Swedish talent showcased in Hong Kong's Business of Design Week

Tasked with reinvigorating Scandinavian Airlines' iconic brand, multi-award-winning Swedish architect Thomas Eriksson says his first thought was that the airline's wet wipe packet should be considered as important as the aircraft lounge design.

"Scandinavian Airlines is a great example of how we combine identity and design around Scandinavian values and materials and traditions," Eriksson says. "We considered every detail, from the ground vehicles to the airplane livery and graphics. Our philosophy is that we shouldn't add anything that we don't have a rationale for."

Swedish design has long been recognised for an emphasis on minimalist functional beauty along with innovation and sustainable living, values that have translated into worldwide success for companies as varied as H&M and Ikea, and making it an obvious choice as the lead "partner" at Hong Kong's annual Business of Design Week (BODW), which began on Monday.

The week-long series of exhibitions and presentations by designers such as Niklas Malmqvist, one of the creative masterminds behind the popular Candy Crush game, Japanese architect Shigeru Ban and Red Dot Design Award-winner David Jia is expected to draw a crowd of about 100,000, a tenfold increase from when the event last collaborated with Sweden in 2004.

Edmund Lee, an executive director of the organiser, Hong Kong Design Centre (HKDC), believes that countries with a strong design culture like Sweden offer useful lessons concerning how to connect effectively within a modern global economy.

"This requires a new mindset, new knowledge and new skills over and beyond our traditional knowledge and proven business competence," Lee says. "By working with Sweden, we can all be inspired by their business leaders and design masters in creating value through design, brand and innovation."