Face up to overseas competition, says Design Council
The UK design industry is facing more intense competition than ever, with increased rivalry from oversees in the past three years, according to new research from the Design Council published today.
The UK Design: Buying and Selling for a Global Industry research was carried out among almost 300 designers facing international competition.
Eight out of ten designers surveyed are up against overseas competition for UK business, the findings show. More than half (56 per cent) say the main competition for the work is from Asia, with digital and multimedia designers singling out India (52 per cent), and product and industrial designers (42 per cent) being mainly concerned with China.
A narrowing gap in quality between home-grown and overseas design is one reason mentioned for design buyers looking abroad, as clients become less willing to pay premium prices for UK design.
The survey also shows that there is still a strong performance for the UK industry, that more than six out of ten designers have changed their services in response to the international competition, and that, as well as the competition, the overseas market has also led to increased opportunity for designers.
For the full research survey see www.designcouncil.org.uk/internationalcompetition.
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It’s quite simple. Good graphic design is typographic in nature. The English have the finest culture and training in this field.
Currently we have a swathe of marketing idiots who do not understand good design, nor are they interested. They want BANG for buck. And as few bucks as possible.
What we will see is a simple movement, just like in the days of retail vs. catalogue.
Those who really know their onions will do a bit of both, and the name is quality.
Then you have your argos.
Britain will not keep the argos work. But where it comes to quality, you will find it in the british design industry.
We won’t win the battle of the cookie cutter budget knock out.
We will win on quality.
It’s the same with product design. Ford design their high end sports brands, luxury cars, and concept cars in the UK and Germany. Britain no longer builds the Morris Minor, but we do design Astons, owned by Ford.