Achievements

Since its founding in 1985, Corporate Design Foundation has:

  • Collaborated with business school faculty to establish the first full-length courses at business schools about design and business. The Foundation continues to work with over 250 faculty at 70 business schools.
  • Facilitated development of the first multidisciplinary product development courses bringing together students and faculty in design, business, and engineering.
  • Placed design/business articles in the following publications: American Way, Australian Business, The Corporate Board, Fast Company, Inc., Leaders Magazine, New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Wall Street Journal.
  • Developed Winning through Innovation, a program for corporate executives to develop a framework for thinking strategically about design and innovation.
  • Generated a collection of business school case studies and videos that examine the impact of effective design on successful business.
  • Distributed over 5000 design related books to 50 business school and public libraries as part of the Library Initiative. (1990-2003).
  • Offered the annual Design Leadership Symposium, 1991-1998, to bring business school faculty together with designers and business executives to discuss design practice and business school teaching about design, sponsored by IBM.
  • Established the first conference for university faculty about teaching interdisciplinary courses, including design and business, and published the results of this conference and research as Teaching Collaborative Product Development (1994).
  • Organized the National Forum on Design (1995-1997) with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and General Services Administration aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of government through workplace design.
  • Partnered with Rochester Institute of Technology to produce the teleconference Business, Design and Communication, a program dedicated to educating executives and students about the effect of design on successful business.
  • Published @issue: The Journal of Business & Design, the first journal written for corporate executives about design, sponsored by Sappi. Current circulation 60,000 with an additional 40,000 distributed at business schools and conferences (1995-Present)
  • Received the 2001 Teknion Humanitarian Achievement Award in recognition of the Foundation's continuing advocacy of the design profession.
  • Produced The Business Edge, a nationally broadcast teleconference to 43 locations illustrating the impact of design on business, in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University and Rochester Institute of Technology. Sponsored by NEA. (2002)
  • Launched Natural Design Consortium in 2002, to establish multidisciplinary courses on sustainable product development and sustainable architecture.