„departure does not only provide economic funding, but is also active in redefining and repositioning design as an economic factor in Austria. Design has to become as necessary for a company as the tax consultant, the lawyer or the coffee break”, declared Norbert Kettner, Managing Director of departure in the scope of the press conference on the thematic call 2006 initiated by departure wirtschaft, kunst und kultur gmbh, the creative industries promotion company of the City of Vienna, held at the workshop of the design studio “Walking-Chair“ on September 4, 2006.

 
Participants of the press conference besides Norbert Kettner were professor Volker Albus professor for product design at the State Academy of Design Karlsruhe) and Fidel Peugeot (designer and Managing Director of the design studio “Walking-Chair“). They talked about the objectives of the new thematic call. „re:Design – design as a process and strategy“.

With this call departure intends to challenge the classic thought patterns in order to create a new awareness for design in the business world. The motto of this year’s thematic call “re:Design“ is “design as a process and strategy“ in order to promote design projects and the sustainable utilization of design in all business processes and to provide an instrument for sustainable product development and business processes.

With “re:Design“ departure does not only focus on the efficient utilization of design, but wants to act as a promoter and service center for design - departure supports the cooperation of creative industries companies and the creation of networks apart of individual value chains.

The City of Vienna provides 500,000 EUR for “re:Design“; projects have to be submitted online at www.departure.at from August 31 to October 30, 2006.

 
The role of design is at a turning point, and this is an international development. Instead of merely embellishing products with design, it is rather becoming a central element of the value chain, thus creating a wealth of opportunities for business success. Companies that integrate design into their business operations are not only more profitable, but also benefit from a positive business development. The intelligent utilization of design has nothing to do with embellishment, but is an essential success factor for companies. Design used as an innovative process is a decisive competitive advantage for Austrian companies on international markets. It may also lead to the creation of innovative products and services, which don’t sell because they are low priced, but because they are incomparable, user-friendly and “intelligent“.

The study “The 1st Austrian Design Ladder“, which was commissioned by departure, identified the demand market for design in Austria and Vienna. The study showed that in international comparison design is of rather little significance for strategic considerations of Austrian companies. The survey was carried out by IFES, the study was prepared by Microgiants Industrial Design GmbH. The design ladder distinguishes four different “steps“ of design:

• NON Design: Design is not an issue in these companies.
• Design as styling: Design is considered the “final aesthetic enhancement of a product/service”.
• Design as process: Design is a process, which accompanies product development from a very early stage onwards with a focus on the needs of the future users.
• Design as strategy: Designers cooperate both with product developers and the management. Design is considered a central business basis.

Out of 1000 interviewed Austrian companies of different sizes only 31 percent integrate design into the product development process, and merely 15 percent orient their strategy towards design. In international comparison, Austria lags behind. In order to stand out from competing companies and to promote long-term customer retention through increased product satisfaction, it is indispensable to integrate design into the entire corporate process instead of using it merely as a supplementary element for embellishment. Thus companies and designers have to face new tasks and deal with new approaches to design.

General Objective od re:Design
For the thematic call „re:Design“ departure is interested in projects that

• use design in all corporate processes of the value chain
• use design as a strategy
• focus on the problem-solving competence in the scope of product development
• identify the benefit for the user and carry out a user segmentation
• and thus contribute to enhance the professionalism of the Viennese design scene as
  well as projects where design goes beyond the classic areas of product or industrial
  design
• that establish new kinds of networks for the solution of design problems and promote the internationalization of the Viennese design scene

Nature of the projects

• projects that demonstrate how design works in the value chain and how a sustainable effect of design can be guaranteed
• projects that create comprehensible advantages for companies through the innovative application of design
• projects where designers are involved in the development of processes and are networking with other professions in the production and design process
• projects focusing on user benefit and user experience
• projects with a multidisciplinary approach in product development and with cooperation on the management level
• projects with a clear international orientation both as regards the opening up of new markets outside Austria and cooperation projects with international partners or the work with an international project team

