The mystery initiative

I received an interesting leaflet last month from Design Unity. Or maybe not. It did not promote Design Unity itself, but provided information about “the leading UK bodies and organisations representing design interests”. Spread out were descriptions, data and contact details of the Design Council, the Design Business Association, British Design and Art Direction, The Royal Society for the Arts, The Design Museum. The text, lightly overprinted with the words “design unity”, was encased in parentheses.

The leaflet’s key data serves to both unite and divide, to classify and thereby save time should anyone wish to pursue a design inquiry. “What are the similarities? What are the differences? What does each offer, and how?” That’s one of Design Unity’s aims. The other: “to foster greater collaboration between respective design bodies at all levels where there is common interest”.

Important, useful and mystifying. Who was the leaflet from? It lists “other useful contacts” – Design Week, The Chartered Society of Designers, The Royal Institute of British Architects, the Department for Trade and Industry – and credits Atelier Works with the leaflet’s design and logo, sorry, “identity”.

What about Design Unity’s identity? I appreciate that Design Unity serves as a link or conduit, encouraging “clear communication and accurate signposting both between the organisations themselves and also with government, industry, commerce and education”. Therefore, presumably, it sees no reason to add a further body to an already crowded array. Nevertheless, it seems perverse to pursue selflessness to the point of anonymity. I tried Directory Enquiries. “Nothing under that name, I’m sorry.”

How does Design Unity describe itself? Not as an office, body, secretariat, but an “initiative”. Needless to say, I didn’t tell 192 that I was trying to phone an initiative. Initiatives apparently need no locations, part-time administrators, websites or contact details.

I can understand the five main players not creating or funding a bureaucracy. Each body contributed text about itself, but who wrote the introductory paragraphs? Two names are listed among the wealth of data, one each at the Design Council and the DTI.

Don’t get me wrong. I welcome the initiative. I just can’t fathom why these bodies decided to elevate a concept to the status of a corporate brand – and then, having done so, left it at that. The cover asks, “what is design unity?” which suggests it has a life of its own. If all it intends is to provide information, why not simply print: “a guide to the world of design organisations” on the cover, but in less plonky prose?

Or perhaps further developments are afoot? Will Design Unity undertake other industry-wide projects? Though, given the range of activities detailed in the leaflet, it’s hard to see what. Any ideas? Such a shame to let an identity go to waste.

There are 25 definitions of design in the Oxford English Dictionary. Nine nouns and 16 verbs, four are obsolete or rare, which leaves sufficient for anybody (or any body) interested in communication to get their teeth into. The nouns fall into two categories. Under “mental plan” we see “a plan or scheme conceived in the mind and intended for subsequent execution: the preliminary conception of an idea that is to be carried into effect by action: a project”. Design was first used in this sense in 1593. Five years earlier, however, Shakespeare used it in the sense of “purpose, aim, intention”. By the early 18th century design had taken on pejorative undertones: “crafty contrivance and hypocritical scheming” (anyone you know?). The other category – “A plan in art” includes “a preliminary sketch, plan of a building”, “the artistic idea as executed”, “original work in a graphic or plastic art”.

Design, the verb, is categorised first as “to mark out, nominate, appoint, designate”. “To point out by distinctive sign, mark or token” precedes, though only by a decade, “to point out by name or descriptive phrase”. The other categories are: “to plan, purpose, intend” and “to sketch, delineate, draw, to fashion artistically” (earliest sighting 1635).

The limitations of my space, and your patience, prevent me from trawling further. The word design has a largely honourable pedigree and its history vibrates with a constant interplay between function and form, thought and execution. The current and eternal preoccupations of any thinking designer are well documented in these four columns of definitions and examples of initial usage. Food for thought.

Perhaps in a follow-up leaflet, called What is Design?, Design Unity, could use its current design (“picturesque delineation”) if that’s its design (“purpose, aim, intention”).