Our education system is key to ensuring Britain's strength in design
British design is undergoing an undeniable renaissance. Following the recent Department for Culture, Media and Sport report that revealed the creative industries are worth £76.9bn in terms of gross value added, even the government is taking notice. We believe we are a nation of inventors. Innovation courses through our veins, ready to be tapped at any commercial opportunity that presents itself, wherever it is in the world.
Not only does our design heritage sell well overseas, the strength of British design and innovation also means that businesses here attract the best global talent. There’s always been a mix of nationalities working in our studio – people often attracted to London by the excellent design schools. At JBS Studio we recruit for roles of all sorts, from industrial designers and architects to lighting and programming wizards. We also look internationally for candidates.
But success can easily breed complacency. With the emerging nations swiftly absorbing many of the service industry skills we prize (see the rendering farms in China that make high intensity design processing a snip, or the excellent architecture coming out of India) how do we maintain an upper hand when we might very well be hanging on by our fingernails?
Our education system is the key to maintaining that strength and we must protect it at all costs. Our excellent schools and universities attract international student talent. This has the additional effect of encouraging talent to stay, but many alumni also travel back to their home countries and still want to work with British designers. The reputation of our brains travels well. We must keep that up. Immigration and a reasonable openness to our borders are key to engendering this success. We’d do well to remember that in an election year.
The key thing about British design education is not only that it teaches the technical skills of design, it also teaches process and thinking. The way we are taught is critical, not just what we are taught. My postgraduate masters was about lateral thinking. Mentors such as Stephen Gage, professor of innovative technology at University College London, and Sir Peter Cook of avant-garde architectural group Archigram taught people the process of creative problem solving to encourage disruption and new approaches to technology.
In that environment, architecture was taught in very loose terms, which created a multitude of hybrid practices and talents, including ground-breaking flavour-based experience designers Bompass & Parr, and Asif Khan (we built an installation in his Olympic Beatbox Pavilion).
The Digital Double No 10 door
What else? Private enterprise must support our university system if we’re to ensure graduates are fit for purpose for the jobs available to them. More studios should collaborate and partner with universities to give back to the education system. It’s an excellent way of sourcing exciting new talent too. It’s an ecosystem that benefits everyone involved.
There are also issues with size, geography and disruption. We’ve just returned from a trade delegation in China with the Great campaign. The speed of innovation there is startling. We must keep up by staying nimble and ensuring the quality of our output remains world beating. In the future, disruptive businesses will be a lot smaller.
Collaboration between these companies is also key. We recently created the Digital Double project for No 10 Downing Street in which we replaced the iconic door with a version that transferred light. The work, commissioned by the Great campaign, saw us combine our tech skills with those of the master craftsmen at Benchmark, a UK firm considered one of the world’s best bespoke furniture manufacturers. Other small but mighty tech leaders include Bare Conductive and Technology Will Save Us.
Britain does premium, quality goods better than anyone, so let’s leave mass and crass for those that have the scale to compete.
So we need an unholy mix to succeed: the highest-quality education and skills; great people; favourable economic winds; and initiatives to promote British creative talent overseas. It’s a lot to wrangle. But if the London Games proved anything, it’s that we’re not just a nation of inventors; we’re a nation of organisers, which will go a long way in ensuring British design survives and thrives.
Jason Bruges is founder of JBS Studio
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