PDR in 2024: Year in Review
With 2024 drawing to a close, we look back at the events and achievements that told our story this year.
JANUARY – MARCH
We kicked off the year sharing news of our recently completed project TIDAL which focuses on increasing patients’ access to customised living aids.
In February we caught up with Will Dauncey for an update on his Knowledge Transfer Partnership with V-Trak, one year later.
In March, the ‘Codi Cymru’ / ‘Rise Cymru’ exhibition, for Race Council Cymru, opened its doors at St Fagan’s National Museum of History, in a ceremony that included an address by then-outgoing Welsh First Minister, Mark Drakeford. The exhibition was designed with our spatial design expertise to maximise the impact of a travelling exhibition that depicted the story of 27 Black Lives Matter activists.
Around the same time, Dr Safia Suhaimi, Post-Doctoral Design Researcher from our Media Cymru team shared news of our development of PDR & CO:RE a thematic event series that was introduced to build a community of creatives among cohorts.
APRIL – JUNE
In April Jarred Evans, Managing Director at PDR, shared with us the best things about being an iF Award jury member, having taken part in the final jury for this year’s awards.
This was followed by a return trip to Berlin to collect two iF Design Awards 2024 for the projects Hydrobean and ReGen. As well as our project Stand, a paediatric upright stander winning a German Innovation Award in May.
In team news, we welcomed Patrick Richards who joined us as a SMART Partnership Associate working at 3 Sixty, a creative production house in Cardiff that specialises in products and services for retail, interiors, and exhibition spaces.
JULY – SEPTEMBER
We welcomed Mengting Cheng our new Business Development Officer, who you may have seen out and about at some of the major trade fairs this year making new connections.
The summer also saw further award wins, with ReGen receiving a Green Good Design Award and Me winning a Bronze IDEA Award, while Hydrobean also achieved ‘Finalist’ commendation.
Then in August we were proud to share the latest paper from Dr Safia Suhaimi, titled ‘Design thinking mindset: a user-centred approach toward innovation in the Welsh creative industries’, which presents the finding of the Innovation for Creatives and Ideas Lab training series, delivered as part of our work with Media Cymru.
OCTOBER – DECEMBER
As autumn arrived, Professor Anna Whicher, took time to reflect on how best to embed design for future generations in the UK’s Industrial Strategy. whilst Director of Research Professor Andrew Walters returned from the Design for the Planet Festival in Manchester, a key milestone on the path towards the World Design Congress in London 2025, for which we are a proud partner.
October also saw our Design and Policy International Projects Manager, Piotr Swiatek travel to Taiwan as a judge at the final selection of the Taiwan International Student Design Competition (TISDC) 2024, the largest student design competition in the world.
In November we hosted our latest 24-Hour Design Challenge at Cardiff School of Art and Design. The event saw the Product Design course’s third year students take on the brief set by us to “design a wearable device-based service offer that capitalises on available or near-market sensor and processing technology to answer a genuine, latent human need.” The students worked late into the night and presented their ideas to us the following morning, and we were very impressed with the confidence and rigour behind their pitches.
To finish the year, ReGen our project with iCandy continued its winning streak receiving a Red Dot Design Concept Award along with a GOOD Design Award. This was one of three GOOD Design Awards we are thrilled to pick up to round off the year!
As we approach 2025, we’d like to thank every member of our team for their hard work, dedication, and achievements throughout the year. We would also like to say thank you to those who collaborated with us this year and everyone who has supported us. We look forward to the new year ahead!
