Open Desing Lecture: Steinar Valade-Amland

Design specialist Steinar Valade-Amland will hold a public lecture on Tuesday, October 29.

Design has slowly and perhaps unfortunately slipped away from one of its historical hallmarks; that of safeguarding the aesthetical value of solutions by giving them form and beauty. Many designers dream about being allowed to focus more on the aesthetical resonance of their work. The need to develop more compelling – and at the same time more responsible products, services and systems, could be their big chance of doing so because trade-off design can never be utilitarian, or spreadsheet-driven. Design to foster more responsible choices and a more sustainable way of life hence must be more attractive, more captivating, more fun or more enriching than what is already out there.

For more than a decade, Steinar Valade-Amland has acted as an independent consultant, working for a wide range of private sector companies, NGOs and public sector organizations, as well as for the European Commission since he stepped down after twelve years as CEO of the Association of Danish Designers in 2012. He has written numerous articles for trade magazines, contributed to several books – including the “Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design”, and played an active role in processes focusing on design policy, design practice and design education – in particular on a European level. He’s the author of “INNOLITERACY – From Design Thinking to Tangible Change”, published in Denmark in 2016, and in English by Business Expert Press in 2018, as well as co-author of “Design: A Business Case – Thinking, Leading and Managing by Design” together with Brigitte Borja de Mozota, published in 2020. Re-published as a tool-book under the name “Strategic Design for a Responsible Future” in collaboration with designer Hervé Collignon in February 2024.