Not eligible for funding are projects that

• are developed on commission
• use design exclusively for embellishing or marketing purposes
• are not oriented towards customary market prices
• focus on the creation of unique artistic specimens

JURY

The international experts jury headed by Volker Albus, professor for product design at the State Academy of Design Karlsruhe, includes:

• Robert Bauer, Rotman School of Management, Toronto
• Matthias Dietz, Schindler Parent Identity GmbH, Berlin
• Lilli Hollein, freelance curator and journalist, Vienna
• Christophe Marchand, designer, Zurich
• Christian Schwamkrug, Porsche Design Studio, Zell am See
• Peter Wippermann, Trendbüro und Beratungsunternehmen für gesellschaftlichen
  Wandel / JK PW GmbH, Hamburg

departure wirtschaft, kunst und kultur gmbh, established in 2003, has been funding projects at the interface of creativity/art/culture and economy since 2004. In the scope of the
general funding program and two thematic calls – “music to sell” in 2004 and “dSign Up!“ in 2005 -departure funded 63 innovative and economically sustainable projects of Viennese
companies. In total 4.9 million EUR of grant money were provided, which triggered total economic investments of more than 19.6 million EUR and secured or created about 400 jobs.

 
Walking-Chair – The Hosts of the Press Conference
Be it product design, architecture design, graphic design or typo design – Walking-Chair has long become an international trademark. The Walking-Chair studio, which was founded by
Karl Emilio Pircher and Fidel Peugeot, was for the first time presented in 2002 in London and has since then been present on an international level. In addition to their own product
developments Walking-Chair is active in the fields of product design, architecture, graphic and typo design. PingMeetsPong, a round table, which can be used for conferences, meetings or for playing ping pong has participated in international design exhibitions and is part of the collection of the MAK (Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna). So far more than 100 pieces of the table have been sold (among others to the Colette concept store in Paris).

Together with the Paris-based design studio Tsé & Tsé associées Walking-Chair is currently presented at the Tendence Lifestyle 2006 in Frankfurt, where they are presenting among
others the “Cloud”, which is a lamp in the form of a cloud, and “PET-Light” a lamp made of PET bottles. In cooperation with Architekturzentrum Wien Walking-Chair will soon present “aschau – Das Buch”, which takes a look at the architectural production in Austria.

Further information & project submission at www.departure.at

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Due to this positive scenario the creative industries now represent the third future point of emphasis in Vienna’s economic policy after the “biotechnologies” and the “information and communications tech-nologies”.

In terms of content and operation this emphasis will be applied by departure - wirtschaft, kunst und kultur gmbh, a company established in 2003 as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Viennese Economic Development Fund.

As a business development agency, departure supports companies mainly from the sectors of fashion, multimedia, music and product and industrial design. departure does not award art and culture subsidies but offers its services and grants to people who work creatively who use and want to establish their ideas and developments within the framework of classic eco-nomic activity with the aim of successfully bringing products and services based on creative ideas and innovation onto the market.

Therefore, departure recognises, understands and respects the necessity for freedom in ar-tistic-creative work, its principles, processes and legalities. This also encompasses the high level of non-material motivation amongst those employed in the creative industries who often attach more importance to personal interpretation than to purely commercial motives.

 
From August 2004 departure will be awarding financial grants for the development of creative products and services and also for the first time for marketing of the same. The basis for this is a funding guideline approved on 1 July 2004 by Vienna’s municipal council with votes from all parties. Based on this departure will provide a continuous development program, starting with the F.0401 program, to which submissions can be made throughout the year and within the framework of which a jury will make funding recommendations probably four times a year for projects submitted. The maximum funding quota for this program is 60 percent. In addi-tion to this, departure has the facility to execute a topic-specific call at least once a year. As-sessment in this case will also be by jury and the maximum funding quota is 70 percent. Ba-sically departure is able to fund staffing and material costs.

