Conversations in Design: What is the role of designers in a crowd sourced world?

Val Maloney

TORONTO—The second annual Conversations in Design, a day-long symposium happening January 27 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre as part of the IDS 2011 is this year honing its focus on crowdsourcing creativity and community and its effect on design. 

Featured speakers at the event include Bruce Mau Design president and CEO Hunter Tura in a panel with New York-based Redscout Ventures director Roo Rogers and participating members of the audience entitled: Does Collaborative Design and Crowdsourcing Negate the Need for Designers? 

In Tura’s opinion crowdsourcing hasn’t eliminated the need for designers, but it has changed the way they work. “There are two tensions going on: on one hand I think there is the potential that designers are going to have to play things a little safer, no one wants what happened with the Tropicana or Gap logo to happen to them — it is a PR disaster,” he says. “On the other hand, one of the things we have been doing with clients is something called co-creation. We engage the client a lot earlier in the process, work with them in a deeper and more intensive way, share the results. It's not the model of the heroic single designer that unveils a masterpiece. The design output is something that we almost partner with clients to produce.”

Full Article on Design Edge

For more info on Conversations in Design, visit
www.conversationsindesign.com

For more info on IDS11, visit www.interiordesignshow.com