REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT INSTITUTE OF DESIGNERS IN IRELAND’S PAST PRESIDENTS’ SEMINAR
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT INSTITUTE OF DESIGNERS IN IRELAND’S PAST PRESIDENTS’ SEMINAR & PRESENTATION OF FELLOWSHIP AWARD
Tá an-áthas orm bheith i bhur láthair ar an ocáid seo. Tá me buíoch dibh as an cuireadh agus an fáilte forchaoin a chur sibh romham.
I want to thank you all for the very warm welcome, and special thanks go to Cameron Ross, for inviting me to join you at the Past Presidents’ Seminar and to present the Fellowship Award and honorary member certificates. As patron of the Institute of Designers, it is particularly good to be here today.
We take good design for granted these days, as if the products of human labour fall perfectly and fully formed from the sky. Not so very long ago though, many of the appliances and gadgets around the home looked more like items in a display of industrial archaeology. In fact, it has all happened so fast that visiting small local museums I often see on display, to the amusement of my children, domestic implements which I have used myself not so long ago. I don’t accept that either they or I are antiquities.
It is to the credit of the Institute that there is such a demand for good design, appreciation of good design and availability of good design today. The line between art and technology has been blurred, or more accurately blended, and we have grown accustomed to an imaginative marriage between beauty, and functionality, aesthetics and usefulness.
We expect designers to get basic functionality right, to show evidence that they have understood the technical expectations of a product or service. They might even enhance and develop those to an admirable level but then comes the area where designers let loose a creative impulse that takes us into a sphere beyond our old comprehension of purpose or task. Some people might call it the “wow factor” and there is often more than an element of wonder and surprise. There is also a leavening effect for good design also takes public taste and expectation and educates it, just as it takes today’s design and improves on it tomorrow.
Of course none of that happens without the pursuit of professional excellence by designers in every discipline and this Institute has a very proud record of setting an agenda that insists on getting the best from the Irish design profession.
It’s not so long ago that our major export was beef on the hoof and, truth to tell, that did not present many design challenges. Today Ireland is one of the most competitive and successful and globalised economies, trading an impressive array of goods and services right around the world as well as at home. For designers in the old and new media, from industrial designers to DVD designers and all bases in between, survival and development depend on being able to bring something special to those home and international markets where so many other players are vying for attention and for a place.
You are entitled to be very proud of the role you have played in Ireland’s success story, whether through the indigenous or multinational enterprise sectors, for Irish design has, by sheer effort, achieved cutting-edge success in many areas and has successfully gained an increasing share of international business. But now, of course, having tasted success and watched it act as a leaven throughout society, bringing greater prosperity than Ireland has ever known in her history, the truth is, people are hungry for more. And so today’s innovative solution is already hurtling towards obsolescence and that keeps pressure on you, and on the education systems for designers, to be ever restless in pursuit of innovation and creativity.
The publication of the “Best of Irish Design” book and the design ‘roadshows’ run by the Institute this year have played a key role in targeting the business and the design community across Ireland and they have highlighted the business benefits of design, as well as exhibiting the ‘Best of Irish design’.
Today though, the IDI Fellowship and Honorary Membership goes back to basics, to the individual human person where all good design starts. It recognises the role played by leadership in the design world and how essential it is to have inspired and inspirational people at the heart of the design industry in every sphere. These are people whose professional lives have helped our country to become renowned throughout the world as a culturally exuberant economic powerhouse – something we could have regarded as unlikely only a short few years. This year’s new Fellow, Gerry Brouder and new Honorary Member, Martin Naughton, are both to be congratulated on receiving this important recognition of the huge contribution they have made to pushing Irish design, and Ireland itself, to new levels of ambition and fulfilment of that ambition.
Today is their day. We honour them both with gratitude that Ireland produces such people today and that they so enthusiastically meet the challenge that lesser people would run a mile from. The good news is that Ireland is truly only at the start of revealing its fullest potential. This is the first generation to have turned the tide of outward migration, to have had the widest access to high-quality education and training, to have had the chance to stay and build their careers in Ireland. This is the first generation to feel the energy surge and the self‑belief that comes from success. It’s a journey we all want to stay on and, with your help, we will watch even more remarkable chapters evolve. Once we looked to the future, half in hope and half in despair, for that historically elusive thing called opportunity but things have changed. Now it is the present that is a very exciting place. That is particularly true for Irish designers and we know that by using today’s chances well they are already making the future a place to be proud of.
Is iontach an obair atá ar siúl agaibh. Go n-éiri go geal libh. Go raibh míle maith agaibh.