System Driven Design Industry: The Challenge Towards a Collective Vision for All Stakeholders in Design

The world is changing, so are the demands on the Design industry, from businesses, and society as a whole. Design fundamentally is about change as it responds to the external environment to identify opportunities to create new design activities and outcomes. Consequently, design (in theory and practice) tends to elevate its role as a catalyst for change, influencing strategic decisions, producing clear visions, shared beliefs, and values, and the models, methods, and tools to innovate with an emphasis on a systemic, whole-system interpretation of sustainable development. Why is it that Design professionals and Design academics don't exchange their knowledge for the common good? In this paper, therefore, a central objective is to build an argument for why the value of Design in business, and its economics thinking and approach in management, need a common purpose system view to tackle this century's technological, ethical, social, and ecological challenges. In the end, Design is seen as complex, while designers advocate for specific capabilities to innovate by making things simple and better. To achieve a common ground, we refer to Donella Meadows’ definition of a system and to the literature on the Design industry. We use her model to draw a simple form that brings together all parts of design activity, practice, or theory in order to develop a collective vision and help the understanding of the Design industry's purpose, ethics, and responsibility for a life-centred future.