PechaKucha Night in Cardiff

Design Wales are helping to promote the first official PechaKucha night in Cardiff.

Taking place at Chapter in Cardiff on 25th March the line up of 13 speakers with 20 slides shown for a maximum of 20 seconds includes; Michael Johnson of Johnson Banks and Nick Clark of The Partners. You can see the detail on the promotinal poster by visiting the official PechaKucha website.

The night will be webcast live and available on demand a few days later, the link to watch it is http://www.inklingcreative.co.uk/.

Design Evaluation for Public Policy

On Monday 15th and Tuesday 16th March 2010, Design Wales attended the National School of Government course ‘Evaluating Public Policy and Programmes’ in anticipation of the third SEE workshop. Design Wales is Lead Partner of the SEE Project, a network of eleven design organisations examining how to integrate design into regional policy. SEE is operating from September 2008 to June 2011, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the INTERREG IVC programme. The third SEE workshop will be held in Florence on 10th and 11th May and will focus on ‘Evaluation Tools for Implementing Design Policy’. As Lord Kelvin stated in the Worldwide Governance Indicators brochure, ‘If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it’. Evaluation is a key stage in the policy cycle, one which is too often overlooked due to lack to resources. The course involved a six stage policy simulation exercise which addressed each step in the process of evaluation for evidence-based policy-making. The course will not only provide input for the thematic workshop but will also provide valuable input for the third SEE Policy Booklet on the same topic. As James Moultrie mentions in the first SEE bulletin, ‘Whilst there is some evidence to demonstrate the value of design to the firm, there are very few studies that have successfully demonstrated the value of design at a regional or national level’. Therefore evaluation is one of many barriers to achieving the SEE objective of integrating design into regional policy. The absence of a pan-European definition for design means that design is hard to measure and if you cannot measure performance, you cannot evaluate its contribution to public policy. Therefore the challenge set for the third SEE workshop will be investigating various tools and methods for evaluating design in a policy context.

Design Wales to host regional debate event.

On the 26th March between 9:30 and 11am the Design Council are hosting a debate in London that will be available via live webcast. The focus of the event is on design and the economic recession and the questions debated:

• Are recessions good news in disguise for designers?
• Has the downturn forced designers to value their networks?
• Is on-the-job learning better than no learning at all?

And there will be no fence-sitting –at the end of each debate there will be a vote "for" or "against".


Digital design specialist Simon Waterfall is the compere for the morning, calling in the votes not just from the event but from a live webcast audience as well. Speakers locking horns include iconic product designer Tom Dixon, graphics grandee Mike Dempsey and creative industries number cruncher Mandy Merron.

You can register to view and vote from your own computer by visiting: www.designcouncil.org.uk/beyondtherecession

Design Wales are also hosting an  event to view the webcast and discuss the issues off-line after the vote. If you would like to attend please e-mail gcawood@designwales.org

Design Wales' SEE Project Quoted in Key Design Procurement Report

Earlier this month (2nd March) the Associate Parliamentary Design and Innovation Group (APDIG) and Design Business Association (DBA) launched their report Design and the public good: Creativity vs. The Procurement Process in the House of Lords.

The report is the result of a six month inquiry into the procurement of design services by the public sector and includes a reference to our own SEE Project Policy Booklet - Integrating Design into Regional Innovation Policy.

In addition to highlighting the problems from the perspective of the designer the report expertly outlines the potential benefits being missed by the wider public sector through not working effectively with creative services and goes on to propose recommendations in terms of:

• Knowledge; to deepen the understanding of the value of design amongst policy makers and buyers.
• Skills; to improve the capacity and skills of public sector design and innovation procurers.
• Process; to transform the procurement process for design and innovation.

This report makes a lot of sense and wherever possible we will champion the report in the Welsh public sector through our networking and business support activities. If you want to read the report yourself then visit the APDIG website to download your own copy and find out more about wider government-related design and innovation stories.

For more information visit:

• www.policyconnect.org.uk/apdig
• http://www.dba.org.uk/
• http://www.seeproject.org/

SEE invited to European Commission St David's Day celebrations in Brussels

1st of March is St David’s Day, the national day of Wales. In preparation for the celebrations, the First Minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones AM hosted a reception in Brussels, at the Concert Noble, on the 22nd February.

Design Wales was invited by WEFO, the Welsh European Funding Office, to attend the reception presenting the SEE project. It was an opportunity to discuss the SEE project with Welsh government representatives and European Commission officials. 

Brand Essentials, One-to-One workshops.

We continue to receive enquiries from individuals asking for advice and support about how to develop a brand.  To meet this demand we can now offer a half-day workshop tailored for and delivered to individual organisations to help them understand and manage the brand process – building their confidence to define their specific needs and get the most out of working with external design agencies. This impartial advice will help them make the most of the money they invest in what should be their most valuable asset – their brand.

The workshop includes:

• A thorough introduction to the brand process.
• Discussion on how to define your brand values in relation to the competition.
• A framework for specifying your needs via a comprehensive brief.
• Guidance on how to find, select and manage the most appropriate external design expertise.
• Post-workshop support in interpreting quotes & proposals from prospective design agencies.

Dates: The workshops can be arranged at a time convenient to you.
Location: Cardiff, but all other locations can be arranged.
Cost: £300

We can also run this successful and popular Brand Essentials workshop for groups of companies on behalf of any regional business support organisation in the UK - just ask for details.

SEE bulletin issue 2

At the end of January 2010, the SEE project launched the second edition of the SEE bulletin, one of six to be published between 2009 and 2011.

In this issue, the research paper is a contribution from Hong Kong by Professor John Heskett. ‘Aspects of Design Policy in History’ traces the evolution of policy from images of identity to economic intervention across ancient civilisations, political regimes to present-day economic doctrines. The article ‘From 2009 to 2010: EU and Regional Design Policy Developments’ is a review of the current state of play in the EU and regional design policy debate, a continuation from the article published in the previous SEE bulletin. We also explore the imperative of modernising policy-making through comparing two different approaches to drafting policy in the US and Denmark. This edition’s case studies feature ‘Good Design Selection’ from Korea as an integral part of the government’s innovation and procurement strategy; and ‘Better by Design’ from New Zealand, a government initiative to expand the country’s economy through the successful application of design to export businesses. Finally, we present a snapshot of world design policy news through interviews from Argentina, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Iceland and Qatar.

The SEE bulletin is the only publication entirely dedicated to exploring matters related to design policies and programmes for design support. It is published by Design Wales, lead partner of the SEE project. The SEE bulletin is distributed to 58 countries around the world.

SEE is a network of eleven European partners exploring how to integrate design into regional and national innovation policies. The project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the INTERREG IVC programme. An electronic copy of the bulletin is available to download from the SEE website: http://seeproject.org/publications. If you would like to receive SEE bulletins in the future please email info@seeproject.org.