Non-profit association (French law of 1901)
Design: aligning performance and purpose
Design et Industrie aims to make design a standard practice in French industry: not the art of appearances, but a way of thinking that shapes strategy and a method that makes it real.
Profit and morality are not opposites. Design is the tool that turns good intentions into action.
Manifesto
Helping people grow, not just consume
« Does an offer uplift the people it reaches, or does it merely make them consume? »
Morality concerns a company’s purpose: what it produces, and what for. Ethics only governs the means. A virtuous company is therefore not content with behaving well: it questions the very value of what it puts on the market.
That is the dividing line between a company that creates lasting value and one that merely captures it.
Design is how a company acts on this. It combines strategic vision, appeal, usability, technical excellence and social and environmental requirements – and so aligns the company’s purpose with its performance.
The strategic advantages of design
A simple, effective performance lever – on three conditions
In fast-changing markets, where social, environmental or regulatory pressures force companies to rethink their offer – and often their whole business model – design builds new experiences that answer the needs of every stakeholder.
Put it in its rightful place
Strategic vision combined with operational know-how – not a cosmetic veneer.
Don’t expect a miracle
An idea is worth nothing without the operational mastery that turns it into reality.
Build it into the business
Collaborative by nature, design is also one of the most powerful tools for breaking down silos.
Design in France
A lever still largely underused
Unlike Northern European, English-speaking or Asian countries, France shows little interest in design, apart from a few large groups and a few hundred companies that have fully embraced it.
Most often, companies keep only one of its dimensions. Yet design delivers its full value only when taken as a whole: strategy and execution, performance and purpose.
Five ways of shrinking design
- A matter of taste – treated as fine art, with minimal time and resources.
- A collaborative workshop – reduced to just one of its tools.
- A sales booster – limited to shapes, colours and typography.
- Eco-design – confined to its environmental side alone.
- An image tool – used to show off the organisation’s « human » value.
The board
The people behind the association
President
Christophe Chaptal
Founder and managing partner of Experience makers. Publishing director of Design fax and Admirable Design.
Secretary general
Isabelle Macquart
Founder and managing partner – Hodea and Experience makers.
Treasurer
Thomas Germain
CEO of APCARS. Founder of CK-RAY.
Join
Join the industrial players who want to be both profitable and virtuous
The association is open to companies, institutions and schools, and to individuals – designers, students, business people – who see design as a key performance lever.
Joining means supporting its work, contributing to its thinking and benefiting from its output across the whole design value chain.
| Individuals | €150 |
| Freelancers and start-ups | €350 |
| Companies under 100 people | €500 |
| Schools, training bodies, third places | €1,000 |
| Companies of 100 to 1,000 people | €1,500 |
| Companies over 1,000 people | €5,000 |
Donations are also welcome without membership, from €100.