Thais Costa
Ghana Design Boost
The Ghana Design Boost is an extension of the Ghana Design Network (GDN) project, which began five years ago, focused on exchanging Dutch and Ghanaian expertise in brand design and strategy. The initiative aimed to strengthen Ghana's design and innovation ecosystem by supporting local designers and entrepreneurs with coaching, mentorship, and collaboration with international experts. It sought to scale sustainable solutions in sectors like agriculture, health, and the environment, using design thinking to drive innovation and address local challenges.
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My Role:
I organised, co-designed, and facilitated the online training program Design Boost in collaboration with Ghanaian designers and lecturers, aimed at advancing the development of the design sector in Ghana.
Company/ partners
Output
An online training, attachment programme and campaign focusing on highlighting the value of design in Ghana.
Location
Ghana
Date
2020
The design challenge
While the design community in Ghana is growing, it is still not widely recognized as a viable income-generating profession due to its lack of visibility. Butterfly Works was approached by RVO and GDN to identify gaps in the ecosystem, understand the specific needs of the community, and offer co-created solutions to enhance the exchange between designers, improve their skills and profiles, and demonstrate to companies the value of hiring designers as a smart investment for increased revenue.
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The project focused on answering the question: "How might we promote the visibility and recognition of the Ghanaian design community and foster cross-sectoral exchange among designers from different disciplines?"
We led a team of local design thinkers to conduct research on the needs of designers, resulting in an insights report. Additionally, desk research was conducted to assess the design education curricula in Ghana. In response to the Covid-19 crisis, we shifted from in-person sessions to online co-creation workshops, where we collaboratively designed the training program with Ghanaian designers. These sessions also served as an extension of the research phase, allowing us to gain deeper insights into the community's needs.
The outcome
Based on insights from the design research phase, we worked closely with design lecturers to revise the curricula of design education institutes in Ghana, aligning it more closely with the needs of the local design community. We also launched an online campaign, 'Design is...', to advocate for the value of design before offering a tailored training program on topics like sustainable design, circular economy, and future-proof design.
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We selected 25 talented designers from the Ghanaian design community to participate in the Design Boost training course. The aim was to enhance their skills and knowledge, empowering them as design ambassadors through inspirational talks, expert-led workshops, and hands-on experience with real client cases. The training included a series of webinars based on the needs assessment, covering intellectual property rights, circular economy, eco-design, pitching, storytelling, and branding. Dutch and Ghanaian designers were invited to share their perspectives and examples during the sessions. At the end of the course, participants pitched their concepts during a closing celebration event.
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In October 2021, we hosted the finalists of the training for an exchange program in the Netherlands.
We used the online collaborative tool Miro board to collect input from Ghanaian designers on what they find most important and valuable in their design practice.
The training ended with an in-person celebration event in Accra. All groups presented their pitches and shared learnings.
This was a social media campaign where we invited all participants of the training to share what design is to them. The objective was to reach and inspire other Ghanaian designers on the value of design.