Cardiff Design Festival opts for private sponsorship

Cardiff Design Festival director and director of enterprise at the Cardiff School of Art and Design Olwen Moseley reveals that the Friends of the Cardiff Design Festival scheme, which offers various levels of perks in return, is to relieve total dependency on festival supporter University of Wales Institute, Cardiff.

‘We’ve had a good response from sponsors and partners over the past few years contributing financially, either on an individual basis or as a company. This is a way for designers themselves to make a small contribution to ensure the financial continuity of the festival,’ says Moseley.

Funds raised by the new scheme, she says, will go towards the delivery of the CDF awards, including construction of the showcase and bringing it to a wider, international audience.

‘The festival has been invited to Eindhoven and Istanbul, and all of this comes with expense,’ explains Moseley, declining to reveal the overall cost of running the festival.

The festival will also, for the first time, team up with the Royal Society of Architects in Wales, which had funding for its own annual event, Architecture Week, pulled by the Arts Council earlier this year.

The two organisations will together host a 24-hour Design Charrette, setting out a challenge to devise multidisciplinary concepts for a mixed-use development at Cardiff Bay.

CDF this year will also host a best of Wales graduate show, providing a platform for students from a range of design disciplines chosen from six Welsh universities and colleges.

Call for submissions for CDF 2008, which takes place in October, are currently being sent out.