Design representatives should follow a market-led approach

Letters to the Editor should be sent to Design Week, 50 Poland Street, London W1V 4AX. Fax: 0171-734 1770. e-mail Design-week@centaur.co.uk

Bob Searles and the Chartered Society of Designers Management Committee deserve praise for securing an agreement with the CSD bankers to “write off” half of its 700 000 debt. No doubt much hard work went into achieving this deal.

This does nothing, however, to resolve the need, seen by many in design, to create a dynamic, lasting and economically viable body that can truly represent the design industry. Forgetting the question of how the CSD ran up such a deficit in the first place, one is tempted to ask for the formula which will enable them to achieve their reported goals of promoting the CSD more widely to the design industry, business and government while at the same time raising professional standards and cutting costs.

Surely it is time for our industry representatives to adopt the sensible, market-led approach that we might advise our clients to adopt, if they wish to succeed in their stated aims of raising the status and profile of design and thereby the potential success and profitability of the industry as a whole. That, in my view, implies one body, one voice and one direction. I do not see the CSD in its current form fulfilling this role.

Leslie Millard

The Design Distillery

London WC2

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