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The Czech Republic’s Design Awards have been running since 1991. They were introduced as a way of increasing awareness amongst SMEs of the importance of design and the benefits it can bring to a business. The Awards now form a major part of the Design Centre of the Czech Republic’s design promotion campaign.

The so-called ‘Velvet’ Revolution in Czechoslovakia in November 1989 radically changed not only the political system and brought freedom, democracy and human rights to the population, but at the same time also changed the country’s economic system. State ownership of industrial enterprises, including small and medium size manufacturers, was abolished and replaced by private ownership. The economy was opened to foreign capital which started to buy big Czech companies. During the years following the Velvet Revolution, the overwhelming majority of big Czech companies were in hands of different foreign enterprises. Small and medium size enterprises therefore started to play a very important role in the Czech economy. At present Czech SMEs employ 61.5% of the Czech active population, their share in GNP is exactly 34.92% and their share of the export market is 30%.This share could be higher if their products were better from a design point of view. Unfortunately new private owners of SMEs either do not have much knowledge about the importance of design or do not have enough disposable capital for hiring skilled designers. Such a situation required an intensive design promotion campaign.

The aim of this campaign was and still is to convince owners and managers of SMEs that design is a very important tool in increasing the quality of their products and thus increasing their export potential. Secondly the aim of design promotion was and still is to increase public awareness of the importance of design for improvements in the living standards of the Czech population. The Czech government gave the task of implementing a design promotion campaign to the Design Centre of the Czech Republic, which was established in 1991 by the Ministry of Industry and Trade as a governmental organisation.

Various means of design promotion have been used, such as exhibitions (domestic as well as foreign), lectures, conferences, publications, mass media etc. The most effective method has proved to be the system of Design Awards. The Design Award system in Czech Republic has two main goals: first to honour publicly enterprises that, with the help of skilled designers, are using design as one of the most effective means for increasing a product’s quality and also as a tool of innovation for their production. Secondly the example of these SMEs should serve as a means to attract other SMEs and show them that they can also win some awards if they use design and thus increase the quality of their production and their competiveness in the world market. Put simply, we are trying to convince those SMEs that are still not using designers to follow the example of design oriented SMEs.