Design Zentrum Bremen - Business promotion by design

The Bremen Design Centre was founded in 1990 at the initiative of the Senator for Economics as an instrument of regional economic support. In 1995, Bremer Design GmbH was established with responsibility for the management of the Bremen Design Centre and DesignLabor Bremerhaven. Since August 2002, Bremer Design GmbH has been a subsidiary of Bremer Investitionsgesellschaft mbH, and its task is to promote design within the context of the economic assistance and regional development of the state of Bremen.

In 1998, the Bremen Design Centre moved into Wilhelm Wagenfeld House, which had previously housed the Ostertor police station. Other users of the building are the Wilhelm Wagenfeld Foundation, which looks after the legacy of Wilhelm Wagenfeld, the industrial designer, and the Gesellschaft für Produktgestaltung e.V., which was founded in 1989.

The Bremen Design Centre carries out its tasks, such as teaching design, advice, training and the promotion of Bremen-based companies, by means of exhibitions, lectures, workshops and symposia. In addition to this, training measures are offered in order to facilitate companies’ access to creative services. The Bremen Design Centre ensures a transfer of expertise between business and science in the field of design-related questions. It provides information about both fundamental and the latest tools and trends in design. At the same time, the Wagenfeld House location provides an ideal setting in which to set the design issue appropriately in a cultural context.

A key element of the Bremen Design Centre is the running of the design promotion programme, which is intended to encourage firms wishing to invest in design services. This programme is not restricted to the traditional fields of design like corporate design and communications. Rather, the emphasis is increasingly on design projects relating to technology-oriented and innovation-oriented firms and product developments.

A further priority of the Bremen Design Centre is exhibitions on historical and current design issues, relating to the famous companies like Beck's, Jacobs, Milka (the chocolate brand), or the fascination of Mercedes design, and many more. Further exhibitions on successful design promotion projects by the Design Centre or on achievements by Bremen-based design agencies demonstrate the significance of design as a core discipline of successful companies.

The money from the Objective 2 programmes was used for the work of the Bremen Design Centre. The photo shows Wilhelm Wagenfeld House, which was not itself assisted with Objective 2 funding.