MANILA - Design is a word mostly associated with art and creativity. But the Design Center of the Philippines wants to expand it further and seeks to promote design as a way to help improve lives.

In its first-ever on-site event since the start of the pandemic, the Design Center, an attached agency of the Department of Trade and Industry, highlighted the need to use design as a tool to help Filipinos, especially as the country slowly recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rhea Matute, Executive Director of the Design Center of the Philippines said, they want to enhance the capabilities of micro, small and medium scale enterprises or MSMEs by incorporating the right and proper design that may be exported globally.

Design Center of the Philippines holds its first ever on-site event in 2 years. The agency says, having a good design in local products and processes are very vital in improving lives. pic.twitter.com/V5Fu3RjquD

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Design, she said, is an important factor in every product. But more than that, there must also be a good design in business practices to make it more sustainable.

"Design is a tool for creativity, a tool for strategy, as well as a tool for innovation. Not just developing products, but use design to develop services, help develop services, develop new business models as well as hopefully develop a culture of design," Matute said.

One project they are developing is the 'Better Normal by Design'. It aims to help small businesses integrate principles of consumer behavior analysts into the design and product development process. The project also hopes to instill in businesses the value of having a good design as the country face several challenges.

This is also one way to promote more human-centric designs or one that is responsive to the needs of the people. And they hope also to instill this mindset of creative design, not just to college students, but at the elementary or high school level.

"We want to be able to embed that kind of design thinking, creative thinking... not just form university point of view, but even embedding it in the primary level," said Matute.

Among the projects the Design Center of the Philippines is undertaking are Uswag Leyte and Kalibutan Project. These are programs in Central and Eastern Visayas that use local materials and utilize cultural mapping data and translate them into tangible products and solutions.

Two innovation ideas that will be launched at the Sustainability Solutions Exchange this month are Pinyapel and Bakong. Pinyapel transforms wastes such as pineapple leaves into new materials for product development, while bakong is an aquatic plant considered an obstruction, but can be developed into bio-plastics, paper and fiber.

Matute said design is important for the Philippine economy. Not just simply on having a good product, but design in the process that is sustainable and economically viable.

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