Over the past few years, there has been an increasing emphasis of design in Asia. Because of the varied unique cultural and economic strengths of Asia, it is pulling companies from other nations worldwide to invest in the design talent pools of Asia at phenomenal rate.
For Asia to be at the forefront of global competition, companies have to constantly be creative towards greater innovations. Therefore, design is the key to answering this new competition. By translating the aesthetics, engineering and lifestyle of Asia into new ideas, these set to create unique economic design values to differentiate Asia’s market from the rest.
Therefore, design is critical towards fostering competitiveness and creativity in all stages of business - from product development to manufacturing, marketing and the design of user experience.
The success of government support towards Asian design
To promote design, Asian governments have set up design promotion organizations to work closely with the education and business regime to cultivate a pool of design expertise for the nation. Also, design initiatives like annual design competitions and exhibitions have been set up to help promote the nation’s design excellence and attract designers from other countries to enter the Asian market.
Amongst the different Asian design initiatives established, Korea’s Good Design Awards and Japan’s Good Design Award have been very successful events which have proven the point of promoting national design excellence as well as opening up their markets to attracting design entries from worldwide.
The Good Design Award system was first started in 1969, Japan by JIDPO (Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization), in the attempt to recognize one’s design and quality excellence. Then in 1985, the Good Design Award system was also started by KIDP (Korea Institute of Industrial Design Promotion) to promote improvement towards living quality and competitiveness of Korean companies through intentionally demonstrating the high quality of product designs.
The establishment of such design award systems and design promotions supported by the government over the last few decades has helped:
- 1. Established Design Branding of good designer products through credible Asian design award recognition. For example, the G-Mark trademark is a successful brand that consumers recognize as a symbol of design and quality excellence.
- 2. Drawn in design entries from many other countries Worldwide, making Asian design exhibitions like Design Korea, Good Design Awards (Japan), China Industrial Design Week, Design for Asia Award (Hong Kong) and Singapore Design Festival (Singapore) well-known global design events.
- 3. Set up the Foundation of other design initiatives and government support in other parts of Asia through Inter-Cultural Collaboration. For example, the chairman of the Good Design Awards Jury, Mr Toshiyuki Kita, is also in the international advisory panel (IAP) of DesignSingapore to advise upon the establishments of design initiatives in Singapore.
In today’s 21st century, design has become a dominant competitive factor of a product, which defines a nation’s economic strength and design talent pool. Therefore, government support is vital in the active promotion of Asian design; to successfully promote its unique design strengths and creative design talent pool.
