Bigger by design

DESIGN affects every facet of our lives, from the shape and function of the car we drive, to the clothes we wear and the food we eat.

Increasingly, it is being employed by industry at a strategic level, to give businesses a clearer corporate identity, and recognised as a discipline that can improve productivity.

Newcastle already has a reputation for turning out world-class designers from Northumbria University's Design School.

That reputation is about to be enhanced by a new complex for the university and the development of an international centre of design excellence, across the river in Gateshead.

Deputy vice-chancellor, professor Tony Dickson, said: "Our ambition is that what the Bauhaus did for modern design in the 20th Century, our partnership in NewcastleGateshead will achieve for the 21st."

The road to success began a decade ago, when the university reviewed its approach to design.

Professor James More, dean of the Design School, said: "Design in some regards is still an emerging subject.

"There are long-standing traditions in engineering design, textile design and others - but they don't often come together.

"About ten years ago, we decided to review all the disciplines to find out what it was we had in common and what we could celebrate as distinctions.

"While design has not exactly been a secret subject, it was jealously guarded by industry, up until about the 1960s. It is very often the core of their unique character and success.

"That process was essentially articulated in the medieval guilds, with all the secrecy and the political and social issues that involved.

"We had to break down those barriers.

"Up until that point, we didn't think we shared an awful lot. For the first time, it meant we could understand a design process that was catholic to all of us.

"From this, we could develop a shared philosophy based on learning design practices."

The new Design School will be part of a £100m redevelopment of the former Warner Village cinema at Manors, in the city centre. It will share the site with the university's Law and Business Schools.

For Prof Dean, the move cannot come soon enough.

"Those barriers between the design disciplines are starting to disappear," he said.

"For the last six or seven years, fashion designers have been getting much more into interior design. People want in their homes the values they perceive in the fashion arena.

"The first adventures in those barriers coming down were 60 or 70 years ago, when fashion became involved in producing perfumes.

"By selling fragrances, they were beginning to sell lifestyles and explore that sensuous relationship between design and their customers.

"Increasingly, we are seeing fashion design students working with graphic designers, or fashion marketing students working with product designers, either formally or informally.

"Each recognises they need to acquire a broader skills base and take that with them into industry."

Plans to fully utilise this wellspring of talent were announced by Chancellor Gordon Brown in his Budget speech.

Gateshead is to be home to the Design Centre North, a national centre of excellence that will help businesses integrate best design practice.

The initiative is part of John Prescott's £100m Northern Way strategy, which aims to cut the £29bn prosperity gap between the North and South.

The centre will be built at Baltic Park, on the Gateshead Quays. It is in such an early stage that the concept is still being worked on, and the project leader, regional development agency One NorthEast, was reluctant to say more.

Pat Ritchie, its director of strategy and development, said: "Northumbria University has demonstrated over the years that they are a world-class design school, with graduates such as Jonathan Ive working at the forefront of design all over the globe.

"One NorthEast is really excited by the university's ambitious plans for developing the Design School further.

"We are very pleased to be working closely with them as part of building an equally exciting regional programme, which puts design at the heart of raising the North-East's competitiveness and productivity."

Prof More said: "We have been talking to One NorthEast about this for nearly three years.

"We have done quite a lot of research on the design process itself and have found that, as the international market develops, it is seeking more from the design process and designers than it did, say, 40 years ago.

"Back then, people were really looking at designers as subservient activity in industry, that basically produced gadgets and widgets.

"Now, the market is looking at how design can enhance not only capability, but status and standing.

"Through our discussions with One NorthEast, we have done various projects for the region and Government Office North East, which have illustrated how design can make a practical difference to the regional economy."

This included the school acting as a consultant to a range of small textile businesses, set up in the wake of the industry's collapse in the North-East, after major clients such as Marks & Spencer took their custom abroad.

It ranged from working on concepts to planning assembly lines and financial structuring.

"Our contribution was not just about them defining their products, but defining themselves," said Prof More.

"The designer is becoming a kind of one-stop-shop consultant."

It is the kind of project he hopes will become routine when the centre of excellence and the design school open in 2007.

He said: "It showed there was a strong opportunity for the region and the design school to come together, because of how we are moving away from just product design, into designing management structures, or interfaces for electronics, or service infrastructures.

"This will allow us to engage specifically with emergent, intelligent, innovative industries."

The new university complex will include a tree-lined public space and a piazza. It will also include business incubator units.

It is a conscious move by Northumbria to become an active part of the heart of the city.

Prof More said: "Ten years ago, we had an international reputation, but perhaps were not recognised within the region.

"It would be fair to say we did not have a regional strategy back then either.

"Both the Design School and Business School are very interested in moving away from quite an introverted position to a much more public profile."

Part of attracting the public will be the design of the site.

"It will become a must-see area, on the same level as the Baltic or the Sage, with the same sense of occasion."

School spreads its net to embrace all disciplines

THE Design School at Northumbria is unique in the range of disciplines it accommodates.

Undergraduate degree courses include fashion, fashion marketing, product and industrial design, transportation, graphics, 3D design, multimedia and interior design.

Past students who have gone on to great things include Jonathan Ive, now vice-president of industrial design at Apple. He designed the iMac range of computers and the equally iconic iPod music player.

Fashion graduate Scott Henshall now designs dresses for celebrities. He hit the headlines last year with a creation worn by singer and actress Samantha Mumba, at the premiere of Spider-Man 2.

Industrial design graduate Peter Horbury has a leading role with car maker Ford in the US as the company seeks to refresh its brands.

Two other past industrial design students are equally well known. Tim Brown is the chief executive of IDEO, a world renowned design agency, while Stephen Kyffin is director of global design research for electronics company Philips.

Professor James More, dean of the Design School, said: "The futures we will live through are being created now by our graduates."