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colonialism, where we believe that ‘foreign is always better’. I don’t think
that enough emphasis is placed on increasing and improving the output of
regional manufacturers of products that are impacted by design and many
of these industries are shrinking due to lack of competitiveness. Design is,
of course, only one of the factors that affects competitiveness and designers
can assist manufacturers in analysing their production to generally improve
their products and systems. This can only be good for the region. I’d like to
see more initiatives to bring design and designers closer to manufacturers
with the aim of improving their products and productivity on several levels
– not just aesthetics.
There is a stable and economically sound future ahead for design. Design is
a dynamic industry and designers very often ‘re-skill’ themselves and move
from one area to the next.
Personally I love product design and textile design and would love to see
more growth in these areas, particularly in printed and woven textiles, and
home accessories such as lighting, but there is also a lot of scope for other
areas of design such as illustration, motion, app, web and game design.
Increasing interest in these areas from students in the design programme at
the University of the West Indies bodes well for development in these areas.
There is also a place for some of our designers to migrate from ‘artifact-based
design’ to design areas on a ‘higher level’ such as design management,
design thinking and user experience design, and to use their design
backgrounds to help to create policies and solve management and
development problems in the region.
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