EDITORIAL

Design: source of reflection and development

In the economic and social situation we have been faced with for a year now, models are changing, old certainties are being eroded and our ability to adapt, both on a personal level and in our professionally lives, is being sorely tested.  Conducive to reflection, questioning and doubts, the recent course of events has pushed us to our limits whilst at the same time taking us back to basics: faced with new bifurcations, we have to choose which road to take to survive, to grow, to flourish.

The theme of this year’s 12th Biennale Design de Saint-Etienne, « Bifurcations. Choosing the Essential » offers each of us an opportunity to rethink our perspective by making the changes necessary to our personal and collective well-being, to the development of projects and taking a thoughtful stance in the midst of the shifting economic and environmental world we live in as individuals, enterprises or institutions.

Against this background, La Cité du design is reinforcing its role as a driver of the economy in the Loire by structuring its offer of services to companies and institutions. The aim is to facilitate the integration of design in innovation and the development of structures in the Loire to make this a distinctive and highly effective approach.  Many companies in the region have already taken on board this « design philosophy » which combines aesthetics, technology and analysis of usages and which has proved its advantages many times over, both from the human point of view and in the economic sphere.