U.S. National Design Policy Initiative

Strengthening the infrastructure of the Initiative

Some may be wondering why things seem quiet at the U.S. National Design Policy Initiative. One can be assured that things are anything but quiet.

The Initiative has been busy gaining official endorsements from participating organizations. Beginning with the unanimous vote of Society for Environmental Graphic Design (SEGD)'s board of directors on February 4, 2009, we have been shoring up the Initiative's organizational structure to prepare for the next level of engagement. Official organizational endorsements are agreements to:

1. Promote the U.S. National Design Policy Initiative, its specific projects, and outcomes,
2. Provide staff resources to help complete tasks,
3. Contribute financial or in-kind resources (up to $5000) for things with real costs to produce.

Ric Grefe of AIGA, the professional organization of design, had pledged the organization's endorsement earlier in January. Currently, other professional design associations such as the Usability Professional Association, the Industrial Designer's Society of America, the International Interior Design Association, Interaction Design Association; and the design education Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design are in the process over the next few weeks of presenting to their boards of directors and/or memberships.

We have brought into the group the Cooper-Hewitt Museum and the American Architectural Foundation.

Organizations are putting together their "volunteer advocacy teams" to lead the refinement and advocacy of specific policy proposals. AIGA's team is being led by David Gibson and Ann Harakawa, of Two Twelve Associates, and Sylvia Harris, Office of Sylvia Harris. Other teams are in formation.

Thus, it is exciting times as the Initiative strengthens its infrastructures to allow you to engage and participate, while we also work on gaining Congressional and Executive support for the policy proposals.

Designpolicy.org website refresh improves accessibility of information.

Based on requests and feedback from the usability community, the U.S. National Design Policy Initiative has improved the accessibility of our website. The text is bigger and bolder.

Most importantly we have made available text-only HTML versions of Redesigning America's Future and the Final Summit Report.

Links to the text-only Redesigning America's Future are located here and on the Policy Proposals page.

Links to the text-only Summit Final Report are located here and on the Summit Report page. At the moment, it does not include a text-only version of the tables of ranked policy proposals, but they are made available in a Word document form here.