Cool Britannia is a horribly over-used moniker, tainted by its political provenance and its over-use, but it nevertheless has a sentiment that really does mean something to the design fraternity. However, I believe that meaning is deeper and more fundamental than originally suggested by the phrase, and has to do with skills that become embedded through experience and a close relationship with manufacturing.
Britain has a long history of designers closely enmeshed in the process of manufacture, from IK Brunel to William Morris to Ian Callum. There is a reason for this close relationship, which has to do with the mutual development and deep understanding of craft and manufacture. This enhances designers’ skills, hones their knowledge and, critically, allows them to design more efficiently.
They learn how to develop products which can be efficiently manufactured, and how to smooth and accelerate new model introduction to the manufacturing process – a key component of cost control and comparative advantage and in persuading cost-centric management of the value of design.
British manufacturing is in the ascendancy again, and this is despite an oppressive regulatory burden and a severe shortage of skills. One reason why manufacturing is returning to Britain is that many companies have focused on unit cost without considering total costs or allowing for any contingency for supply issues related to logistics and quality. They have learned, through bitter experience, that a shorter, more visible, supply chain has a value.
Global reports suggest the UK is a better place to source production than anywhere in Asia, apart from Singapore and Hong Kong. In the World Bank Ease of Doing Business rankings 2011, the UK was 7th out of 183 countries, while China was at 91.
This concept of Cool Britannia – the design skills, innovation and manufacture – is in our DNA and needs fostering and nurturing. It is sad but true that during the Blair/Brown years, and despite all the rhetoric, manufacturing fell from 21 per cent to 11 per cent of GDP (during Thatcher’s tenure it fell from 23 per cent to 22 per cent). The shift to taking manufacturing abroad has seriously depleted the skills base in the UK, which will take time and determination to rebuild.
One of the arguments for taking it abroad is that ‘labour is cheaper abroad and too expensive here’. This is an argument that combines intellectual indolence with a morally repugnant position.
We as a society cause costs to be higher here by demanding, as employees, rights and comforts that are onerous and expensive as though they are inalienable basic human rights. We ignore that this reduces our global competitiveness.
Simultaneously we think nothing of sourcing our product where we know, for certain, that the workers enjoy not only none of our comforts and securities but where they are in conditions that were unacceptable to us many decades ago. Thus we are happy to exploit others but not ourselves. This is poor morality and poor business.
The case for supporting British manufacturing and finding ways to make us more competitive and to provide jobs and a future in our own country is impossible to refute.
All of these positive attributes of design, of quality, of effective value for money, together with the less-tangible, but very significantly important, attributes such as customer service, shorter and greater certainty of lead times (that a good British supplier can provide) and the regulatory framework which underpins this all adds up to a brand. Clumsily labelled Cool Britannia, but a valuable brand with tangible attributes nevertheless.
This is why some countries, most notably Italy, and increasingly Britain, have such buoyant and dynamic manufacturing sectors. It is this that makes for a strong economy and, importantly, can offer real job opportunities to our young and skilled people.
Our car industry is an exceptionally strong example of British design and manufacturing success. Land Rover, in particular, has grown production enormously for export sales and is employing people and expanding production. The quality of its vehicles has improved in leaps and bounds because they are design and engineer-led, all of them work closely with manufacturing and with skills transferring in both directions.
The interiors sector has changed considerably over the past 10 years. This can be seen not only in the continual strong growth and effective strengthening of market share of some of our UK furniture manufacturers, but also in the growth in reputation, numbers employed and diversity of work of the UK furniture and product design practices.
Standards have increased in aesthetics and comfort and design and branding has grown in importance to a younger, technologically driven generation that is wealthier, more mobile and increasingly able to contrast and compare international standards.
It is all the more astonishing, therefore, that there are so many ‘me too’ suppliers that are able to sell their wares so ubiquitously in our public spaces.
What does it say about those brands that use ugly and poor-quality products? What value do companies place on their brands if they are prepared to sully them with such a poor visual aesthetic? Is it really only about cost and not quality, or do they imagine their clientele to be visually illiterate? More than this, does it not also imply a disinterest in the customer and suggest that the quality of service, food and drink they receive will be equally poor?
The development of technology allows us to do what we used to do in a different way as well as to be able to do things that previously we were unable to do. Tablet computers are the most obvious example of that. Not only do these technologies change the way people think, how they interact and how they work, they also drive change over the environment in which they work and play. This must have an effect on their expectations of the quality of design and integrity of manufacture.
If we truly believe that our role as designers is to create better environments, with better products, and with the least compromise to create a better society then surely it follows that we have a responsibility to work with the best and to persuade our clients and customers of the benefits to them?
