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by Andrew Lam-Po-Tang
Icograda Regional Meetings (IRM) are now being held in conjunction with Icograda design conferences, so that delegates from design associations around the world can get together, share experiences, discuss the issues facing design associations and learn from each other.
At the IRM held in Zagreb, Croatia, in April 2001, it was decided that the IRM in Brno should focus on "Raising Design Awareness." The concept of focusing the IRM around a specific topic was new for Icograda, and somewhat of an experiment. In early 2002, the Icograda Board invited me to develop a program for the meeting.
The specific objectives developed for the Brno IRM were:
- To collate and share the collective experience of previous initiatives aimed at raising awareness of design, including plenary reviews of examples from Canada, Ireland and elsewhere
- To provide a framework and process that can be used by associations in the planning, development and execution of initiatives
- To provide practical, moderated sessions for delegates to explore their own opportunities for action and learn directly from their peers' experience
- To create a body of shared knowledge about awareness-raising initiatives for ongoing use by Icograda member organisations
To achieve these objectives I developed a program comprising an online survey, a range of speakers and topics, and some group working sessions.
First, a survey
In order to meet the first objective, an online survey was conducted in April-May to gather information about design-awareness initiatives run by the associations.
Seventeen associations responded. While we had hoped for a greater number of respondents, the survey nevertheless provided a solid base of useful information from which a report was produced covering a wide range of both successful and unsuccessful initiatives. This kind of information constitutes a fact base from which design associations can learn and build from.
AGDA members can access both the survey results report, which also contains the survey questions in the appendix, here:
Then, the day itself
About 60 delegates representing design associations around the world gathered in Brno for an intense day of presentations and work sessions. The agenda consisted of:
- A review of the Canadian Designer Accreditation scheme, by David Berman. Berman was president of the Ontario chapter of GDC during the time when the scheme was introduced
- A review of the design promotion activities conducted by Enterprise Ireland, by Steve Conlon
- A presentation on strategy and planning for design associations by myself
- A review of the survey results, also presented by myself
- An afternoon-long work session. The delegates split into two groups and swapped notes on a wide range of their activities.
Canadian Designer Accreditation scheme
David Berman's presentation on the Designer Accreditation scheme was highly informative and well-balanced. Design accreditation was written into Ontario legislation in 1996. What that means is that anyone who wants to promote themselves as a professional graphic designer must sit for, and pass, an accreditation examination.
Berman acknowledged that their organisation was very fortunate in two ways: firstly in having Albert Ng, someone extraordinarily committed to creating the scheme and who spent countless hours and much energy making it happen; secondly, the political environment in Ontario was favourable at the time - all of the political parties were keen to support Canadian intellectual capital and expertise via such schemes.
Another factor which helped the program's relatively quick implementation is that in Canada, it is up to individual provincial governments (ie. the equivalents of Australian state governments) to enact this type of legislation. Being able to focus on a single province, rather than having to tackle the entire country in one go, made the program easier to implement.
When the scheme was introduced, a large proportion of practising designers were "grandfathered" into it, meaning that they were granted accreditation without having to sit for the exam.
New designer take-up has been quite successful in Ontario, as you would expect since it is law. All design colleges now include preparation for the accreditation exam in their curricula. The application fee is C$50, and the exam fee is C$100, and the exam itself is conducted twice a year.
http://www.rgdontario.com/examboard/preparations.php
The GDC is still working through the other provinces in Canada, to get the remaining governments to adopt the scheme. As yet, no other province has implemented the scheme.
http://www.rgd.ca/
Enterprise Ireland
Steven Conlon is funded jointly by the Irish government and the European Commission, and has the responsibility of explaining and promoting the value of design (all disciplines) to Irish businesses.
His activities mainly consist of working directly with Irish businesses, using a range of case studies to explain the power of design in improving competitiveness and export performance. Additionally, he networks between corporations and designers, putting them in touch with each other.
His presentation covered a range of design case studies, many of which can be viewed directly on the Enterprise Ireland site.
http://www.enterprise-ireland.com/documents/uploaded/OpportunitiesinDesign.pdf
As a result of his responsibilities in Enterprise Ireland, Conlon is also involved in Design Ireland, a broad-based coalition of the Irish Design Industry, with the full backing of The Graphic Design Business Association (GDBA), The Institute of Designers in Ireland (IDI), The Royal Institute of Architects in Ireland (RIAI), and The Institute of Creative Advertising and Design (ICAD).
The Design Ireland website contains a wealth of information about the value of design.
http://www.designireland.ie
Strategy & Planning for Design Associations
In this presentation, I focused on a couple of frameworks to help design associations segment their audiences and activities. Being able to segment is a fundamental precursor to any effective strategy, so that resources can be focused on specific objectives, audiences and outcomes rather than be "wasted" on vague objectives where it becomes difficult in hindsight to figure out what worked and what didn't.
The second half of my discussion was a walk-through of implementation planning and management. AGDA members can download my presentation here:
Survey Results
What was most striking about the initiatives covered in the survey was the fact the majority of initiatives were targeted at designers and design students. The question I posed to the delegates was, "why are you wanting to raise design awareness in people who are already very aware?"
In a similar vein, many of the initiatives were "enablement" projects aimed at helping designers help themselves. Naturally, it is crucial that design associations provide this sort of service to their members, but it was interesting that these projects had been identified as "design awareness raising" initiatives, rather than as enablement initiatives.
The major challenges identified by the associations in conducting initiatives were funding and project management. Needed to rely on designer volunteers was also a commonly-identified challenge. What is interesting is that these challenges were acknowledged from a wide range of design associations, from those operating in relatively undeveloped economies in Central Europe, the Middle East and Latin America through to associations operating in countries where the design profession is far more well established.
AGDA members can download the Survey Results presentation here
Conclusions
After the IRM I had the opportunity to get some feedback from delegates on the day's programs and also reflect on what worked and didn't work.
- Getting delegates together is an immensely valuable exercise for both learning and support
- There is clearly a vast amount of experience and information within design associations that should be more actively extracted and shared to the benefit of the international design community and individual practitioners
- Design association delegates need about a day to informally share experiences and swap notes, before getting into a structured program
- Design associations issues are a wide and varied lot, so next time I would be tempted to run a set of parallel work sessions focused on different topics, so that the delegates can zero in on the issues that matter most to them
For those of you interested in getting involved in Icograda activities directly, see:
http://www.icograda.org
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