Recommendations

05

“Cross-discipline communication and integration skills” are the key future design competencies

This study also explored future professional design competencies (hard power), regarding which designers were of the opinion that such hard power will place greater importance on “emerging technology integration,” “business model innovation,” and “trend prediction.” Furthermore, “cross-discipline integration skills,” “international perspective and experience,” and “communication and interpersonal skills” were seen as what will constitute the key soft power for future industrial development.

Hard power

Emerging technology integration 41.9% Business model innovation 38.5%

Trend prediction 37.2%

Soft power

Cross-discipline integration skills 60.5%

International perspective and experience 56.2%

Communication and interpersonal skills 50.1%

06

Overall job satisfaction was on the high side of average–but room for improvement

This study took “salary and fringe benefits,” “working hours,” “freedom of creativity,” “personal career development,” and “value put on design by a business’” as five aspects of job satisfaction. 48% of designers were satisfied (including satisfied and very satisfied) with their current situation regarding overall design working environment and conditions of employment, while 36.6% said that their situation was average. These results show that there is still room for improvement in the design working environment and conditions of employment.

07

Job promotion prospects has also become a key job search consideration

This study has also brought to light that “salary” was the main consideration for designers when applying for a post. However, from the study results, it can be inferred that importance is gradually being attached to non-economic factors with respect to job promotion prospects. For example, the received filled questionnaires revealed the following findings with respect to considerations when applying for a post: “freedom of creativity” (51.8%), “personal career prospects” (50.6%), “work-life balance” (42.1%), “value put on design by a business’” (37.4%), “challenge of work content” (35.1%), “leader management style” (31.9%), and “team cooperation” (30.8%).

08

Businesses’ main recruitment criteria–“portfolio” and “academia-industry experience”

Results gleaned from the questionnaires have also revealed that up to 90.6% of design supervisors attach most importance to an applicant’s portfolio content when recruiting. Next in importance was “academiaIndustry collaboration/internship experience” (60.3%), whereas “college/department graduated from” (23.1%) and “relevant certificates” (10.3%) were secondary criteria.

09

Social networking has become a key development criterion for freelancers

20.8% of the respondents to this study’s questionnaire were freelance workers. The projects they received mainly involved “visual communication design/ commercial design,” accounting for 82.9%, followed by “industrial design” (38.8%), “multimedia design” (23.6%), and “interior and architectural design” (22.1%). In addition, the source of projects for freelancers mainly came from “introduction by others,” accounting for 81%, followed by “peer introduction” (43.8%). These results have shown that freelancers in the design industry depend to a great extent on the accumulation of experience to build up a good reputation and establish contacts.

E

RECOMMENDATIONS

Based on the “Job Category Salary Survey” from Taiwan’s Ministry of Labor, in 2020, the number of employees in domestic design positions grew by about 6% compared with 2019, from which it’s surmised that the demand for design talent in the domestic market is growing. Moreover, according to official statistics released by Singapore, the market demand for design talent is also showing positive growth for the future, with the main talent demand coming from non-design industries. Furthermore, Japan has also indicated that more design talent are needed for future industrial development and competitiveness. In addition, with the emergence of new design disciplines, such as service design and user experience design, and the development of big data, artificial intelligence, and machine automation, designers are facing a more diverse and complex industrial environment. Hence, the focal point of this study was to explore the expected future transformation and development of the professional competency needs of design talent.

This “2021 Taiwan Design Talent Report” is a result of an exploration into the status of domestic design talent development. And a better understanding of the development trends and prospects of design talent has been gained through research and analysis of international design related policies and interviews with experts in the field of design in industry and academia. In light of the research findings of this study, the following conclusions and proposals are put forward:

01

Cultivate a design career pathways

The definition of design has evolved with the development of society and industry, and has already seen a change in signification. For example, in the face of a rapidly changing industrial and market environment, along with the accelerated development of science and technology, with the blossoming of big data, artificial intelligence, automation, and robotics in the industrial 4.0 era, design has become a common link across diversified industrial fields and social development, as well as an indispensable force driving innovation and creating value. Based on the expert interviews carried out for this study, the future development of design will be more closely integrated with fields such as “commerce,” “digitization,” “AI,” and “sustainable development,” including issues related thereto. Cross-discipline integration of design will become the future trend for industrial and social development. Under this development trend it will become possible to create more opportunities for designers in this new emerging job market. Recommended practices

● Establish a Taiwan Design Career Development Framework: In the future, Taiwan’s design-related industries, government, and academic research circles can refer to Singapore’s design policies to build a design competency framework (Career Pathways), and regularly update emerging design positions on a rolling basis, thereby providing a reference for domestic design talent to identify potential career development paths.

