Cape Town receives World Design Capital designation for 2014

At an impressive gala dinner and convocation ceremony tonight in the City Hall in Helsinki, Helsinki handed over the designation of World Design Capital to Cape Town for 2014. Soon in Lee, President of Icsid, was joined by the Mayors of both Helsinki and Cape Town at the unveiling of the ceremonial plaque that celebrates Cape Town's designation.

Now the hard work begins in bringing design to a city that is hungry, in the words of Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille, "to bridge the divides of the past". In an emotional speech, Mayor de Lille indicated with great compassion what this designation means for the city and communities of Cape Town and the region.

The ceremony followed Helsinki's one-day, Closing Summit chaired by Marco Steinberg. I had the honour to be the lead speaker for the panel session on design and growth. The Summit was attended by around 250 delegates including the Mayors of Taipei, Stockholm, Lahti and of course Helsinki.

Congratulations to Helsinki and in particular to its Director Pekka Timonen for a very successful 2012 and to the World Design Capital team for Cape Town, as they assume the title of World Design Capital - the first city to do so in the continent of Africa.

Design Action Sweden

I have been invited to speak at Design Action in Nybro/Pukeberg, Sweden tomorrow - Friday 21st September. I can only stay for a short while and I won't get to hear all of the other speakers. It's a pity as they represent an intriguing and diverse set of different points of view.

The link to the event is here: Design Action 2012
Check out the speakers here: Speakers

Use Google Translate to translate from the Swedish.

Europe's Design Leadership - Design for Growth & Prosperity

This afternon, the European Design Leadership Board set up by the European Commission under its European Design and Innovation Initiative, handed its report, 'Design for Growth and Prosperity' to Commission Vice-President Tajani in Helsinki.

The Commission's Press Release outlines the six strategic areas for policy action. They are:

- The global stage
- Europe's innovation system
- Europe's enterprises
- The public sector
- The research system
- The education system


The Report sets out in detail the Board's 21 wide-ranging recommendations within these key areas.

This much-anticipated report, (which I have had the privilege to edit with Tapio Koskinen the Director of the Secretariat of the Leadership Board and working closely with the team at the DG Enterprise of the European Commission), if taken on board by the wide range of relevant and expert stakeholders and actors intended, will have an impact in bringing a more systemic approach to policy-making for design at the European Level. It will stimulate actions and programmes across Europe to assist in embedding design as a key component of innovation success for the benefit of all of Europe's citizens.

It targets both the private and public sectors as well as governments across Europe. It focuses on the needs of SMEs and seeks to support the journey of growth for medium companies with the ambition and capacity to become successful, design-aware, large companies contributing to Europe's economy. And of course, it seeks to embed design-led innovation behaviours within the hundreds of thousands of SMEs that make up the greater proportion of Europe's GDP and where Europe's design innovation future will be determined. Design Research, design consultancy, design education and design management are all seen as key tools for user-centred, design-led innovation.

I offer my congratulations to the Commission for its foresight in setting up the European Design Leadership Board and acknowledge the role of the Design Leadership Board members in bringing the European design agenda to a next level of potential.

Whilst there is no doubt that the challenges still to be faced remain daunting and complex, there now exists for the first time, a firm policy basis upon which to grow Europe's design capacity.

RIP Bill

To anyone who met him, Bill Moggridge always made an impression. He was the sort of man, (with a beautiful speaking voice), who always made you feel better for having met him. Reading on the BBC news webiste this morning, (from where I have copied this photograph), I see that his Associate Director at the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York - where he has been Director since 2010 - says, "Beloved by the museum staff and the design community at large, Bill touched the lives of so many through his wise council, boundary-pushing ideas and cheerful camaraderie,". Good words.Thank you Bill for all that you achieved for and in design. Our world seems so much smaller without you.

New CEO at UK Design Council / CABE

Congratulations to John Mathers on his appointment as the new CEO at the British Design Council. A design industry veteran, John brings a great deal of insight and knowledge to the post on the business of design.

John was UK Chief Executive of The Brand Union for ten years after which he become Chief Operating Officer for Blue Marlin Brand Design. Subsequently, he joined packaging design specialists Holmes & Marchant as MD in 2009. John is a former President of the Design Business Association in the UK.

"Deep Strength"

Last night at the UK's Creative Industries Reception held at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, UK Prime Minister David Cameron talked about creativity as a "deep strength" of the UK. He referred passionately to Britain’s global successes in film, arts, dance, music, drama, literature, fashion and the cultural industries. He spoke about the achievement of the opening ceremony of the Olympics. It was very much an advocacy of creativity in the domain of culture and entertainment. The overall message was a call to international players to invest in British creativity and to invest now. The time has never been better.

That is not to say that design was not well represented last night. There were very many design industry figures enjoying the excellent English sparkling wine and the beautiful art on the walls of the Royal Academy. The star-studded design cast included Sir Jonathan Ive (who was presented to the Duchess of Cambridge) and many other leading UK design companies across the design disciplines, including Pearson Lloyd, IDEO, Priestmangoode, Thomas Heatherwick, Creative Action Design, Marc Newson, Ozwald Boateng and S-Point from Shanghai.

Creativity and Global Branding

Yesterday morning, I attended the conference session on Creativity and Global Branding which was but one part of the Global Business Summit on Creative Services held at the British Business Embassy in Lancaster House, London which has been transformed into a showcase of British Design.

The session was one of three held following a breakfast hosted by the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media & Sport and with speakers Sir Martin Sorrell, Christopher Bailey and Lord Richard Rogers.

At the brand session, Diageo and BBH told the story of the advertising campaigns which over a decade dramatically improved the market positioning and commercial success of Johnnie Walker whiskey. The brand now generates £132 per second in commercial trade worldwide. Landrover furrowed new ground with its pre-launch approach to its city-themed on-and-off line campaigns and events devised by agency The Brooklyn Brothers, which attracted new audiences to the Evoque - dramatically smashing their own targets for pre-launch orders in the process. HSBC spoke of the need to change its approach to marketing and its brand communications and Embraer Executive Jets and their agency MBA spoke of the story bringing the concept of 'intelligent luxury' into their brand positioning. Telecomms operator Airtel in India and the Brand Union told the story of repositioning and updating the brand across all points of touch in all countries - a mammoth task which has brought huge commercial benefit and brand uplift. The company's market capitalisation has grown from $16m in 1996 to $25Bn today. My favourite talk however, was the elegantly and simply delivered story of Figtree and their work in creating a global consumer brand for HTC formerly an unknown Taiwanese OEM. Simon Myers the Co-Founder and CEO of Figtree was assisted towards the end of his beautiful animated presentation slides by a video Q&A with HTC's CEO who was unable to attend the event. He brought home the message of how the concept of 'Quietly Brilliant' had helped to shift the culture of the whole organisation.

Pictured are Andy Fennell, Global Chief Marketing Officer, Diageo and Sir John Hegarty, Worldwide Creative Director, BBH.