GWANGJU, KOREA- Gwangju Metropolitan City and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy is holding “DESIGN KOREA 2013”
where the new design trends of the world and the global competitiveness of Korea’s design industry will be on display for four days October 10th to 13th at Gwangju’s Kim Dae Jung Convention Center.
Celebrating its 11th anniversary since its launch, DESIGN KOREA is Korea’s largest design fair where various design trends, outstanding design products and services (400 pieces), and entries from famous international exhibitions (270 pieces from 10 countries) can be observed.
With “K-Design+ = New Change, the key to opening the future” as the main topic, this year’s fair has strengthened the business aspect of the fair by inviting 60 buyers from Korea and other countries and matched them with 72 companies with products of original design, holding export consulting opportunities on site, and by holding the ‘Asia Design Summit’ proclaiming the global status for Korea as an advanced country in design.
Representing Northeast Asia’s leading design fair by hosting the ‘first’ Asia Design Summit
‘Asia Design Summit’ the prior event to ‘Design Korea 2013' was held starting 10 AM on the 10th on the 3rd floor conference room at Kim Dae Jung Convention Center, with the 14 heads of design institutes from 8 different Asian countries including China, Japan, and India participating.
The Summit which was held for the first time since the launch of DESIGN KOREA had a topic of ‘Economic Growth in Asia through raising the economic value of creative industries (Design)’. Participants mainly spoke on the importance of personal exchange through creating an Asian design network and the ways to create the development groundwork for each country’s creative industries.
Dr. Lee Taeyong, the President of Korea Institute of Design Promotion said through his welcoming speech “While the focus of the world is shifting towards Asia, so is the international interest in Asian Design increasing”. Also adding that he hoped that the 'Asia Design Summit’ could be the turning point for the development and cooperation of the design industry for every country in Asia.
Every head of institute from Asia who took the floor agreed and shared the importance and necessity of cooperation between Asian countries in order to further develop their own country’s design industry. Pradyuna Vyas of the India National Design School received attention by emphasizing the importance of creating a network between Asian Design institutions to further develop Creative Economy.
Furthermore, Ahmad Bin Haji Zainuddin of Malaysia’s Design Council received attention from design participants from and outside of Korea by introducing 11 core strategies Malaysia used to promote their creative industry and a design case with ‘Indigenous to Modern’ as its concept, which is similar to Korea’s K-design policy.
Festival to Create a Creative Design Strong Country
Going beyond just a simple exhibition of design products, the participants of academic and industrial circles from Korea and abroad came together to create a fair which would mutually encourage the participating countries to become a creatively advanced designing country. The fair started off with a bang with the opening ceremonies at the 1st floor of Gwangju’s Kim Dae Jung Convention Center.
With 20 VIPs including Kang Un-Tae, Mayor of Gwangju Metropolitan City, Jeong Marn-Ki, Deputy Minister for Industrial Creativity and Innovation at the MOTIE, Lee Taeyong, President of Korea Institute of Design Promotion, Brandon Gien, next term chairman of the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design, participating “DESIGN KOREA 2013” started off with a scarf cutting performance wishing for the successful hosting of the fair and was followed up by an one hour program consisting of a report on the subjects and situation of the exhibits and a tour of the exhibitions.
During the ‘Night of Design’ which was held in the multipurpose hall after the tour of exhibitions, 700 design related people from the government, industries, and private interests participated and a variety of programs including opening speech, awards ceremony, dedication ceremony, and a dinner banquet were held to strengthen the communication and morale of the industry.
Especially after the opening speech, a video containing President Park Geun Hye’s celebration speech was played and caught the attention of the participants. Through the video message President Park said “The 21st century is an era where design equals to competitiveness, design is the leading power behind the creative era, and we acknowledge the importance of design and will put particular concern into creating an environment and system where design talents would be able to spread their dreams and aspirations.”
At the 15th Korea Design award were given to people and companies that contributed to the national design industry including the Order of Service Merit(Yello Stripes) (Lim Hyun Hyuk Professor of KyungHee University), Order of Industrial Service Merit(Silver Tower) (Park Tae Yul former director of Korea Institute of Design Promotion), Industrial Service Medal (Moon Jun Gi Head of M.I Design/Kim Gae Chun Professor of KookMin University/Lee Gun Man head of LeeGunManANF), to show appreciation of the effort of the design industry.
Kang Un-Tae, Mayor of Gwangju, in his opening speech said “We hope that Korea’s design industry can grow one step further as a worldwide production base for the design industry through Bitgoeul Gwangju’s ‘DESIGN KOREA 2013'.” And Lee Taeyong, President of Korea Institute of Design Promotion, after saying that design exports were increasing with a yearly average of 61%, requested the cooperation between industrial and academic circles so that design could emerge as the leading force of Korea’s economy.
Towing Creative Economy through business reinforcement
DESIGN KOREA 2013’s exhibition is consisted of 6 exhibit sections including the theme gallery, world’s best design exhibit, K-Design+ Kium exhibition, K-Design+ Saeum exhibition, K-Design+ Creative City exhibition, and a experiential exhibit.
The theme gallery received much attention with the title of ‘New change, the key to the future’ and showing fancy 3 dimensional images that represented K-Design’s strength and vision.
At the World’s Best Design exhibition the world’s newest trends of design could be checked through 350 pieces of outstanding design from 11 countries including the USA, Japan, and Finland. K-Design+ Kium exhibition attracted the attention of spectators with 226 brilliantly creative prize winning pieces from the 48th Korea Design Exhibition and the 20th Korean Youth Design Exhibition.
Within the K-Design Euem exhibition center, buyer export consulting sessions were held for 2 days during the 11th and 12th where 58 buyers from 36 companies in 12 countries including Japan, China, the USA, and Thailand, and a total of 100 consulting cases were held between the design companies participating in the exhibition.
The export consulting sessions, which were held to create actual business opportunities for companies participating in the exhibit, was held side by side a dinner banquet to further relationships between partners and to create close knitted network.
The consulting sessions not only gave actual commerce consulting to domestic middle and small companies that had trouble advancing into the global market, but also provided the opportunity to advertise the outstanding qualities of products from each company.
Especially the buyers that were invited this year were found through reputable organizations such as KOTRA and foreign embassies etc. and who were already highly interested in the Korean market. These buyers are expected to be the pivot point for middle sized companies to survive in the foreign market.
During the four days of exhibition ‘Design Agora’ was also held and provided a portal where designers and the general public could communicate and enhance the public’s interest in design and leaded popularizing of design.
Choi Ik Seo, Professor of Hongik University and invited writer at Venice Biennale Architecture and Lee Jong Ho of SADI’s Product Design Department gave lectures based on their own experiences and explained so that the general public could easily understand. There were also many other programs which spectators could easily enjoy and participate.
The effort to apply and fuse design into all areas of every industry could be seen in ‘DESIGN KOREA 2013’. The government, to support the effort of the design industry, should concentrate on creating a design ecosystem by daringly investing into design technology and vigorously training prospective designers.
