Was the CSD ever committed to the design review process?

Once again, Design Week has raised the issue of a 5000 contribution by the CSD to the Design Review. There was never a firm commitment to participate in the review, the word DW used was “poised” which was a fair description of our position.

The CSD has made it clear on numerous occasions that there were fundamental reasons for not taking part in the review. I think it would be useful to restate them:

The timescale of the pre-conference questionnaire precluded the CSD from having any meaningful input.

A major part of the questionnaire was geared towards the possibility of unifying existing bodies. We felt this was not the key issue. We, like the delegates to the Halifax Initiative, feel that the most important issue, to quote your 4 July article, “is getting design a much more influential role in Britain’s future”.

There was a missed opportunity to seek comments on this important subject via the questionnaire.

The CSD was unhappy with the brief for the conference and felt our comments were not fully understood by the organisers.

The society has plans to restructure its finances over the next eight years. However, we must not loose the benefits this brings and should only look at investing money in reviews and other projects where we can truly say that it offers value-for-money.

Using that criterion, we felt that we could not donate 5000 to the Design Review.

The CSD will always look at way of enhancing and publishing the undervalued skills of Britain’s designers and I am sure that we and Design Week will find many areas of future co-operation.

Bob Searles FCSD

Honorary Treasurer

CSD

London EC1