The design should have served to help companies better withstand the effects of the coronavirus, but it has not been the case, laments the president of ADI-FAD, Salvi Plaja. "Covid has given us much to think about," he remarks. He believes that it has become evident that the country's industry is still fragile, despite the fact that for years they have emphasized the importance of design, as a tool that improves people's quality of life and generates benefits for companies through product improvement.
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Plaja gives the example of the strength of countries like Germany and Italy, where the added value that design brings to industry is understood and many companies have design departments or in-house designers. "The formula exists, but in Spain we have never managed to fully implement it," he explains.
The first stumbling block is our conception of industrial design. "We associate it with making things prettier. It is its main and most human function, but not the only one," Plaja emphasizes. Other functions are also important, such as the usability of industrial design, the use of sustainable materials and human, easy-to-understand technology, and the promotion of innovation. In addition, Plaja defends the "humanistic dimension" of design: its professionals are trained in the field of Humanities and can bring uncommon visions to companies, such as creativity and the commitment to putting people at the center, beyond clients and users.
Product design is also a way to help the industry "be different" and generate value, but Plaja believes that in Spain, the concepts of design and industry have become separated. "We have good design quality and, as we don't have enough industry, many ideas are generated, which are communicated, for example, in magazines, and we thus manage to have a good design culture, but we have resigned from industry," he states. In this sense, he indicates that we historically relate advances in industry with efficiency improvements, such as the use of the steam engine, assembly line production, or robotics, but not with the ability to create products in a different way, which would allow for greater resilience. "The profession of designer is the most idyllic and well-known face, and the one we have most developed. On the contrary, the industrial one we have totally abandoned. And, without industrial capacity to launch new concepts to the market, products remain mere ideas," he adds.
That is why the ADI-FAD association, whose mission is to spread the importance of this profession among society, has launched a manifesto that vindicates the qualities of industrial design that Plaja points out, on the occasion of the new edition of the Premis ADI, which will be awarded on November 24, within the framework of Barcelona Design Week.
The commitment of the Premis ADI
The president of the industrial design association assures that the 2020 edition of the Premis ADI is "one of the best in recent years," with very high participation and a very good level of candidacies. The 59th edition of the Premis incorporates two new categories: the Premi Trajectòria and the Premi ADI Reconeix, Emergència covid-19. The latter aims to reward initiatives that have emerged as a result of the coronavirus crisis and that have allowed "creating to save lives," with the design of respirators or masks. That is, an "emergency design," as Plaja explains. "We already knew that design saves lives. But after analyzing all the received candidacies, we have realized that designers can also provide solutions in the very short term," he adds.
The ADI Awards, which are biennial, will also feature their traditional categories. The Delta Awards, the ADI Medals, and the ADI Culture Awards. For ADI-FAD, the Delta Awards represent the past because products already on the market are presented; the ADI Culture Awards, the present, considering that they analyze the current articulation of ideas about design; and the ADI Medals, the future, since they recognize the youngest talents in the sector working in companies.