Concept and service

The potential of design will not be unleashed until design is accepted as an important and indispensable approach to societal, organizational, political and commercial challenges, on a par with the arts and sciences.

Over the past decade, the need to discuss the role and responsibility of design and designers in termas of addressing rapid changes in the world community - bringing new challenges that until now have only rarely been addressed by the international design community - has become increasingly apparent

Danish Designers work internally and externally to stimulate discussion about design and the professional, commercial and ethical roles and responsibilities of designers.

There is an urgent need to focus on the new role of design as a process, method and tool for change, and to highlight new design disciplines and areas where design is only too rarely regarded as a relevant approach or competence.

Design is a communication process and crucial factor for growth, competitiveness and change. Design offers solutions that could make a great difference to individuals, specific groups or society at large. It is vital to give designers new knowledge and tools so they can exploit their potential as designers as well as the opportunities offered by multidisciplinary networks. At the same time we want to initiate closer cooperation with political and industrial leaders and others outside the design community in order to fulfil our ambition to promote the subtle but powerful role of design in influencing global developments.

The potential of design will not be unleashed until design is accepted as an important and indispensable approach to societal, organizational, political and commercial challenges, on a par with the arts and sciences. Design bridges the gap between the arts and sciences and has the advantage of not being founded in one specific science. The designer’s strength lies in the pursuit of alternative approaches inherent in the nature of design methodology and the ability to combine solutions already offered by other scientific disciplines.

Historically, design has been synonymous with giving form to an object or graphic communications, and as such - giving form has always been a key element in the role of the designers. However, a number of studies and projects have shown that the designer’s methodological approach to abstract problems, which do not necessarily materialize in a tangible or interpretable product, but where optimizing the way in which people work towards a goal and the way in which people's knowledge and other resources are exploited, contributes greatly to the ultimate quality of the solution.

At the same time, the reality is that most designers do in fact work on projects that lead to tangible results, even though very few designers conform to the picture painted by the media, where design is all about styling, aesthetics and lifestyle.

Many of our members design components, machines, technical devices and other objects with a purely industrial application. Others – interior architects and designers – work with public spaces, corporate environments and workspaces rather than with the interior decoration and home design that normally attract the attention of lifestyle magazines. Still others – graphic and communication designers – work more with technical documentation and manuals, web-based solutions, internal information and stakeholder publications than with graphic design for the attention of a wider audience.

All these – largely unknown – design disciplines are crucial to corporations, institutions and public administration in terms of functionality, competitiveness and development. These disciplines require a systematic, analytical approach to identifying needs and solving problems, perhaps even more so than consumer-oriented design.