COMMENT:
How we feel. The choices we make. The goods we purchase. The charities we support. These are not decisions that we are hardwired to make ourselves. In deciding, we will be influenced by the environment we live in, what we see and often what we don't; the seemingly invisible cues that we subconsciously and immediately react to. This is the power and the beauty of design.
This Friday, at what will be the 21st annual Best Design Awards, New Zealand designers and business leaders will gather to recognise and celebrate the collective role our design industry plays in the social, economic and cultural well-being of our country.
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The economic importance of design can be easily overlooked. Indeed we're quick to recognise innovation as a driver of our economy but slow to realise that design is a key component of innovation, turning great ideas into services and products that consumers want to buy and use. We outlined this point in a study we published in 2017 on the value of design. Through this study, we calculated that the contribution of the design industry to our annual GDP was over $10 billion - meaning that if design were to be treated as a stand-alone industry, its contribution would be greater than that of agriculture and on a par with retail trade.