Euro design register founder quits

Patrick Smith, one of the founding directors of the European Design Register (EDR) is understood to be leaving to join a design agency.

The EDR is the design industry’s equivalent to the Advertising Agency Register. It claims to be the only organisation of its kind helping clients to find design agencies for a range of design work.

When the Design Consultancy Register, which operated as an advisory service for clients, was ditched in 1994, the EDR made an unsuccessful plea to the Chartered Society of Designers to resurrect it.

It currently has about 200 design agency members on its books who pay an annual subscription fee. Clients also pay a fee when they use its services.

Smith will be the second of the three founding members to leave the EDR since it was set up in 1992.

Rune Gustafson left just over a year ago to become managing director of 20/20 Design & Strategy Consultants. The other founding director, Richard

Watson, will remain as the sole director, although he is understood to be recruiting two more consultants.

Smith refuses to confirm when he will be leaving or where he is going, but it is understood he will join a leading design agency as a consultant.

In 1994, the EDR expanded to the Netherlands when it linked with communication management consultancy SCAN in Amsterdam.