Cultural Memory, an Asset for Design-driven Innovation within the Creative Industries Sector - Lessons for design education - read online free

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by dhado

Culture is increasingly recognized as a key driver of sustainable development in the creative economy, yet the role of design and cultural factors remains under-researched, particularly from perspectives of emerging economies. The paper argues for a culture-centred design approach derived from cultural memory to support designers in creating sustainable, innovative products and services that reflect users’ identities. Two Botswana case studies examine how designers identify and transform cultural memory into globally appealing, locally meaningful innovations.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages14

Reading Time35 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Culture, design, and sustainable development

Creative industries and design-driven innovation

Research context and aims

Cultural memory as a design resource

Cultural Memory, an Asset for Design-driven Innovation within the Creative Industries Sector: Lessons for design education Richie Moalosi, University of Botswana, Botswana Keiphe Nani Setlhatlhanyo, University of Botswana, Botswana Oanthata Jester Sealetsa, University of Botswana, Botswana Abstract Culture is gaining recognition globally as an important driver of sustainable development in the creative economy. The significance of the role of design and culture with the creative industries is under-researched, especially from the new emerging economies perspective. Therefore, designers need a framework which will guide them on how they can create sustainable, and innovative cultural sensitive products which reflect users’ identities. Co-designing from cultural memory is a new design approach which embeds users’ beliefs, expectations, and expressive values in products and services. The paper discusses two case studies which were conducted in Botswana within the creative industries. The aim was to study how designers imbued cultural memory factors into design features. The paper developed a culture-centred design model after carefully studying how designers identify, transform and imbued cultural memory factors into innovative glocalised products that have local meaning and a global appeal. Key words cultural memory, culture-centred design model, creative industries, design-driven innovation, Botswana Introduction The importance of culture and the creative economy as drivers of sustainable development is increasingly getting recognition worldwide in terms of income-generation, job creation and export earnings. Due to this symbiotic relation between culture and creative industries, this study investigates how design-driven innovation can play a leading role to achieve the sustainable development goals of the local economies. Cultural insight has become an integral component of innovating products and services. However, little research has been conducted on how to integrate cultural characteristics into design activities to create emotional interaction between products and users. Investing in culture and the creative sector as drivers of social development can also lead to results that contribute to the overall well-being of communities, individual selfesteem and quality of life, dialogue and cohesion (Creative Economy Report, 2013) . Culture has a critical influence on the acceptance, use of products and services. Design approaches in a particular context are embedded in a cultural context of beliefs, expectations, and values. Evidence from the literature (Moalosi et al., 2010; Shen et al., 2006; Nussbaum, 1995) shows, that culture empowers people with the capabilities to take ownership of their own development processes. This is in line with capabilities theory which claims that increasing the capacity of people to live the type of life that they value should be the primary concern of any public policy. When initiating development programmes, consideration should be made to take a human-centred and context-based approach that includes diverse local values, conditions, resources, skills and limitations. For this to happen, designers, especially from new emerging economies must shift their thinking to focus on the basic human need asthe centrepiece of progressive design. This can be transformative and lead to sustainable change. The literature also shows that development programmes have failed in the past because they did not embrace people’s cultural setting (Creative Economy Report, 2013) . As the world becomes more globalised and to some extent glocalised, users seek distinctive products and services imbued with local meaning and with a global appeal. The creative industries have become a transformative force in the world because of their economic value as well as their role in producing new creative products and technologies. These industries are one of the growing sectors of the world economy and hence thi

FAQs

What problem does the paper address about design and culture?

It notes that the significance of design and culture within the creative industries is under-researched, especially from emerging economies’ perspectives.

How does the paper define the role of cultural memory in design?

It presents co-designing from cultural memory as a design approach that embeds users’ beliefs, expectations, and expressive values into products and services.

What do the Botswana case studies focus on?

They study how designers imbue cultural memory factors into design features and develop a culture-centred design model for innovative, glocalised products.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by dhado