About

About Design Center

The Design Center of the Philippines is an agency under the Department of Trade and Industry, mandated to promote the use of design as a tool in strengthening the national competitiveness of Philippine products and services, and in empowering Filipino micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and designers for the local and global markets.

Propelled by the Filipino value of malasakit, Design Center is at the forefront of pushing a national design agenda that is in the service of all — influencing lifestyles, humanizing processes, maximizing function, and transforming public service for economic progress to uplift the quality of life.

The Design Center also gathers design and creative communities to build meaningful partnerships among designers, innovators, industry leaders, key influencers, and policymakers to inspire them in creating human-centered products, services, spaces, and policies that enable sustainable and inclusive economic development.

Core & Fore

Design Center’s efforts go beyond promoting the value of good design and onto inspiring creative industries to create human-centered products, services, and spaces that make an impact in the Philippines and in the world. From enhancing human experiences to enabling inclusive and sustainable economic growth, we ensure that design plays its role as a creative, strategic, and innovative tool for positive development.

Ideas & Action

Creative ideas drive industries forward, and we help ensure that they do. In cultivating a healthy creative economy, we make design accessible to encourage MSMEs, manufacturers, and designers realize innovative concepts that has the potential to better lives, simplify systems, and boost economic growth.

Collaboration & Innovation

Our shared goal to strengthen the country’s design ecosystem motivates us to build meaningful partnerships with industry leaders, key influencers, and policy makers. Being the only national agency for design, we serve as a hub for creative minds to exchange ideas, share experiences, and explore solutions that inspire good design and innovation for nation-building.

Mandate

Based on Section 4 of Republic Act No. 10557, DCP is mandated to promote design as:

A CREATIVE TOOL for improving the quality, competitiveness and branding of Filipino products in the global market;

A STRATEGIC TOOL of value creation for sustainable economic growth and development; and

AN INNOVATIVE TOOL for enhancing the quality of human life.

The Design Center is further mandated to:

Develop and maintain a creative research and development program on product design, development, and improvement of Philippine products and services, including those created by small and medium enterprises (SMEs);
Conduct continuing research on product and product packaging design trends, materials and processing technologies;
Create, develop, promote and upgrade the design of all Philippine products and services, including those created by SMEs;
Conduct seminars and workshops on product design and development;
Set-up design exhibitions;
Publish design-related materials;
Ensure protection of Filipino design ideas, products, and other outputs of creative talents;
Promote design education throughout the country to meet the needs of Philippine industries; and,
Promote Philippine design here and all over the world.

Vision

By 2025, the Design Center of the Philippines is an internationally-recognized center for design excellence; nurturing innovation, value creation, and protection.

Mission

The Design Center of the Philippines shall:

Promote the use and appreciation of good design;
Improve the quality, range, and competitiveness of Philippine goods and services;
Philippine goods and services; and Strengthen the Philippine design industry.

History

1973-1983

Design Pioneer

The Design Policy in the Philippines began in 1973 with Presidential Decree No. 279, creating the Design Center Philippines. Led by National Artist for Visual Arts Arturo Luz, this was a period rich in research not just on Philippine ethnic patterns, Philippine materials, and material language (craft/artisanal skills) but also on processes to develop designers-craftsmen. Design Center Philippines worked with pioneers in the furniture industry to express a genius loci with global appeal. Design Center Philippines also sent scholars abroad to study Industrial Design (ID), some of whom later established ID programs in Philippine universities.

1983-1993

Design for Exports

With export promotions as the focus of the Philippine Department of Trade and Industry in the early 1980s, Design Center Philippines realigned its programs toward improving the quality and competitiveness of Philippine non-traditional export products through design.

Consequently, Executive Order No. 133 s. 1987 renamed the Design Center Philippines to the Product Development and Design Center of the Philippines (PDDCP). The Philippines was regarded as the “Milan of Asia,” owing it to the country’s prolific furniture designs, and with several furniture designers winning international awards (Star Awards of Paris and Roscoe Awards of the US) for their product designs, including designers from the PDDCP.

1993-2013

Design for MSMEs

With the government’s focus on energizing the growth of MSMEs, which comprise 99 percent of the country’s manufacturing industry, the PDDCP intensified its efforts to assist countryside manufacturers with design intervention appropriate to their capabilities. The PDDCP extensively worked with MSMEs participating in provincial, regional, and national trade fairs.

2013-2022

Design for Innovation

The year 2013 marked a turning point in Philippine Design Policy with the enactment of Republic Act (R.A.) No. 10557, also known as the Philippine Design Competitiveness Act of 2013. This law recognized and institutionalized the value of design, not only as a goods-producing sector but as a “strategic tool for economic competitiveness and social innovation.” The PDDCP was also reorganized as the Design Center of the Philippines, with the mandate to cultivate the country’s creative capital and strengthen the culture surrounding design as a response to design’s role in accelerating businesses by creating new value, new markets, and new user experiences.

2022-Present

Design and the Creative Economy

In 2022, the Philippine Creative Industries Development Act (R.A. 11904) became the country’s first comprehensive Creative Economy Policy. Design is enshrined as one of the key priority sectors in the Philippine Creative Industries Development Plan, which is pending submission and approval of the Office of the President. Concurrently, the Design Center of the Philippines also completed the nation’s first Design Economy Mapping study with the publication of the Making Design Count report. It laid the foundation for the country’s first National Design Policy with concrete, data-informed policy recommendations based on in-depth sector consultations.

Design Advisory Council

The country’s very own design think tank.

The Design Advisory Council is a public-private partnership, that aims to shape the country’s design direction through the National Design Policy – equipping and inspiring every Filipino with the right tools to create freely, design purposefully, and innovate boldly.

OUR DESIGN ADVISORY COUNCIL

Careers

Design Center of the Philippines is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants are considered for employment without attention to sex, gender identity, religion, age or disability status, as long as they meet the qualification standards set by the Agency and the Civil Service Commission.

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