● Clearly define the expertise and content of design positions: clarify the definition and functions of design related positions. For example, Japan explicitly defines emerging design jobs, which serves as a guide for the cultivation of design talent, and assists individuals to develop professional design competency or can be used as a reference for businesses to incorporate professional design talent.

● Strengthen in-service training of design talents: to respond accordingly to digital, smart, and other industrial trends and market demands. The government can provide relevant resources, such as design training courses or grant subsidies for related talent training.

02

Encourage benchmark collaboration among the industry, academia and research

Regarding design education, promoting cross-disciplinary courses has become an important channel for many countries, including Taiwan, to propagate design and cultivate design talent. For example, in Britain, in order to reverse the plight of the sharp decline of talent in design education, the British Design Council recommends that higher education must try to break the barriers and boundaries between disciplines and professions, and focus on interdisciplinary learning and cooperation, such as incorporating design into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) curriculum development and promotion. In recent years, there have been more international initiatives for creating a STEAMD curriculum, demonstrating that design is crossing educational disciplines and gradually being valued. In addition, both Japan and Singapore are advocating proceeding with cross-curricular and interdisciplinary learning in higher education. For example, design thinking courses are being offered in business colleges, while in contrast courses related to business management and science and technology are being offered in art colleges. In order to cultivate interdisciplinary design talent, this study recommends future closer cooperation be encouraged between industry, academia, and research institutes, to create benchmarking cases and the modularity of relevant knowledge and design methods, which can not only be used as a way to cultivate future design talent, but also further facilitate the development of integrated design in Taiwan. Recommended practices

● Continue nurturing cross-disciplinary design talent: in future college design education or industry practice, we should incorporate cross-disciplinary learning and cooperative thinking into the mechanism of talent cultivation, and develop related courses.

● Provide designers with opportunities to touch new types of projects, learning to receive projects: to try to guide or coordinate design companies or designers to free themselves from the traditional mode of receiving projects, and attempt to touch projects in emerging industries or innovative fields, including important industries and issues, such as public services, cyclic design, and smart machinery, to accumulate experience with practical projects.

● Develop digital design tools and teaching materials: design has become one of the indispensable professions for cross-disciplinary talents, thus, industry, government, and academic circles should become involved in the development of design related tools and teaching materials. For example, the British Design Council released a recommendation report on incorporating design methods for different industrial trends, such as cyclic design, which collected and organized design methods and toolkits to be used as a practical for businesses and designers to refer to and apply.

● Encourage industry and academia research teams to create benchmarking cases or integrated modular design methods, and on the policy side, create a platform to accommodate industry and research collaboration, to encourage the flow of design innovation and cultivate exceptional talents.

03

Promote the strategic role of design and the cultivation of design leadership

Design talent are the strategic assets of a company, especially when design thinking and design strategy become important avenues to implement the company’s management methods and spur innovation. This trend can be seen from the business models of international management consultant companies, such as McKinsey, SAP, and IBM, which use design methods to help businesses identify pain spots, formulate strategies, and explore business models. It's increasingly apparent that design has changed from product appearance design in the past to an important role in formulating a company’s core strategy. Under the premise of steering an organization to climb the design hierarchy, it is essential to improve the management and leadership skills of designers, as well as their strategic and commercial sensibility. Accordingly, design should be extended from being a one-off service to addressing decision-making aspects, such as organizational operations and branding strategies, only then can design inject innovative energy into the organization and create higher value, and this will depend on high-level design talent or leaders exerting their influence in the organization. At present, a shortage has appeared in Taiwan’s middle and highlevel design talent, however, in the future, the demand for such a talent group may increase. This study is of the opinion that domestic industry and academia should actively build a nurturing vehicle for middle and highlevel design talent. As for design education, colleges should rethink and adjust the proportion and curriculum content in bachelor, master’s, and doctoral degrees, and proceed with different hierarchical planning for the cultivation of design talent.

Recommended practices

● At present, priority in design education is generally given to professional skills training. If the design profession is expected to expand, talent cultivation should extend to design management, design strategy, method development, and technology application.

