Paid pitch for new department

The Government is living up to its pre-election and Budget pledges to support design, by consulting the Design Council on the running of a paid pitch to create the identity for the renamed Department of National Heritage.

The Design Council will advise on the brief document and on consultancies to be included on a shortlist.

A spokesman for the department, now called the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, could not confirm the size of the pitch budget. It “will not be huge”, he says. An interim identity developed by a company of typesetters will be used in the meantime.

Further evidence of a commitment to the industry comes in the forming of an unpaid panel of industry experts, including WPP director Eric Salama, fashion designer Paul Smith and Virgin founder Richard Branson, to forge stronger links between the industry and Government.

Named the Creative Industries Taskforce, it will be chaired by Chris Smith, now the first Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. As well as linking the new department to the industries it represents, the task force is intended to improve co-ordination between other Government departments.

Chris Smith says, “I am committed to developing a new and dynamic approach to the creative economy. By this I mean those goods and services in the cultural sector, including… intellectual property, publishing and design.”