Assignment-Globalization

Summarize the main effects of globalization and discuss to what extent they are beneficial to design industry

International integration has become one of the most important aspects in the world. According to BBC news (2007), globalization has taken a key role and has been an unprecedented increased in prosperity in the last five decades, which is spring up from the United States and Europe to many other developing countries in Asia, such as China and India. The influences of globalization widely include economy, environment, communication, and culture. With regard to the design world, some people argue that the development of communication technology has resulted in culture impact making the world more homogenous (Hansen.M, 2001), and even affects design industry. The trends of design, not only have influence in one area, but also in the whole world. In this essay, I would like to look at previous research on the effects of globalization on economic aspect. Moreover, to what extent globalization is beneficial to my subject - design, will be considered.

A common viewpoint is that the influences of globalization are mainly positive. Economic integration, the most important influence of globalization of the world, “has been grown by trade, investment and money increasingly cross international borders”, said by Steve Schifferes(2007). Relying on exports and imports goods and service between countries, not only the quality increasing, but also cost cutting are happened in the competitions. In addition, due to the opening of international investment market, people could invest their money in stock, share and property in different areas in order to make profits and spread risk. Globalization has brought about many benefits of the world, and also this development is unavoidable. Alternatives to Economic Globalization (2003) reported that no individual or group of people could be able to stop globalization’s relentless occurrence. Globalization of the economic market brings lots of benefits due to the boom.

However, some people argue that the negative effects of globalization outweigh the positive. Abraham.K (2000), a Professor of Ethics and Director of SATHRI (South Asia Theological Research Institute), maintained that the global village increases the opportunities for people to enhance their life. But the dark side is that globalization is an exploitation and political oppression for the Third World. The developing countries struggle to eliminate poverty and go through by trade with the developed countries. They have established factories in the developing areas because of the cheap labour. Also the poor countries have to divert budget from education and social welfare in order to pay a lot of debt to rich countries. The low education level result people could not get a higher salary job, therefore, poor countries become poorer, and vice versa. “The average per capita income of the developed world is $2,400 and that of the developing countries $180” (Abraham.K, 2000). Moreover, global invest market includes extensive areas and the effects are complex, it is difficult for investors to control their investments. In the case of the Subprime Mortgage Crisis of American, the debts of property result the banks have deficits and strikes at invest market seriously. The price of American stock has dropped, and directly has negative effect in other countries. Obviously, the influences of globalization are widely and deeply.

Thanks to globalization, it is becoming easier to study overseas. In recent years, the number of international student studying in foreign countries has increased dramatically. Especially in UK, the number of new international applicants for entry in 2007 was 68,500, an increase of 7.8% on the previous year. The number of EU applicants rose by 33% (UCAS, 2007). With regard to the design area, due to the inspiration of the design histories of western world, people look forward to study design in London, Paris, Milan, also in North Europe – the countries that are famous on product design recently, such as Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. The influence of the various western cultures, it increases the senses of aesthetics and creativity for designers, as well as the design styles could be multiple and infinite. Among the encouragement of attending international design competitions by school, which are looked at attentively by international famous brands, designers could have more opportunities to show their genius, and then be employed by multicultural companies. By influence of globalization, the creative industry market has developed init the majority of the world.

On the other hand, cultural identity is becoming unclear due to globalization. The famous brands, such as CHANEL, GUCCI and PRADA, are being operated around the world, and lead the trends of the design industry. Brand competition affects the number of local brands, and have a result of plagiarism. Beware. P (2007) described that the creative industries in UK lose 9 billion dollar a year from copyright infringement, and the Treasury loses 300 million dollar a year. In order to increase the sales volume and exist in high competitions, the local brands imitate the surface features of famous brands and affect the local culture. Traditional cultural products are not as popular as before. People, who can afford, would buy luxury foreign goods; others would buy the products which are fakes for following trades. Consequently, design homogeneity has happened. Due to the development of communication, it provides a fast, convenient and varied medium to surf around the websites for inspiration. However, as Bailey.J(2006) claim that taking good ideas to use on designer’s own sits and the law of intellectual property is not clear, thus the design are among a limitary protection.

Nowadays, international integration is changing the rules of human life. The combination of Sweden IKEA furniture, the Germany BMW car, and decoration with British BURBBERY is one of the multicultural life-style. Among the culture communication, more and more originality are encouraged and enrich the source of design. However, it is considerable that how designers improve their skills of creative working, in order to increase the value of products. In the high competition environment, only improving the uniqueness and the quality of products, the power of brands will be strengthened. As well as the policy improvement, the government in UK, also other countries are working hardly to advance culture and design industries, such as ‘The Good Design Plan’ of UK and ‘Developing- Culture Plan’ of Taiwan. At the same time of globalization, striving against the homogeneity is an important challenge. (1033 words)

Reference

Abraham.K, religion-online.org ‘Globalization and Liberative Solidarity’, Oct 2000, viewed 29, Aug 2008 http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=1559&c=1401

Bailey.J, PlagiarismToday 2006 ’Web Design Plagiarism’, 02, Aug 2006, viewed 04, Sep 2008 http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2006/08/02/web-design-plagiarism/

Beware.P, The Register 2007 ‘New copyright police to increase raids and seizures in UK’, 13, 02 2007, viewed 03, Sep 2008 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/13/more_copyright_police/

Hansen.M, Daily Bruin 2001 ‘Globalization inspires worldwide unification - Glob phobia sufferers must realize the benefits of cultural unity’, Published: 06, Aug 2001, viewed 28, Aug 2008 http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/archives/id/15860/

Koehler.B, International Forum of Globalization’ Alternatives to Economic Globalization -A Better World is Possible’ October 2004, viewed 28, Aug 2008 http://www.ifg.org/programs/alternatives.htm

Schifferes.S, BBC news 2007 ‘Globalization shakes the world’, 21 January 2007, viewed 28, Aug 2008 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6279679.stm