● Make way for positions arising from innovative projects, such as design directors, managers, and strategy experts. The design positions offered to future high-level design talent should be clearly defined and described, to encourage businesses (or public departments) to employ design talent and encourage the employment of high-level design managers.

● Use government awards and subsidies, to support businesses to recruit design talent: The government can refer to South Korea’s subsidy measures for businesses to employ design talent in order to urge Taiwan businesses or public departments to increase the number of high-level design talent positions or encourage the employment of high-level design talent. Or, at a future date, amend Taiwan’s cultural and creative law to formulate tax credit measures for businesses that employ high-level design talent, to spur businesses to increase the number of high-level design positions and support the hiring of design talent.

04

Track and monitor the development of atypical design talent

In the face of a decreasing number of design students each year, although it may cause a certain impact on the supply of design talent, however, with the rise of new design fields, the avenues and channels for cultivating design talent are becoming increasingly diverse. These new design fields have already broken through the realms of traditional design departments, such as the introduction of cross-disciplinary courses. which have created additional possibilities for the cultivation and supply of design talent in the future. In addition, the research carried out through expert interviews in this study shows that in recent years an increasing number of design talent have become involved in non-design fields, as well as in non-design entrepreneurship and development projects, but used design methods or thinking in their work. This category of design talent should be continuously and systematically tracked in the future, including having a better understanding of the department distribution and learning methods of the colleges they graduated from.

Recommended practices

● In pace with the transformation of design value, “Designers” are no longer merely design major graduates. For example, graduates from different fields, such as AIOT (Artificial Intelligence of Things), medical engineering, service science, and management have become key special talents. Therefore, it is worth paying attention to the development and trends of such talents.

● Focus on innovative talents and people with different professional knowledge, create an open platform, promote information exchange, and expand domestic and international networks.

05

Advance the universalization of design learning

In addition to traditional college design education, self-directed learning and networking have also become avenues for design skill training and knowledge learning, meaning that design learning opportunities have become more diverse and convenient. With such turning points in mind, this study recommends that in the future Taiwan consult proposals made by Britain, Japan and Singapore to advance the universalization of design learning, including fields where design has already put down its roots, as well as incorporating design into lifelong learning areas. Taking Singapore as an example. its “2025 Design Blueprint” proposed the requirement to offer a series of comprehensive design courses for students from preschool to middle school, to cultivate national design thinking and problem-solving ability from an early age. In comparison, Taiwan’s Ministry of Education published its outline for the twelve year national basic education curriculum in 2018, in which “Design” became a subject domain for teaching in the fields of art and technology, in particular, an elective course of “basic design” was scheduled for inclusion in the art field of “normal senior high schools.” In the future, design related courses or activities should be introduced into elementary and junior high schools. From the perspective of industrial development or actual practice, the anticipation is that the internal operations of businesses phase in design to their different departments and teams, to increase design awareness and improve the application of design tools and methods. Recommended practices

● Ingrain design thinking from childhood: to cultivate national design thinking and problem-solving ability, it is recommended that courses and activities such as design thinking be incorporated into the curriculum of elementary schools, junior high schools, or senior high schools. As an example, after Singapore released its “2025 Design Blueprint”, its recommendations have already been successively implemented into their preschool to Junior High School curriculums, offering a series of comprehensive design courses that are cultivating creativity and a sense of design from an early age.

● Because applying design to public services is becoming increasingly critical, we should continue to expedite training in design thinking for public servants, provide resources for in-service continuing design studies, and open up design opportunities in the public domain.

2021 Taiwan Design Talent Report— exploring the status and future development of Taiwan design talent

Issuer: Chuan-Neng Lin Chief Editor: Chi-Yi Chang Editorial committee: Oliver Lin, Nina Ay Executive editors: Chia-Huei Sher, Yu-Chen Chen, Jiun-Yi Wu Information and visual design: Onion Design Illustration: Haoyun Cheng

Publisher: Taiwan Design Research Institute Address: No. 133, Guangfu South Road, Xinyi District, Taipei Website: https://www.tdri.org.tw Tel: (02) 2745-8199 Fax: (02) 3322-9028 Publication date: December 2021 Edition: First Edition ISBN: 978-986-98998-4-0

Taiwan Design Research Institute reserves all rights. For those wanting to use the content of this publication in part or in whole, they are required to seek the consent or written authorization of Taiwan Design Research Institute.