Designing Demand FAQs

Please click on a question from the list below:

What is the Designing Demand programme?
Who is running the programme?
What does Designing Demand offer?
Can anyone take part in the programme?
Is the programme the same for all businesses?
Who is funding the programme?
What are the elements of the programme?
What kinds of design projects have been undertaken through the programme?
Who are Design Associates?
What do they do?
What qualifications do Design Associates have to help businesses in this way?
How can I become a Design Associate?
What evidence is there that design makes a difference to a businesess's performance?
What results has Designing Demand produced do far?
How much will it cost businesses to take part in the programme?
Why was the programme created?
Is the programme available everywhere in the UK?
What should businesses do if they want to take part in the programme?

What is the Designing Demand programme?
Designing Demand is a design support programme for UK businesses. It helps them become more competitive, increase their profits and boost their performance through the strategic, effective use of design.
Return to top

Who is running the programme?
The programme has been developed by the Design Council and is being delivered in partnership with Regional Development Agencies and others.
Return to top

What does Designing Demand offer?
Designing Demand is the only national design support programme offering:
- Flexible, structured processes including individual attention from Design Associates with extensive design management experience.
- Access to Design Council case studies, methods and tools.
Return to top

Can anyone take part in the programme?
The programme has been developed specifically to help businesses, whether they are start-ups, established businesses or enterprises focused on commercialising new technologies. Other parts of Designing Demand are devoted to helping designers understand businesses' needs and issues, and to helping business advisors spot design opportunities.
Return to top

Is the programme the same for all businesses?
No. The programme consists of different services designed for businesses at different stages of development and with different needs.
Return to top

Who is funding the programme?
The Design Council has developed the programme and the Regional Development Agencies fund its delivery in each region.
Return to top

What are the elements of the programme?
Designing Demand Workshops – fast-paced and practical one-day workshops showing businesses what design investment could do for them. Additional half-day workshops support designers' and business advisors' ability to help clients.

Designing Demand Generate – a service to help both established businesses and high-growth start-ups get a design project moving.

Designing Demand Innovate – sustained support for technology start-ups, helping them use design to reduce time to market and attract investment.

Designing Demand Immerse – the most intensive service, aimed at mature businesses with the appetite for strategic change.

Services provide a mixture of workshops and one-to-one mentoring from Design Associates experienced in managing design and tackling business issues.
Return to top

What kinds of design projects have been undertaken through the programme?
Design projects have drawn on a wide range of disciplines including product, service, packaging, web and communications design and branding.
Return to top

Who are Design Associates?
Design Associates are experienced design managers approved to deliver one or more of the Designing Demand services.
Return to top

What do they do?
Design Associates fulfil a number of roles both as Design Associates for the Generate, Innovate and Immerse sevices and as Workshop Associates for the various Designing Demand workshops.
Return to top

What qualifications to Design Associates have to help businesses in this way?
Design Associates are typically qualified designers who have worked as design managers and led creative teams, often with formal business management training and experience of delivering business advice or consultancy.

Design Associates are selected using a rigorous recruitment and interview process and Designing Demand supports them with a programme of continuous professional development.
Return to top

How can I become a Design Associate?
To find out more please visit www.designingdemand.org.uk/designassociates.
Return to top

What evidence is there that design makes a difference to a business's performance?
Design Council research proves that businesses that use design as a key strategic driver are consistently more successful. For example:
- A business that increases its investment in design is more than twice as likely to see its turnover grow as a business that does not do so
- Shares in design-led businesses outperformed key stock indices by 200 per cent for a decade
- Rapidly growing businesses are six times more likely than static ones to see design as integral to their business.

Meanwhile, businesses failing to recognise the value of design are leaving themselves increasingly vulnerable in today's competetive global business environment.

See the Case Studies section on this site.
Return to top

What results has Designing Demand produced so far?
To date, Designing Demand has helped more than 1,500 firms develop the skills to choose, brief and manage designers and make design part of their strategy. Nine out of ten firms who undertook design projects through the Immerse service said they were critical to success. ninety-seven per cent of Generate businesses expect sales to increase, and 80 per cent of businesses on the Innovate service said it had improved their ability to attract finance.
Return to top

How much will it cost businesses to take part in the programme?
Workshops, services and Design Associate support are provided at no charge. The only direct cost is the design fees relating to design projects. In some regions, project costs are also subsidised.

The project will depend on businesses' precise needs, but they can vary in size and cost from around £5,000 to more than £100,000.

Businesses should also expect to invest senior management time in projects lasting from six to 18 months.
Return to top

Why was the programme created?
The accelerated roll-out of the programme follows a review of creativity in business commissioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the then Design Council Chairman Sir George Cox. The Cox Review, published in 2005, identified the need for urgent action if UK buinsesses are to compete with rivals in fast-emerging global economies. The review, endorsed by the Chancellor, recommended support for the Design Council's programme and called for it to be made available across the UK to help SMEs use design as a business tool.
Return to top

Is the programme available everywhere in the UK?
By 2010 Designing Demand will be running in all of the nine English regions. To see where it is currently running please see the 'How Does it Work' section of the website.
Return to top

What should businesses do if they want to take part in the programme?
To register for a Designing Demand Workshop, go to the Click to Book section of this site.
Return to top