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newsletter quarterly bulletin of the International Council of Design |
April 2025 | |||||||||
01
ICoD NewsDo you feel defeated by the pressure to create more “stuff”, to design unethical objects or systems of distribution that are not sustainable? How can your design practice break the myth that there are “not enough” resources to go around? What outlandish design act could you carry out to prove optimism can support balance, equity and flourishing? |
02
Books on designJulia Watson's book Lo-TEK Design by Radican Indigenism (Tashen 2021) interweaves text and outstanding visuals and graphics to chart four unrecognised ecological innovators of design. "Lo-TEK" is defined as: "A design movement to rebuild an understanding of indigenous philosophy and vernacular architecture that generates sustainable, climate-resilient infrastructures." From the Jri Living Root Bridges of the Khasis, India, to the Acadja Aquaculture of the Tofinu, Benin, readers will encouter a whole new way of considering design rooted in place and indigneous knowledges working in tandem with natural systems of the Earth.
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03
New MemberICoD is pleased to welcome New Member National Institute of Design (NID) (India), an educational and research institution for Industrial, Communication, Textile and IT Integrated (Experiential) Design. NID has attained national and international repute owing to its experience in the fields of design education, research, application of advanced teaching methodologies, and unparalleled design research projects all of which span more than six decades.
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04
ICoD Regional Meeting 2025This year, ICoD Regional Meeting (RM): The Next Code of Conduct will be co-organised with the Brumen Foundation and Design Federation OÜ and will be a part of the European Design Festival 2025. The RM will be held in Ljubljana, Glass Hall at Hotel Union, on 6 June 2025. The context of the European Design Festival will be a place to engage with designers from Europe and discuss the topics around professionalism and design. A core topic of the RM will be about setting standards for the ICoD Code of Conduct and AI to address the role of design in understanding the complex relationships between AI and humans, the environment, cities and all forms of life. |
05
New MemberOffering degree programmes at the bachelor, master and PhD levels, the School of Design at the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) (China) develops co-learning with design enterprises to break down the “walls” between classrooms, labs, industry and society. Committed to enhancing students’ creative thinking, critical thinking and innovative abilities the School works with the students’ own ideas and initiatives, engaging in interdisciplinary cross-boundary design, enhance mind/hand integration, enrich systematic thinking and construct individual knowledge to design for the real world.
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06
ICoD Event EndorsementICoD is announcing the Endorsed Event programme, an initiative committed to enhancing the quality of design-related events worldwide. Event endorsements will be available to Members and non-Members. This expansion aims to raise awareness and improve event quality among a broader audience, benefiting both non-members and the communities they engage with. By doing so, we can elevate standards, refine best practices, and provide guidance on how to effectively organise high-quality design events. This approach also promotes fairness and inclusivity, creates opportunities to showcase design excellence, and raises awareness of the value of professionalism in our field.
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07
New MemberICoD is pleased to welcome New Member Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts (SAFA), Shanghai University (China), a multidisciplinary design working at the nexus of concepts: “Culture inheritance and rebirth”, “Placemaking and remodelling”, “Digital innovation and convergence”. Founded by Liu Haisu in 1912 is the only comprehensive art school in Shanghai. The Academy has been committed to promote the seamless integration of knowledge transmission, skills development and value guidance, fostering talents who can inherit the Shanghai ethos design heritage, address urban life design, frontier theories and problem-solving research, with a global perspective design theory and practice. In 2024, SAFA becomes one of the three universities within China with complete doctoral programs in both theoretical and practical concentration in design. |
08
AI opinionMany of us have, by now, seen AI images online that look strange, or not quite believable, says designer, typographer and writer, Marion Bantjes. In this piece, the Canadian designer Bantjes walks us through her own journey using programmes like DALL-E, Midjourney, and others. Positing that “AI is not intelligent,” Bantjes questions the process of image generation but also unlocks why so many of these images have viewers intrigued and users tempted to explore further, potentially for important inspiration for their practice. (Image credit to Johnathan Hoefler + Midjourney) |
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09
AI and ethics"AI is excellent at scraping the internet for data, and damn quickly, but these tools don’t conceptualize or develop strategy – they’re dumb as a post," writes one of nine professional designers and educators interviewed for a Design Professionals of Canada interview on the everyday usage of AI. The discussion is from a couple of years ago with concerns and curiosity about AI that is as relevant as ever. (Image credit to Mike Cobern + Midjourney) |
10
Endorsed EventsICoD is pleased to endorse the 2025 SEGD Global Design Awards, a renewed partnership with ICoD, highlighting Design for Humanity. Since 1987, the SEGD Global Design Awards have set the standard of excellence for experiential design. They honor work that connects people to place by imbuing spaces with context, storytelling, and meaning. The awards celebrate outstanding projects that advance the practice of experiential design and enrich the human experience for people of all backgrounds and abilities. They recognise the collective contributions of designers, fabricators, clients, and collaborators who bring these innovative projects to life. |
11
Design jobsLast year, Fast Company created a dataset of 63,000 jobs outlining which skills designers need to have and where they might get hired. Their research analysed Google’s job search listings and engine to give a bird’s-eye survey of the state of the marketplace for eight different kinds of designers: graphic, brand, game, product, UX, interior, urban, and architects. So what are these practical elements of job descriptions that will help designers identify and enact their next moves? |
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The International Council of Design |
ICoD Secretariat: Phone: +1 514 875 7545 Email: info@theicod.org theicod.org |
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