(Re)Thinking Design. The chang­ing role of designers

Today, design goes far beyond pret­ty pack­ag­ing. Many design­ers today work out­side the cre­ative indus­try, and inter­dis­ci­pli­nary design depart­ments in cor­po­ra­tions and con­sul­tan­cies have long since ceased to be a rar­i­ty. As a result, they play an impor­tant role in the design and inno­va­tion process. New fields of work bring with them addi­tion­al chal­lenges and demands that design­ers have to meet in their day-to-day work. Often, sharp­en­ing one’s own pro­file is a bal­anc­ing act between spe­cial­iza­tion and gen­er­al­iza­tion, between cre­ative free­dom and con­crete prob­lem solv­ing, between abstract and ana­lyt­i­cal skills.

But what exact­ly are the tasks of a design­er? How does teach­ing pre­pare future design­ers for these tasks? And how does the chang­ing role affect cor­po­rate recruit­ing? What do com­pa­nies need to con­sid­er when recruit­ing and adver­tis­ing design jobs?

Dis­cussing:

• Ele­na de Kan, Design Con­sul­tant at Steelcase
• Timo Fis­ch­er, Senior Con­sul­tant at Cap Gem­i­ni Invent
• Mar­tin Groschwald, founder and man­ag­ing direc­tor of Konzepthaus Consulting
• Prof. Ben San­to, Dean of the Fac­ul­ty of Design at Munich Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sciences
• Michael Wiethaus, graph­ic design­er, illus­tra­tor and lec­tur­er at the IFOG Acad­e­my Munich

The pan­el dis­cus­sion will be mod­er­at­ed by Eva Lich­n­er, founder and man­ag­ing direc­tor of MATES Munich, net­work for the cre­ative industry.
The event will take place as part of MCBW 2021 as a dig­i­tal for­mat and will be broad­cast live from the Hochschule für Fernse­hen und Film HFF.

The event is spon­sored by bay­ern design and the Bavar­i­an Min­istry of Eco­nom­ic Affairs, Region­al Devel­op­ment and Energy.