swiss design association

Starting Power is a call for concepts by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia which encourages and supports the early stages of young designers’ professional careers. This is the fourth edition of this programme and has been designed to specifically support the needs of young Swiss creatives.

Spaces on the programme are limited to six Swiss designers selected from all the design disciplines. Each designer will have the opportunity to work closely and individually with both national and international expert coaches online to realise their very first project since completing their graduate degree.

The expert coaches will support the selected designers individually across the following 4 fields of expertise:

• Design Coaching; supporting designers on how they approach sustainable design, their choice of materials, end-of-life and circularity considerations to accelerate the project’s development.
• Business Coaching; helping designers define their business propositions and strategies, forecast their financials, understand pricing and articulate mission statements.
• Communication Coaching; helping designers to create compelling presentations, identify their audience and produce an effective communication and PR
• Pitch Coaching; preparing designers to confidently pitch in the future to customers, investors and other stakeholders.

The selected designers will receive financial support of CHF 5’000 to complete the project phase identified during the coaching sessions.

The selected concepts will be developed over 9 months (the start of the programme is January 2024 and it completes by the end of September 2024 latest).

The online coaching sessions are conducted in English and are scheduled individually with the experts.

Deadline 1 November 2023