Summit

Design In St. Moritz shortly before
the holidays 33 top designers from around the world to the Design Summit of the
Loewy Foundation met.Three days of just sharing thoughts,
Analyzing problems and designing visions - this is a noble purpose
of the annual Design Summit in St. Moritz. Host of this
panel with 33 top designers from around the world is the Raymond
Loewy Foundation. This year, the high-caliber team represented
Participants field twelve nations, including many professors from
Colleges of design from all over Europe as well as China, Taiwan,
South Africa and the USA. For the first time, a Pre Summit in Zurich
took place in which business leaders presented their views on the
The project was designed to show how the framework conditions in creative processes can be shaped.

Christof Gassner, CEO at Kuhn Rikon, took part in the discussion.
the designer together with Max Imgrüth, who, in addition to his marketing for
Bally design also considered the spiritual father of Swatch stores in the U.S.
has become known. The question: "Is design the sand or oil in the
gears of the economy?", Olivier Quillet also tried,
International Marketing Director at Nestlé Nespresso, to
answer. A conclusion: "Money designs the world" and "beautiful
Design only works with proper marketing". For this it is alone
the design, which, for example, has taken Nespresso machines all the way to tea country
India can be sold and in individual countries, despite a vast
of other espresso machines a yearly doubling of sales
brings in.

I-Pod is not only a cult, but the undisputed market leader, because
Apple has found a very special design. Swatch was able to win against
thousands of other plastic watches prevail. Rolex can for years all
imitations defy. And - also a design-influenced idea of the
Marketing: Harry Potter got young people reading, which
previously only consumed images.

"Design is not a luxury of successful companies, but design makes
companies and their products more successful," was the consensus among the
conversations agree. Conversely: "Many good inventions do not make it
on the market, because the poor design does not make a product the great
Renner does."

So design is "very rational marketing," argued the
Round. As a task here, the designer must ask himself: What
works and looks good and is also fun?

There was also agreement that luxury goods will have a chance again in the future.
on growth, because more and more people are living in previous
Developing countries can afford upscale consumption. "The
Globalization of quality", the designers have called it. Design
otherwise works against leveling in a luxury market.

After an expert appraisal of the new Christmas lights.
on Zurich's Bahnhofstrasse (www.werbewoche.ch/
weihnacht.werbewoche), the designers then traveled on to St.
Moritz. Here, among many other topics, they also discussed about
"Stupid Design. The invitees of the Loewy Foundation have for this purpose
preceding examples from all over the world on a website
www.stupiddesign.com compiled.

Andreas Panzeri