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Vol. 15, No. 4, Fall 2004
Ulla Hovgaard Ramlau, Managing Director, DDC; Christina Melander, Team Manager, DDC
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For many years, Denmark has been known for its design, from Arne Jacobsen to Bang & Olufsen and Novo Nordisk. Design issues, writes Ulla Hovgaard Ramlau, managing director of the Danish Design Center (DDC), have for some time topped the Danish political agenda. In 1997, Denmark was one of the first countries to adopt a national design policy. In 2001, however, a change in government caused many public institutions, organizations, and advisory boards to be terminated, and public funding of corporate promotional initiatives was slashed. The funding of the Design Center came under scrutiny, as well. It was felt that public money should not be spent on promoting the development of individual private enterprises-that this should be left to the free market.
The DDC, however, felt strongly that promoting design has commercial value. After all, writes Ramlau, “Increased growth in Denmark is the result of increased revenue within Danish industry.” To prove this point, in 2003 the Design Center, working with the Danish National Agency for Enterprise and Housing, launched a survey into the economic benefits of design.
The survey found that Danish companies that invested in design registered a 22 percent higher revenue increase than for companies that did not invest. Moreover, companies that experienced an increase in design activity (an investment in training for design-related employees, for instance) achieved an additional 40 percent increase in revenues compared with companies whose design activity was either constant or decreased. Companies that employed design professionals and purchased design externally drew 34 percent of their revenues from exports, compared to 18 percent for other companies. And job creation was higher in those companies that used design.
Ramlau also mentions a tool used by the DDC to rank companies for their “design-minded” qualities. The Design Ladder describes four stages of design involvement: (1) no use of design; (2) design as styling; (3) design as process; (4) design as strategy. In the context of the DDC survey, the higher a company ranked on the Design Ladder, the better its gross performance and the higher its percentage of exports.
The data from the DDC survey convinced the Danish government of the importance of promoting design. In fact, the survey pointed out that if the promotional activities of the DDC were able to successfully affect the design policies of just 10 companies for one year, public funding of DDC activities would have paid off. In September 2003, the government adopted a new four-year national design policy.
The DDC made some changes in its own focus. Whereas it originally focused on simply encouraging companies to work with design, it will now try to enhance the performance of companies that have already adopted design, hoping they will be seen as role models. It will also work harder to establish networks-partnerships with trade organizations, for example-through which to communicate. And it will try to be internationally oriented, with a national base, in order to share ”best practices” with Danish industry and designers.
“Our vision,” Ramlau concludes, “is to turn Denmark into an international center for design development and debate…. If we can help design to contribute to value creation in Denmark, we will have reached our goal.”
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