departure is building on the preliminary work carried out by the “ZIT” Zentrum für Innovation und Technologie (Centre for Innovation and Technology)”, also a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Viennese Economic Development Fund, that first published calls in Austria in 2002 and 2003, that is time-limited project tenders specially for companies in the creative Industries. For these two calls “Creative Industries Vienna 2002” and “Creative Industries Multimedia Vienna 2003” there was 1.5 million Eur available in each case with which it was possible to subsidise16 projects in 2002 and 10 in 20032003. Also of substantial significance for the development of the creative industries in Vienna as a location was the call announced in March 2003 by the WWTF Viennese Science and Technology Fund “Creative Industries in Vienna: Development, Dynamics and Potentials“ within the framework of which ten projects on basic research were subsidised to the tune of around 3 million Eur.

For its activities in 2004 and 2005, departure had 7 million Eur available. This money origi-nates from the city of Vienna’s economic development budget and does not diminish in any way the funds available for classic subsidisation of art and culture.

departure’s managing director is Norbert Kettner. Previously Kettner was the secretary and spokesman of Dr. Sepp Rieder, deputy mayor and councillor for finance and business, for whom he worked from 1993 to 1999 in Vienna’s Health Department and from 1999 to 2003 in the Business Group for Finance and Economic Policy of Vienna. Since 1996 Kettner has also been treasurer and board member of the Life Ball and since spring 2004 board member of the Austro-Israeli Society.

Edeltraud Stiftinger, MSc, as managing director of the ZIT Zentrum für Innovation und Tech-nologie GmbH (Centre for Innovation and Technology Co. Ltd.) that, like departure, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Viennese Economic Development Fund represents the parent concern in the departure’s executive board.

Vienna – A Good Breeding Ground for the Creative Industries
The creative industries are an almost natural area of strength for Vienna. This is attributable to the presence of well-developed urban and artistic milieus, a high density of educational establishment and a well-defined research landscape in both inside and outside the univer-sity field. This conclusion was also reached by the “Investigation into the Economic Potential of the Creative Industries in Vienna”, a study commissioned by the city of Vienna and Vi-enna’s Chamber of Commerce that was carried out in 2003/2004 by WIFO (Austrian Institute of Economic Research), Mediakult and Kulturdokumentation and is the most comprehensive work in Austria on this topic.

The study examined sectors as varied as multimedia, software, advertising, graphics, fash-ion, music and audiovision, fine arts, performing arts and entertainment as well as the art market, architecture, publishing, literature and printing plus museums and libraries.

The essential results are:

• It is possible in Vienna to assign around 100,000 employees, i.e. approximately 14 percent of the entire labour force, to the creative industries sector defined above.
• Between 1998 and 2002 the increase in employment in this sector was 6 percent on average compared with 2 percent in the overall economy.
•  Forty percent of all Austrian employees in the creative industries work in Vienna where a fifth of Austria’s population resides.
• 24 percent of all Viennese companies, that is 18,000, can be attributed to the creative industries sector.
• 48.2 percent of these 18,000 companies are one-person enterprises, 47.9 percent have 1 to 19 employees, 3.2 percent 20 to 99 employees, 0.5 percent 100 to 249 employees and 0.3 percent more than 250 employees.
• The level of qualification in this sector is above average: one in four of those gainfully employed has a university degree, a further 44 % have the equivalent of A-levels.
• Half of all the creative industries companies in Vienna have been founded within the last 10 years.
• By comparison with other service sectors, the companies exhibit a much stronger trend towards innovation.
• The export potential of Vienna’s creative industries companies is not nearly fully util-ised: only 17% of sales are achieved on foreign markets, only 28% of companies want to open up new foreign markets. The problems experienced here are the small-ness of the companies and the very low levels of (human) resources.
• Only 20 % of the companies have received economic funding so far.
• The companies have great problems financing their business activity and accessing sources of external finance.

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