History

Since 1995, the Design Indaba has attracted the world’s brightest talent from across the creative industries. Doyennes of graphic design, advertising, film, music, fashion, industrial design, architecture, craft, visual art, new media, publishing, radio, television and performance art have year after year contributed to the Design Indaba’s international reputation.

Celebrating its 12th incarnation in 2009, Design Indaba did not come to life fully formed. What started as a biannual conference with a mere nine speakers, Design Indaba has grown to annually host more than 30 speakers in a multi-tiered experience that incorporates events, media, education, training and business development.

The Design Indaba was born from the upsurge of confidence in South Africa’s post-apartheid future in 1994. Interactive Africa realised that if all of us in South Africa looked to our own competencies and attempted to nurture the industries in which we operated, South Africa would be successful.

Further, the contribution made by Interactive Africa would be of particular significance to the South African economy’s need to lessen its dependency on raw commodities and rather leverage its value-added products and services. For instance, despite being the world’s leading gold producer, South Africa was a non-starter in terms of jewellery design.

In our minds, the Design Indaba would readdress this status quo by showcasing local design to an international contingent of decision makers, thereby driving competitive standards by bringing local designers in contact with international markets. Interactive Africa realised that an initial stage of collaboration between local designers would be a crucial step towards mature competition later. In participating in such an event, the divided local design community itself would be fortified by skills and knowledge sharing, leaving only creativity as the ultimate distinction.

The curation of the event would be key to its success. It was important to shrug off our historically parochial, insular mindsets, from the outset if we wanted to identify what it takes to be globally competitive. The idea was to host an event where we could learn from the exploits of the leading designers in the world. “Benchmark against best-of-class” was the mantra. However, instead of portfolios, we wanted to understand the case studies behind the brands and companies that the designers worked for, as well as how they came to produce their work.

As the Design Indaba institution has grown, it has taken a leadership position in South Africa and has driven advocacy programmes to promote the creative industries among business, government, academia and civil society. Creative Industries: The Sleeper in the South African Economy, a document compiled by Design Indaba, was briefed to cabinet ministers and the Office of the Presidency and inspired the formation of a governmental task team that plotted a way forward in creating a coherent, cohesive national strategy for the creative industries. As a result the creative industries sector is one of nine sectors that have been earmarked by the government to form part of a new accelerated growth strategy aiming for a 6% GDP growth rate.

Further, Design Indaba has been well represented on the conference circuit locally and internationally, speaking at events like the World Creative Forum, Ad Focus and Saint Etienne Expo. The Design Indaba message has been personally delivered on four continents.