IDI President Kim Mackenzie talks about the current gender imbalance in the design industry and why design matters. Interview by Lesley Tully.
The design industry prides itself on embracing uncertainty, challenging orthodoxies and using creativity to carve out a better world and yet recent research conducted by the Institute of Designers in Ireland (IDI) surfaces an alarming imbalance in gender diversity with a 25% female to 75% male divide across the Irish design industry.
IDI President Kim Mackenzie-Doyle talks about the purpose behind this movement and how redressing this balance can positively impact society, the economy and the education system.
“I was advised against joining the tech drawing class by teachers as I would have been a distraction being the only girl.”
Tell us a bit about your background and journey to become a designer?
From a young age, you could say that I was creative, the first spark of interest in product design happened when I was six. I took apart the family remote control (one of the first released, it put me out of a job being the youngest of the family, I got to change the channels), I did not trust that this object could control the TV without wires, so I had to find out more – reverse engineering at its finest.
In school I was advised against joining the tech drawing class by teachers as I would have been a distraction being the only girl, so was directed into art. I loved art and over 25 years later my school drawings are still on the wall in the school where I studied. At leaving cert stage, discussing my future with my parents my father stated ‘there is no money in design’ and recommended I take up a career in the sciences. Respecting his advice I started off my college journey studying
