Design

Design as resourcefulness and self-reliance

The RSA’s central mission is to foster good citizenship by closing the gap between our everyday behaviour and the future to which we aspire.

To close this gap, contemporary society needs to be more resourceful: its citizens more engaged, self-reliant and collective in their striving. A combination of professionalisation, bureaucracy and consumerism has reduced our resources of common competence and as citizens we often appear to be less resourceful than ever. At the same time our consumption has diminished the earth’s resources and we now have fewer resources of energy and natural material at our disposal. 

Design & Society argues that design will be fundamental to closing the gap between behaviour and aspiration because of the particular resourcefulness that designers represent. Ready to improvise and prototype, brave in the face of disorder and complexity, holistic and people-centred in their approach to defining problems, designers have a vital role to play today in making society itself more resourceful.

The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce has vigorously supported design since it emerged as a professional discipline in the early 20th century, and earlier. One of its best-recognised expressions of support was the Royal Designer for Industry (RDI) award established in the 1930s to recognise designers of excellence, raise the profile of the emerging profession of design and promote the contribution of design in manufacturing and industry. The second is the student awards programme, dating back to a bursaries scheme born in the 1920s and currently entitled Design Directions, that encourages and rewards the best emerging talent from universities.

Building on this history, we’re developing new projects that closely align design to the RSA’s core mission of progress and change today; and contain a broad range of debate and action in design under the heading of Design & Society.

In these projects we recognise the formal judgement traditionally associated with design, and design's essential optimism with respect to progress and change. We now want designers to demonstrate how the insights and processes of design can increase the resourcefulness of people and communities.

Read about RSA Design & Society by downloading You know more than you think you do: design as resourcefulness and self-reliance by Emily Campbell (PDF, 94KB)