Project Overview
The World Design Capital (WDC) is designated every two years by the World Design Organization to recognise a city’s innovative use of design to strengthen economic, social, cultural and environmental development. Through a year-long program of design-related events, WDC provides a platform to showcase best practices in design-led urban policy and innovation, increase civic engagement, as well as attract business and tourism.
First launched in Torino (Italy) in 2008, WDC has also been awarded to Seoul (South Korea) in 2010, Helsinki (Finland) in 2012, Cape Town (South Africa) in 2014, and Taipei (Taiwan) in 2016. Mexico will be WDC in 2018. An Australian city is yet to be awarded a World Design Capital.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Design Sydney is backed by a Memorandum of Agreement
signed by the following; City of Parramatta, NSW Architects Registration Board, Good Design Australia, Lendlease, Frost*collective, Committee for Sydney
Project Brief
Securing the designation of the World Design Capital for Sydney in 2020 we took the challenge to design an international campaign document with a strong visual identity to profile Sydney to a global audience and showcase the design culture across the Greater Sydney region; captured in; Climate, Culture and City.
Project Innovation/Need
The proposal, put together by the City of Parramatta, NSW Architects Registration Board led by Timothy Horton, Good Design Australia led by Dr. Brandon Gien, Lendlease, Frost*collective and the Committee for Sydney, intended to use the WDC programme as an open platform to engage, collaborate and design a new model of social impact for an increasingly urbanised world.
The campaign therefore distils a diverse range of design disciplines, capabilities and exemplars in a visually compelling way for a public audience while addressing 51 criteria established by the World Design Organisation.
Design Challenge
To inject the concepts of ‘inclusion’ and ‘resilience’ the identity addressed the established criteria for selection including;
•Greater Sydney existing design assets
•Greater Sydney plans for using design to renew itself
•The ways in which citizens benefit from the use of design in city planning
•The capacity to organize and finance a year-long programme of design events
•The mobilization and participation of the wider design community and large sectors of the population and visitors
•The fostering of wider dialogue on urban revitalisation strategies.
Effectiveness
The bid document was a result of the collaboration and input from many stakeholders including government authorities, institutions, companies and community members. The document raised awareness of the importance design plays in solving the challenges we face to make Greater Sydney a highly liveable and thriving world class urban city and is strongly aligned to the government’s cities agenda and its support for a more vibrant, innovation-facing economy.
Our response was well received by the judges and resulted in Sydney being shortlisted to be the host city of WDC 2020. During the judges visit, we brought our bid document to life by introducing them to the design community and why we are so passionate about this beautiful thing called design and our desire to shine the World Design Capital spotlight on our ‘Greater Sydney’.
The winning city will be announced in October 2017.
Graphic Design - Publication
This award celebrates creative and innovative design in the traditional or digital visual representation of ideas and messages. Consideration given to clarity of communication and the matching of information style to audience.
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