British Council targets Brazil for design export

The British Council is working with marketing communications group Abet CMC to establish a model for exporting design services to Brazil.

The project is part of the British Council’s drive to boost its design promotion offering, by using the local knowledge base it has gained through its 109 offices worldwide.

The council has drawn up a shortlist to determine the next country to target and expects to begin researching that market early next year.

It expects to target other countries in the longer term.

Abet CMC is working with the council’s UK and Brazil offices. The consultancy has pinpointed a number of design opportunities in Brazil as part of the project.

It has so far identified opportunities in corporate branding, furniture design, food packaging, the communications industry and the car industry.

“We are researching the market, selling our designers to Brazil and Brazil to our designers. The idea is to bring them together,” says Abet CMC creative director Joe Tibbetts.

The initiative covers a broad design spectrum, including new media, product, packaging, branding, graphics, identity, interiors and information design.

Tibbetts is due to go to Brazil to “talk to as many design buyers and industry leaders as possible”. This will be followed by a seminar for interested design groups hosted by the Department of Trade and Industry.

In November Tibbetts will take around 12 consultancies to Brazil in order to meet prospective design buyers. The participating consultancies will be partially subsidised.

Tibbetts says Brazil is a good market because the economy is booming, it is in the early stages of a five-year privatisation programme and has a European way of doing business. In addition, Britain has recently signed a trade agreement with Brazil.

The British Council in Amsterdam is running The British Design Season 1998 in Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Eindhoven. This runs from Saturday (2 May) to 27 June.