Good design makes good sense

By IRENE CHAPPLE marketing writer

They have created non-sticky seats for the sun-drenched Athens Olympics, a chair that adjusts to a person's weight and potato peelers that offer aesthetic perfection.

New Zealand designers are attracting international attention, and, in turn, design is being increasingly seen as a valuable business and marketing tool.

The country's famed No 8 wire and black-singlet mentality has, in the past, relegated design as a bolt-on.

A Government push through Industry New Zealand and successes such as that of Lower Hutt design company Metallion have focused eyes on the financial return of design - whether in exporting or in day-to-day business.

Metallion, in the former motor industry stronghold of the Hutt Valley, designed the Unity chair.

Metallion's client, Australian company Starena, then won a contract to supply 40,000 of the seats - which feature holes to allow perspiration to evaporate - to be used at the 2004 Olympic Games.

Metallion owner Allan Brown believes the success of the Unity design will create a flow-on effect, potentially bringing hundreds of thousands of dollars of work to New Zealand.

His success follows from Lower Hutt neighbour Formway's contract with giant United States furniture maker Knoll, signed last year and tipped to earn between $15 million and $20 million in foreign exchange once established in the market.

Evidence of design's impact can be found closer to home: a family sized Fresh 'n' Fruity yoghurt container that was redesigned - made oval and able to pour - and sold at a higher price increased the product's market share by 25 per cent, says designer Bina Klose, of Shape Design.

Such examples are gratifying for the many in the industry, who are wary consumers dismiss design as simply making things pretty.

They say New Zealand businesses are starting to understand the value that can be added by good design. Highly regarded Auckland designer Peter Tasker is adamant design is essential for the economy.

"To attempt to export without design excellence is a false economy and probably suicidal," he says.

Products are sold, he says, by consumer desire - for cost, technical and aesthetic reasons.

"Good design improves value [and] usability, innovates technologically and contributes more to the desire factor than any other aspect.

"In an increasingly competitive world, costs and technology specifications are much the same between competing products.

"We have reached an age where excellence in industrial design is now regarded as the most valuable component of any new 3D product and its commercial success."

Brown says New Zealand must capitalise on its intellect. "In New Zealand it's fairly difficult to manufacture for the world - we don't have the materials or the labour. So we've got to pick on the things that we can do, and there's nothing hindering our ability to think.

"We've got to cherry-pick the bits we're good at ... and it's the creative parts that will be the wealth generators, rather than manufacturing."

Industry New Zealand agrees.

In May it established a Design Industry Taskforce, one of several think tanks set up to push New Zealand's creative industries.

A report commissioned by Industry New Zealand and completed in March showed the creative industries, including advertising, software development, architecture, fashion and design, were growing at twice the rate of the national economy.

Design, which contributes around $500 million a year to the economy, plus the value it adds to other industries, was picked as a rising star.

In Britain, design contributes 23 per cent of the comparative creative industries' income. In New Zealand, the contribution sits at 4 per cent and Industry New Zealand wants to see that increase.

Design Taskforce adviser Martin Sidoruk, who has studied architecture and is a former website producer with Saatchi & Saatchi, says countries such as Britain, Italy, Spain and even Korea have focused on their design industries.

"Design is more than just making a better product," he says. "To be successful, design thinking needs to be applied throughout your business model."

The Design Taskforce expects to have a strategy in place by December, and Sidoruk says it will have two broad objectives: informing people about design, and then helping them introduce it into business.

"In Italy," says Sidoruk, "design has been a part of its culture for as long as anyone can remember ... [New Zealand] needs to go beyond the No 8 wire approach."

In the global environment, says Sidoruk, a change is critical. "Just to remain in the table stakes it's necessary.

"To be competitive it is even more vital."

And New Zealand is highly regarded overseas, say designers such as Klose, who left Germany for New Zealand 12 years ago.

"When I left Europe everyone said, 'there goes your career'.

"In the beginning it was difficult, but you can really make a difference [in New Zealand] ... Our advantage is that we are slightly different.

"Every three months over the last two years I have gone to New York and they always say, 'your stuff is so fresh, it's so different'."

Brown attributes New Zealand's style partly to the country's isolation and the industry's youth.

"Our ideas are seen globally as crisp and clean," he says, "and more directly targeted to the real needs of consumers."