Together, the Danish Design Centre and the production company TWO+ have made the film “Innovation via Design – The Danish way to compete in the world market”. The film will be used in the branding efforts for Danish design in China, among other purposes.
The 4-minute film illustrates the unique ways that large Danish companies like Bang & Olufsen, Hummel, Novo Nordisk, Jyske Bank and LEGO apply design as a strategic instrument in their activities. The companies view design as a key competitive factor and have made it an essential part of their business strategy. They know that design is the element that makes the difference between a standard product and a competitive product.
Cool little film, but I think they got the wrong people to say things about design.
Who would be the right people then?
Well, it was mostly a reaction to the B&O CEO saying things like “there is a reason for things being as they are, and the common denominator for these ideas is an idea that we call design”.
But I also know that B&O has (or at least had) a really interesting guy called Klaus Bærentsen who did exciting and profound analyses on design of “cognitive” artifacts. http://www.lucs.lu.se/People/David.de.Leon/Papers/ECCS.html for an article based on Bærentsen’s work