Design takes centre stage at the Sage

Businesses and academics from across the North East descended on to Gateshead on Tuesday 15 October to hear a stellar line-up of speakers from the country’s top design agencies and highly regarded global brands at the annual ‘Design Means Business’ event.

Over 150 people attended the national conference at The Sage Gateshead, which boasted an impressive speaker programme of senior figureheads and leading practitioners, from the likes of Orange, Philips and Euctechnyx, who shared their real business experiences on how design has impacted their bottom line.

As part of the event, held in association with Design Network North, the head of design at Orange took to the stage. Neil Churcher, who is responsible for interaction design development and design consistency across mobile, tablet and web within his role, talked about design’s underlying meaning and how it brings value to a business.

Neil said: “Coming to Design Means Business was great for a number of reasons. Firstly I work for an international company but like to see what’s going on in other places – particularly the North East, and it’s interesting to see how design functions here.

“Secondly, it’s good to talk about how to integrate design into other practices and why it’s important, and stressing that importance to other businesses.”

Proceedings then saw the world’s leading independent driving game developer, Eutechnyx, present its UK launch of ZeroLight virtual showrooms – 3D real-time visualisations designed to help brands showcase products in retail, commercial and exhibition environments.

Eutechnyx marketing manager Jason Collins said: “It’s a pleasure to be part of the Design Means Business conference, which is a fantastic opportunity for us to share our experience in designing the future of automotive retail with our ZeroLight powered Virtual Showrooms. We proudly took our place alongside the impressive list of this year’s speakers to celebrate and advocate the value of design to businesses.”

Following on from Eutechnyx, Gavin Proctor, director of innovation design at Philips, discussed the challenges facing innovation in large corporations and the means by which design can facilitate in this process.

With 27 years’ experience as a professional designer with Philips, he explained why Philips Design is central to the entire organisation and provided insight into the consumer’s importance in the design innovation process. Gavin returned to Newcastle – where he graduated in Design for Industry at Northumbria University – from Germany, where he is based.

Design Network North’s Terry McStea said: “The conference has talked about everything including products, services, brands and healthcare, so there really has been something for everyone. We’ve had delegates from the likes of Black & Decker and Mayborn Group to start up companies, designers, non-designers and students – it really shows how design is relevant to everyone to use and to grow their business.”