The tangible and intangible impact of design activity

This paper was written to support the keynote speech delivered by the author at the European Design Forum (EDF) Workshop, Design Makes the difference - Design Management, organised by VIZO (Flemish Institute for Small and Medium Enterprises) in November 2003. The author was commisioned by the EDF members (Vizo, Design Department, Brussels; The Lighthouse, UK; Designmuseo, Finland; Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen, Germany; Museo di Castlevecchio, Italy & Pro Materia, Belgium) to present research into a tool for evaluating the impact of design investment. This research was undertaken by the author for UK Design Council (A £40,000 research award entitled Design Investment Explorer made to the University of Dundee in May 2000 (Inns as Principal Investigator)). The tool described in the chapter takes the form of an assessment framework that sorts the impact of design investment into different categories. First of all impacts are categorised as tangible and intangible effects, they are then sorted into internal (impacting on internal efficiency or capability) and external (impacting on cash flow into the business). The way this information can be used to inform decision making is then explored. The paper was translated into French in 2004 and published in Design Management Magazine No 6 in November 2004 (published by Centre du Design, Rhone-Alps, Lyon, France. The work has been used to inform work exploring the economic impact of design in other European countries and is cited in the DDI (The Spanish State Agency for Design & Innovation) 2005 report (37 pages) ‘Estudio del impacto economico del diseno’.