Free advisory services come to an end

As of 31st March 2009 Design Wales will no longer provide a free advisory service for Welsh industry.

All free advisory support services for industry are now provided under the banner of the Welsh Assembly Governments Flexible Support for Buisness programme (http://www.business-support-wales.wales.gov.uk/).

Design Wales will continue with a revised programme of activities to be announced in the near future that build on our experience for the provision of practical services and events to encourage and facilitate the use of design and support the development of regional design policy.

Design Wales Presents Design Futures 2009

date: 12th March 2009
venue: National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
time: doors open 7:00pm for 7:10 start

Design Wales would like to invite you to the annual Design Futures event.

In addition to presenting the annual Ffres Awards to the best entries from graphic, textile and fashion design students from Wales, this year’s speakers will be:

Angus Struthers: Head of Service Design
Virgin Atlantic
“Find out why Virgin Atlantic has a Service Design team, what we do and how we do it”.

Steve Masterson, Partner & COO,
Kiska Design, Austria
Founded in Salzburg in 1990, KISKA has grown to be one of Europe's largest design companies with more than 100 employees from 15 nations offering design services that range from brand strategy to transport and exhibition design.


The Ffres Awards
Launched to help design students from Wales gain experience in working with industry, this year’s briefs for the competition were set and judged by:
Seren for graphic design
New Look for fashion design
Mothercare for textile design
All three companies will be talking about the brief, the challenges they set for the students and presenting the awards to the winning entries on the night.

The Design Futures event is free but all delegates must be registered in advance.
To request a ticket and receive more information please
e-mail enquiries@designwales.org or call 0845 303 1400

Design Wales Finds Development of the Metallica Brand Very Interesting!

Design Wales attend Service Design Conference

The first international Service Design conference in Europe took place in Amsterdam on 24-26 November 2008. Design Wales attended the 2nd day ‘Share’ of the three-day conference organised by the Service Design Network. During the day academic experts and practising service designers shared their knowledge and experiences of service design projects. As Service Design is a relatively new discipline it was especially useful to gain insight into real life projects through the case studies from live|work and Engine.

http://www.service-design-network.org/
http://www.livework.co.uk/
http://www.enginegroup.co.uk/

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.