Design bodies need to regain industry confidence

The last paragraph of the editorial comment last week took my breath away (DW 8 January).

You wrote that: “We can’t rely on the Chartered Society of Designers or Design Business Association to raise the level of debate in the industry.”

You may be right, but what an indictment of the bodies that claim to represent design.

The truth is, as you suggest, that these two organisations are in a pretty moribund state and there is a very serious need to address their health. The DBA seems to have gradually lost its will to do brave things and the CSD is just irrelevant to most of us, and its latest newsletter is a very sad little publication.

It’s time for serious change in these bodies if they are to survive in any meaningful way and we are to have decent representation.

The fact is that they both need to be very clear what their roles in the industry are and to attract a decent number of high calibre people to their operations to administer them.

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