about that as he didn't clarify which model.

The word 'brand' comes originally from the hot branding irons that burned the owner's mark onto the hide of a cow. So, in this case, who is claiming ownership of whom?

I didn't get to see his left hand...

Prof Gerhard Heufler, FH Joanneum Graz

Met yesterday with Professor Gerhard Heufler, Founder and Leader of the Industrial Design Course at the Fachhochschule Joanneum in Graz. It has a strong focus on transportation and I was there to learn about the accomplishments of the course and of his graduates - many of whom are now working internationally with key automotive manufacturers such as Audi, VW and BMW.

The course was established in 1995 by Gerhard and Gerald Kiska of Kiska design.

The focus on forward-looking design language and form integrated with a deep knowledge of three-dimensional, non-virtual model-making, (clay etc.) - as well as CAD of course - brings a level of quality that is very impressive. The integrated Bachelors and Masters programme is innovative and brings benefits to the level of quality that can be achieved. The workshops are impressive,(5-axis machine is on order), and the reach of top-notch placements in industry all adds to the quality.

I first came across the FH-J's work as jury member for CREATECH in Vienna back in 2009 and it has been great to see the work at first hand.

AA logo's flight through the years

I saw these in transit in JFK from the American Airlines terminal to the Delta terminal to get back to London. The only trouble was that when moving through the terminal, because American Airlines is so obsesive about not diluting its overwhleming brand presence in the new Terminal with competitor names, finding the route to the Delta terminal was very tedious and irritatingly un-signed. No presence of the Delta mark or name - at least certainly not obviously. I had to ask three times to get directions to the monorail. Made two wrong turns and found myself on a large flat mezzanine at one point. Not so good American. JFK sort out the wayfinding between terminals from within the terminals (the signing at the exit and entry nodes is quite reasonable).