Anabella Rondina
• How can a developing country like South Africa benefit from having its own design policy?
Each country has its own history, culture, productive system, natural resources, etc. Having its own design policy benefits the country because there is no way to implement methodologies from abroad, especially if they come from developed countries with a very different context. You can analyze them and take some models, learn from other experience but you have to adapt a lot of things to your own context. I think you have to know very well the needs of your context to develop your own tools to help your country to improvethrough design. And this only can be effective if you develop your own design policy.
• Why is having a design policy important?
"Design is not necessary. It is inevitable". This phrase fromAlan Fletcher describe why having a design policy is important. I think we need to know how and where design can make a better benefit. We need to define the areas of intervention, the sectors we can improve through design. And then, we can design a policy to make it happen.
• What does the ‘Make a Plan’ theme of the World Design Capital Cape Town 2014 Policy Conference mean to you?
To make a plan means to me to analyze, to project, understand the limitations and draw a consistent plan. It´s like designing something; you can’t do that without research, without analysing the situation, the context. Make A Plan means to think before acting, to develop the appropriate solution to solve a problem. According to Lewis Carroll, “If you don´t know where you're going, all roads lead you there”. We live in countries with limited resources, so we need to use them well.
• What do you hope to achieve through your presentation at the Conference?
I hope to learn from others, to compare what we are doing in Argentina with other experiences, to be in a country where I had never been before and listen the experiences of the great people that take part in the event. I have worked in the public sector since 2002, so I hope to learn from other experiences and I think this can help to improve our work in Argentina.
• What do you think of South African design?
I think there are a lot of excellence and interesting things happening in South Africa about design these days. A proof of it is this great World Design Capital event in Cape Town with ICSID support. I believe that a lot of innovative projects are taking place in non-traditional design markets nowadays. But to be honest, I´m very excited to be in Cape Town and look at them in person.
• Who is your favourite designer and why?
I admire two Argentinian designers: Hugo Kogan and Reinaldo Leiro. They taught me the importance to work with a productive system and for the people. They are the fathers of Argentina’s Industrial Design and part of the team who created the Industrial Design Career at the University of Buenos Aires in 1983. I admire them because they had done industrial design in a country with a very complex context, and they were able to do it. And taught others like me to do it, too.
• Which element of design interests you most?
I´m interested in the one that makes companies more competitive and the one that makes people’s life better. Design in the medical sector is one of my favourites. I know it’s not very fashionable, but it truly helps people. What can be better?
Sometimes design is frivolous, only seen as for rich people. In the country where I come from, there are a lot of things to do to improve people’s lives. I think design can make a great difference if we use it well.
• How did you get interested in design?
I studied Industrial Design by instinct. When I started my career, there was little information about design. When I was a child, I liked to play with Lego, to built machines, to project things. That probably took me to study design. I really believe that good design can make a difference, if it’s well done and done for the people. I´m not a typical designer, I don’t expect to see a chair design by myself in a boutique. Because of that I studied strategic design to improve the relationship between the productive system and design, to help others to develop projects that will be better for all the people.
• Anything else you’d like to add?
We need to encourage design to connect with the productive system. So, we need to teach designers to work with SMEs, to be self-effacing. I enjoy teaching at the University of Buenos Aires, a big public institution where the classes have more than 100 students and where we teach them under this premise.
I invite you to take a glance at what we are doing at Metropolitan Design Centre in Buenos Aires and at the University of Buenos Aires in www.cmd.gob.ar and www.catedrarondina.com