Design as Soft Power
Ever wonder why we make efforts for everything we do in life? At its roots, our tenacity in making things happen is based on the reality of our own power and to gain more of it so we can make things around us move in the direction that we want. To gain power is the foundational driver of human behavior and patterns, and it rippled to the behavior of nations.
As civilizations develop, it brings nations to form a more diplomatic relationship towards each other. In that regard, hard power, such as military movement and direct economic sanctions, is not preferable. But the need for power is undeterred because however, humans are beings that have an ego. Thus, diplomacy consists of influencing people to do things by improving a nation’s appeals. And that is what is called Soft Power.
AlvinT showcase with other Indonesian designers and brands at IDentities, organized by the late Indonesian Creative Economy Agency (BEKRAF), at Milan Design Week 2017
The term Soft Power seems to gain clout in Indonesia in correspondence with the rise of Monocle magazine readership in the country. Monocle mentioned that Soft Power are, “The gentler sides to get things done”, and as a country with tremendous cultural assets such as Indonesia, Soft Power became a promising way to gain capital from.
Soft Power itself carries the meaning of the ability or power to shape preferences by using appeal or attraction. However, the term has spread to the personal/individual levels even though it’s typically used for international relations between countries and the appeal of economy and culture.
Soft Power can be stacked from many areas, even from areas that seem aggressive or “hard,” like the military. Another area that has been undoubtedly important to stack a nation’s Soft Power is design. According to CNN, design is at the heart of the creative industries, and the creative industries—based on the UK effort in documenting the sector’s income—have provided more than 3 million jobs. It also generates £9,6 million per hour for the country.
AlvinT x Yamakawa showcase at Milan Design Week 2017
Why is the creative economy, in general, important to soft power? Soft Power uses intangible sources, such as ideological or cultural attractions, to increase its influence. With more than 17,000 islands that make up its geographical condition, Indonesia is also home to hundreds of indigenous intangible sources and thousands more in the modern intangible sources: the creative subsectors. In Indonesia, the creative economy itself, which includes 17 subsectors, contributed 7.24% to the national economy in 2017. But this doesn’t reflect the contribution of design. With the recent development of the design profession, there is a high probability that a portion of designers' contributions is undocumented, such as from the start-up ecosystem and the roles of designers in its growth.
As a practitioner in the design and creative industries, we feel that one of the things that contribute to the power of design in increasing soft power is its ability to connect to other industries, sectors, formats/products, and work models. It’s due to the practice of design that values collaboration and exploration.
Design is a practice that cannot work on its own. Its nature is to work with other things outside of design and find something that can be elevated better as a “power.” As a practice, it’s working as if it’s a glue and a funnel for the information stream that a designer receives. Because of this, design can be embedded in almost any, if not all, kinds of fields/things and grow as the subject fields/things grow.
The second reason we feel worth acknowledging from design is the ability of the practice to create or help create distinction in what it touches. This differentiation comes not only from “looks” but also internal factors such as unique selling points or propositions, thus shaping the product from within. By creating differentiation, it helps what it touches to have economic opportunities in entering the market. In other words, differentiation pushes for market sharing.
AlvinT showcase with other Indonesian designers and brands at IDentities, organized by the late Indonesian Creative Economy Agency (BEKRAF), at Milan Design Week 2017
What can we do more to improve the contribution of design in Indonesia's soft power measurements? We think it can begin with proper documentation and acknowledgment of the profession. To do so, Indonesia has to be agile in its bureaucracy. Because the creative landscape, including design, is changing fastly. For example, what we understand as a product designer's work five years ago may be different now. We used to know that a product designer's job is to design physical objects, but now digital products where design happens as a process, such as inside a smartphone application, are globally considered a product designer's work. Yet, its stand on the Indonesian creative industry sub-sectors is unclear. In general, it’s unclear how the design communities can push a profession to be officially recognized by the country.
The next effort we can make for improvements is to have a proper channel and support in combating plagiarism among our people. Plagiarism does nothing but damage. Besides cutting some of the potential contributions by selling “less” than the original, it gives a brand image of a plagiarist to the people of the nation. Moreover, due to the plagiarist notion, the Indonesian diaspora or representative will face considerable challenges in doing intangible capital-based businesses.
On the other hand, we also have to counter plagiarism from abroad. Sometimes this kind of plagiarism is caused by the brand image of third world countries or a country that is less known to the world. In other cases, they think the distance and relationship between Indonesia and their operating country are wide enough to obscure their deeds. The plagiarist thinks our country is small and unimportant enough to fear plagiarism consequences. To combat this, Indonesians will need strong collective communication about its creation and its effort to counter plagiarism. This effort will directly impact the nation's soft power, producing the notion that highly precious ideas are breeding in Indonesia.
How can design support those two efforts? Interestingly, if we trust enough the profession and its development, designers can help in the process of creating systems by working together with all stakeholders involved.
