It’s a shame retail design is not taken seriously in the UK

Thank you for your generous words about my appointment as professor of retail design at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands (Comment, DW 18 February).

You do make a couple of important points. If the UK is supposed to be the centre of the design universe, why didn’t something similar (or
better) happen here?

And why is it that among the establishment (including the academic world) the discipline of retail design is generally considered such a low art? The disciplines of wallpaper and pottery design are held in greater esteem.

I suppose it’s because retail (and, by association, retail design) will always be linked with ’consumerism’, or worse.

Rodney Fitch, Professor of retail design, Delft University, by e-mail