Design Research, Publications and Conferences

TU Dublin Sustainability Education Symposium, 6th June 2024.

Dr Con Kennedy spoke at TU Dublin's first Sustainability Education Symposium. Dr Kennedy discussed how the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were integrated into an existing design module delivered on the BA in Visual Communication Design. The symposium is an opportunity for educators from across the University to hear from colleagues and share teaching, learning, and assessment practices that support the development of sustainability-focused global citizens.

21st DMI: Academic Design Management Conference. Next Wave. Ravensbourne University, London, UK, 1-2 August, 2018.

The competencies of designers can be summed up in one word: Creativity. Creativity seems to be the most critical skill in any design practitioner’s repertoire and is a core component of innovation and entrepreneurship. Creativity is generally considered a positive thing, generating positive outcomes for design enterprises and their clients. Designers utilise their creative skills to solve client problems, develop design ideas, and run their design enterprises. However, the perception of creativity and the creative worker outside the paradigm of design differs from the view within, and therefore, a negative opinion of what creativity means could hinder an understanding of what the value proposition of design enterprises is and what creativity means. This paper identifies and discusses potential problems or issues with creativity identified in the international literature. These problems may include but are not limited to practices undertaken by the practitioner, attitude responses from the practitioner, how creativity is perceived within the client community, perceptions about creativity within popular culture, and myths associated with creativity. Designers must consider being effective with their creativity.

Design Research Society Conference, University of Limerick, 25th - 28th June 2018.

In this conference talk, Con Kennedy outlined the relationship between design and entrepreneurship, starting from the point that a designer is the product offering.

This offers a different perspective of designers as entrepreneurs, and this research aims to develop a design-specific entrepreneurship framework for designers who form and manage creative enterprises.

EURAM (European Academy of Management), University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland, June 2018.

This report is a synopsis of research on Entrepreneurship approaches pertinent to Communication Design Enterprises. Research would indicate that the Communications Design Sector is a relatively new business sector. There is limited research into how these enterprises utilise entrepreneurial approaches and an understanding of the utilisation of entrepreneurial processes in communication design enterprises.

This research begins with discussing the critical existing literature on the topic. It identifies that entrepreneurship is an evolving field in economics, with a definable process that can be documented and studied and with various methods available to the entrepreneur. An assessment of the literature reveals that there is no specific approach to entrepreneurship that fully applies to the design sector, therefore indicating an opportunity to develop a design-specific strategy for entrepreneurship.

12th International Design Principles and Practices Conference, Elisava Barcelona School of Design and Engineering, 5th-7th March 2018.

Self-employment, whether in practice or as a freelancer, is a likely route to employment in the communication design sector. Communication designers form, manage, and run their design enterprises. Therefore, these individuals are design entrepreneurs. Communication design is not just a creative endeavour; it's a business. Like any other type of business, these practices must generate profit to not just survive but to thrive and grow. This underscores the crucial role of design in the business world. However, the literature on entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial theories has tended to ignore design as an enterprise. Designers have identified skill deficits that centre around entrepreneurial and business management skills, hindering the growth and sustainability of individual creative enterprises and the sector as a whole. However, there seems to be a previously unconnected relationship between entrepreneurial and design processes, which may address the deficit in business skills within creative enterprises. Design entrepreneurs are different from other forms of entrepreneurs as the design entrepreneur is inextricably linked to what they do and their product offering. This paper investigates the relationship between design and entrepreneurship and proposes a design-specific entrepreneurial framework for creative enterprises.

Irish Academy of Management Annual Conference, University College Dublin, 31st August - 2nd September 2016.

This discusses the Lean Start-up entrepreneurship model's suitability in Visual Communication Design start-up practices. This research investigates the current state of Visual Communications enterprises in Ireland regarding the business type, length of time in business, and location around the country. This section draws upon national and international research to compare the performance and make-up of sectors here and abroad. In defining entrepreneurship and investigating business models, particularly the Lean Start-Up, this discussion evaluates the stability of this model in the Visual Communication Sector.

Faultlines: Bridging Knowledge Spaces, IT Carlow, 4th-5th June 2015.

Creativity would seem to be the single most crucial competency of design practitioners. The literature would suggest that, in general, creativity is considered to be a positive thing, generating positive outcomes for design practices and their clients. This paper investigates how creativity can be defined within the paradigm of design practice and practitioners and draws upon references in international literature to establish themes and concepts. Once identified, these themes are investigated to identify potential problems or issues with creativity. Problems may include but are not limited to practices undertaken by the individual designer, attitude responses from the individual designer, how creativity is perceived within the client community, perceptions about creativity within popular culture, and myths associated with creativity. This research is undertaken within the perceived underperformance and lack of growth of particular disciplines within the design services sector, particularly when compared with the international design industry. This paper may offer, in part, a suggested reason for this underperformance and lack of growth.