In his New Year’s speech, President Lee Tae-yong of the Korea Institute of Design Promotion (KIDP) stressed harmony and communication inside the design industry, at a ceremony held at the Korea Design Center on Jan. 23, where some 300 designers and related people attended. He also outlined projects that the design institute will promote this year. He said the Future Design Fusion Center will open in Yangsan, South Gyeongsang Province to conduct research on the fusion of design and technology acting as a creative hub for not only the globalization of K-Design but also the development of the regional economy of the Yangsan area.
Lee said the design institute will make efforts to turn its industrial products into products necessary in daily lives of the people this year and provide support to the companies making such efforts. For that purpose, the design institute will set up the room called the Livelihood Product Promotion from early this year and work closely with the industry to lift up the daily necessity product manufacturing industry, Lee said.
The president said he will steer the institute to strengthen its cooperation with the Chinese design centers and set up a design center in Iwu City, China, as the city is a base for the production of daily necessity products in China. Lee said the design institute will turn the design center in China into a base to sell its products all over the country.
This year, the design center will celebrate its 50th anniversary by holding the Korea Design Exposition with more plush programs to show off the history of design in Korea. “We will try everything to boost the position and quality of Korean
design after listening to various opinions of those in the design industry in Korea,” they said.
In order to bring that about, the institute set up the Livelihood Industry Promotion Office in January to boost the downtrodden the daily necessity product making industry and turn it into a brand name product-making industry in close contact with the industry, Lee said.
In the age of the FTA with China, the institute will strengthen cooperation with Chinese designers through the design center to be built in Iwu City, which is a global logistics and manufacturing base, as a hub for the exploration of Korean products sales channels in China.
President Lee said this is a special year with the Korea Design Exposition celebrating the 50th anniversary and “we should listen to the design industry to come up with plush programs to boost Korea’s design technology and product design quality.”
Originally entitled the Korea Design Packaging Centre, KIDP's underlying aims were to stimulate Korea's export trade through the promotion of better standards of design of Korean products and to improve the quality of design in daily life. In addition to cooperating with local and national governments across a wide range of design activities, the institute fostered design development in the business and industrial sectors. KIDP has also been responsible for the organization of the Korea Industrial Design Exhibition (first mounted in 1966), which has become the country's most important design exhibition. In common with other design promotional organizations in the industrialized world, the Institute launched its own design award scheme in 1985 — the “Good Design” or GD Mark.
