What happens when you put twenty-five Boston designers in a room with Massachusetts state officials to talk about the design industry? Throw in a few state representatives and the former deputy mayor of London and you’ve got a pretty lively discussion going. Neither side knew what to expect, when congregating at Continuum on June 10 for a design industry roundtable with the Undersecretary of the Mass Dept of Business Development and the state’s newly appointed Creative Economy Director. The government people wanted to hear from designers about what the state could do to help them grow their businesses.

So, what do design firms want? More than anything, they want an upgrading of Boston’s image as a center for good design. The coolness factor came up again and again (“Boston is politically liberal but architecturally conservative.”). They want a re-branding of Boston as a hip design place, so that design talent will move to Boston–and stay. They want a design community (witness Pink Comma gallery) and more access at a younger age to local commissions (a la European young firm design competitions.) They want greater visibility for their work (maybe a Design Expo?) to open up local markets and to create demand for Boston design.

The view from London is that Boston has unrivalled education, technology and design talent. The state and the designers just need to connect the dots and get everyone working together. Large and small companies want to expose young people to design careers (note AIGA’s Youth Design Boston) and better synch up design education with industry needs (design and business. . . or engineering or social sciences.) Design incubators, bank financing, small business development support and manufacturing capability also came up.

So, what can the state do? Maybe start by walking the talk. Redesign the state’s letterhead and business cards; hire good designers to fix the lousy signage. How about acting like the huge client that it is and open up public design bids to young architects?

Use the designers, promote them, connect them–and in the end, remember that design isn’t just an industry–it’s a way of thinking.

Beate Becker
Director
Designing an Industry/Designing the Future
(781) 789-8919
beatebecker@comcast.net

The meeting was put together by MassArt’s Designing an Industry/Designing the Future, a project that brings together designers to think and act collectively as an economic sector with voice, visibility and economic value.

The Boston Globe recently ran a story about how the design sector and other segments of the creative economy can stimulate Massachusetts’ economy.