Design Wales draws attention to the British Standard for Web Accessibility

Attention all website designers! The British Standard Institute has begun the process of issuing a British Standard for the creation of websites which are accessible to disabled people. The draft document entitled, ‘Web accessibility – Building accessible experiences for disabled people – Code of practice’ is now open for public comment.

The draft document can be found here. In order to view the document and make comments, reviewers are asked to register. The registration process is easy - name and e-mail address; the password will be e-mailed to you.

Design Wales contribute to the design policy

After Turin (see post below), the discussion about design policies continued in Barcelona, at the DME Workshop. At this meeting, speakers presented their work on methodologies for measuring the impact of design and for design management. Gisele Murphy from Design Wales contributed to the programme with the speech “Policies in support of design”. The meeting was moderated by Keith Sequeira, from the DG Enterprise and Industry of the European Commission.

The DME Workshop took place on the 11th November. It was part of the Barcelona Design Week, organised by Barcelona Design Centre.

Design Wales take part in Turin Conference

The first-ever dedicated conference to the discussion of design policies took place in Turin, Italy, on the 6-7 November. Shaping the Global Design Agenda – an International Conference on Design Policy was extremely useful in raising awareness about policies for design and in sharing information about the different approaches that have been adopted around the world. Speakers attended from Qatar, Costa Rica, China, Japan, Finland, UK and the European Commission. Design Wales senior researcher Gisele Raulik-Murphy was invited to take part in discussion panel “Design and the Economy”, moderated by Jean Schneider from APCI (Paris). It was interesting to hear about the concerns that drive the design policy agenda in the different countries: Qatar is facing the risk of losing their cultural identity over the recent developments; China develops the manufacturing industry but faces environmental issues; Costa Rica is improving their design infrastructure with support of the Ministry of Culture…

The conference was part of the celebrations of Torino World Design Capital 2008, which organised hundreds of events during the year.

Design Casa was one of these events, timed to coincide with the international Design Policy conference. It aimed to reveal to the people of Turin and international visitors how the culture of design is expressed in other parts of the world. Several “Casas” were set up around the town, presenting design exhibitions from France, The Netherlands, Singapore, Japan, Belgium, Norway, Spain (photo), Eastern-Europe, Austria and South Korea.

The Dream exhibition presented over 50 car prototypes, in a review that started in the 1950s and included legendary models by Fiat, Bertone, Pininfarina, Ghia, Ferrari and Maserati. The Dream exhibition took place at the Torino Esposizioni, designed by Piero Luigi Nervi , venue that hosted prestigious motor shows in the past.

Design Wales are pleased to announce ...

Kerry, the website design advisor at Design Wales, gave birth to a healthy baby boy yesterday. Samuel weighed in at 6lb 5.

Congratulations Kerry, Ed & family.

Design Wales at Wrexham Business Week

If you want to get one step ahead of the fashion market, the next Design Wales event may be of interest to you. The event will take place during Wrexham Business Week and will focus on three key areas: Colour & Trends for Autumn/Winter 09/10, presented by Alison Hughes of Carlin International; Developing a fashion brand and promoting it off and online, presented by Victoria Jones of Design Wales; Intellectual property in fashion design, presented by Nicola Giles of Design Wales.

The event will take place on Thursday 23rd October, 2.00pm – 5.30pm at the Ramada Hotel, Wrexham. The event is free, but entry is by ticket only. If you would like to attend, please contact Design Wales (T: 0845 3031400).

Design Wales presented Blair Enns... but what next?

As widely anticipated Blair Enns came to Cardiff and spoke to the Welsh design community about his 'Win Without Pitching' campaign. DesignWales has been keen to have Blair come and speak as part of our ongoing research into the impact of free pitching and speculative work on design, particularly graphic design businesses.

The core of Blair's stance, is that in order for design businesses to flourish, they need to focus on specific business areas and become known as experts in that area. The examples he gave, were of a mobile telephone fascia company and a catalogue design company. In order to be perceived as expert, design companies must write about their expertise as well as demonstrate it. They must continually build on their knowledge and not become complacent. The idea being, that if you are considered an expert in your chosen field, then you don't have to look for clients... they look for you!

Operations Director of Design Wales, Gavin Cawood in conversation with Blair Enns








The baton has now been passed to the designers present at the talk... so tell us in the comments below, if Blair's talk has given you food for thought.

Design Wales Attends the Launch of the Cardiff Design Festival

Thursday the 2nd of October saw the launch of the Cardiff Design Festival at the Senedd building in Cardiff Bay. Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas AM hosted the event, with speeches from Olwen Mosely the director the festival, and Tom Bewick representing the Cultural Skills Council.

Olwen announced a series of interesting events occuring during the festival. Design Wales is pleased to support the festival by hosting some of these events. A full list of Design Wales events during the Cardiff Design Festival is on our site http://www.designwales.org

The launch event also featured a selection of the finalists' artwork for the Cardiff Design Festival Showcase...it was encouraging to see such a high standard of design work. During Tom Bewick's speech he made reference to a recent study which showed that a higher than average proportion of Welsh companies had design embedded into their businesses. This fact married with a vibrant design community, should make for an optimistic economy!!

The Cardiff Design Festival runs until the end of October.