Dear Danielle, Gunnar and all,
It seems more helpful to view design policy in terms of the management and
development of national 'design infrastructure' and its effects on
socio-economic development, rather than 'how much extra cash designers might
make if government could be persuaded to support them' (i.e. 'design policy
as the promotion of 'design'').
Design infrastructure comprises all aspects of social and physical
organisation that enable design activity to be undertaken across a nation to
support national socio-economic development in all its forms (manufacturing,
telephone, transport, welfare, financial services, governance etc etc).
At simplest, design infrastructure comprises, across all the hundreds of
fields of design, some core organisational groupings :
Number and types and characteristics of design service providing
organisations
Education programs for designers
Professional organisations for designers
Government legislative and related controls on designers and design
practice
Legitimation services for different aspect of design infrastructure
Support services for designers (e.g. software, prototyping, research support
etc)
Standard setting organisations
Technical support for design activity
Integrative organisations between design service organisations and other
organisations (e.g. venture capital companies, the four different forms of
design centres, etc etc)
(Apologies, I'm writing this from memory of research I undertook five years
ago so I've probably missed some bits. Some of the research was published
by SeeDesign)
When governments enact government policies to improve this national design
infrastructure they remove the restrictions that limit both widespread use
of design expertise and radical rapid development of new forms of design
expertise and services; and in addition provide the support for using design
in rapid and extensive innovation in social, technical and cultural arenas.
.
There has been a tendency to see design policy in a much more limited
fashion - as 'design promotion' - as support for just one of the four types
of design centre (and often one single national instance of it!) given the
role of 'promoting design to make sure more designers get employed by
businesses'. Review of the last half century indicates this common
(designer-driven) approach of 'promoting design' has weak effectiveness and
relatively insignificant outcomes .
In contrast, the evidence of the last half century, and more particularly
last decade, indicates it is significantly more effective for governments
to enact policies to actively manage and develop all aspects of national
design infrastructure, particularly by addressing its weaker areas.
Best wishes,
Terry
____________________
Dr. Terence Love, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM, MISI
Mob: 0434 975 848, Fax +61(0)8 9305 7629, [log in to unmask]
Senior Lecturer, School of Design and Communication
Researcher, Social Program Evaluation Research Unit
Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia
Senior Lecturer, Dept of Design
Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia
Director, Design-based Research Unit, Design Out Crime Research Centre
Member of International Scientific Council UNIDCOM/ IADE, Lisbon, Portugal
Honorary Researcher, Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise
Development
Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
____________________
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Danielle
Bushore
Sent: Monday, 19 September 2011 11:02 PM
To: Dr Terence Love
Subject: Re: Design Policy?; was: Design Policy in Canada Masters Research
Peter, Gunnar & Derek,
Thank you for your responses. All of your resources are accurate accounts of
what a design policy might entail- independent of Canadian politics and
policy structure that is. It would be really great if we could continue this
discussion on my blog site at www.designpolicycanada.com. I'm interested in
these concepts of policy and your ideas of whether or not these same ideas/
theories would be possible in the Canadian climate. The blog is like any
other, but in order for me to use your thoughts and ideas, I need your
consent, like any other research. There is a link on the site for this.
There are a number of reasons for proposing a policy that includes most
design sectors in Canada. Combined, these sectors encompass a large body,
much larger than independent associations and together they contribute a
great deal to the Canadian economy. Most policy is derived through proof of
cost-benefit. Rather than establish a way to calculate this quantitatively,
I'm creating a discussion about it. Throughout my research, I've found it
interesting that while the Canadian government supports innovation and the
arts, it does little to support or promote design.
A 'policy' is a word that is often used to mean different things. It scares
some people, makes others wary or skeptical. It's meaning is derived from
anything that the government chooses to do or not to do- though there are
many accounts of what policy really is and all vary slightly. If the
Canadian Government chose to recognize and support design education and
provided a monetary interest in research and bettering the creative economy,
it would be my understanding that this is a policy.
I hope this helps to explain a bit more about my thesis. It is centred more
around the actual discussion and opinions of professionals who have much
more experience in the industry than I. If you are skeptical that any sort
of government interest in the design industry would be of benefit, I would
like to hear about it and why. I posted the first question yesterday- it's
very general but I thought it could get the discussion going. I'll be
posting a new topic every week that will be based on the responses and
arguments posed in the previous topic/question. I also have some links on
the home page that demonstrate some great examples of initiatives that
different countries have in place.
Your expertise would be greatly appreciated and I look forward to hearing
anything else you would like to contribute at:
www.designpolicycanada.com
Sincerely,
Danielle Bushore
MDES Student
Carleton University
Ottawa ON
On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 9:17 AM, Peter Jones | Redesign <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Gunnar - Dori Tunstall's work in the US Design Policy
> http://www.designpolicy.org/ comes to mind.
>
> The UK Design Council has been a design clearinghouse for their
development
> of the field, for many years:
> http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/our-work/insight/policy/
>
> Not having worked with these kinds of initiatives, I'm skeptical of the
> focus of a "design policy." I'm in Toronto and I have trouble imagining
> what
> the federal government would support as a design policy, and I'd at least
> prefer to wait until there was a non-conservative government overseeing
the
> executive functions before initiating policy discussions (so perhaps
> research for the next 2-3 years here is good!) Does this mean Canadian
> design as an industry consortium?
>
> I find the practices of design too wide-ranging, dynamic, and disparate to
> have a meaningful sense of policy at the national level. I'm not sure
other
> design professionals or policy makers even understand what the purposes
> are.
>
>
> I would prefer to focus on policy functions well understood in government.
> Funding mandates would be useful for education (post-secondary design
> education) and research (design research at the PhD level has very little
> funding, as it does not fit scientific mandates).
>
> Peter
>
> Peter Jones, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor, Faculty of Design
> Strategic Foresight and Innovation
> OCAD University
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gunnar Swanson [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Monday, September 19, 2011 8:48 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Design Policy?; was: Design Policy in Canada Masters Research
>
> I'm never quite sure what people have in mind when they use the phrase
> "design policy." Can anyone point me to a relatively terse description?
>
>
> Gunnar
> ----------
> Gunnar Swanson Design Office
> 1901 East 6th Street
> Greenville NC 27858
> USA
>
> [log in to unmask]
> +1 252 258 7006
>
> http://www.gunnarswanson.com
>
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