BEDA News - July - Fakulteta za dizajn

I’m Optimistic as Ever

Dear reader,

At the end of May designers, civil servants, policy makers, leaders of design centres and trade associations across Europe met for the annual BEDA Design Forum. Planning this year’s Design Forum, we really wanted to stimulate optimism and confidence.

We are all more than aware of our current challenges and crises, and at times it feels like we move in a crazy circle from crisis to catastrophe.

As the body that acts as the European design voice we want to look into the future with optimism and belief in humanity, to live in harmony with nature and each other. We see it as our responsibility.

People that know me, know that one of my main missions is to stimulate our collective imagination. If we cannot envision a better future, how can we design for it? Thus, we – BEDA – believe in fostering enthusiasm over worry, optimism over pessimism, and focusing on potentials rather than problems.

We, as all European citizens, deserve to have faith that positive change is possible.

Design has always been about creating meaning and adding value, often in entirely new and unconventional ways, driven by creative talent, courage and the ability to push boundaries. Again, this underlines the responsibility of the European design sector.

In this spirit, we titled the Design Forum 2024 COOL Europe. ‘COOL’ being an acronym of Connecting, Optimistic, Open-minded, and Long-lasting, the core of a designer’s DNA.

Besides this, no real red line in the planning of the program was considered. We wanted to bring speakers to the stage that could contribute with all sorts of different perspectives of Cool Europe – by design. Ideally leaving attendees with a feeling of being a bit all over the place, covering many different layers and angles on how design is moving forward as the enabler for sustainable growth and prosperity.

Information on what speakers spoke about can be found here.

Some of my personal notes from the Design Forum include:

Good news: Climate change mitigation is not an act of technology experts. It is an act of how to change people’s hearts and minds, thus an act of designers.
Keep in mind: culture is not an industry. Trying to limit the power and value of culture.
Opportunity: The cities on the 100 climate neutral cities list, by 2030, should be matched with local creative industry actors NOW to secure goals.
Reminder: Our design profession has fed the beast. Thus, we need to pave the way towards a better and sustainable future.
Action: How well is the design sector represented in the EU systems and mechanisms? A substantial number of designers are single person companies, micro companies, why are they remaining invisible? In addition, NACE codes are outdated, which may go a long way to explaining this invisibility.
Stay in the room: Designers are in demand. The New European Bauhaus is a great example (and should, by the way, act as a blueprint). Once invited into the room we need to ensure that we never leave.

The day after BEDA Design Forum, we hosted the annual General Assembly and asked our members attending if they could verbalise their state of mind in one word.

Here are some of the comments we received:

Hope, togetherness, evolution, home, positive, community, among friends, home feeling, wonderful, trust, celebration, curiosity, thoughtful, happy, and grateful.

I see no reason not to be optimistic as ever.

Have a great Summer.