Global conference puts spotlight on design

The creative industries have gone through rapid development in the city, helping with the city's plan to become a center of design in the world, according to industry insiders. So far the city has nurtured 21 national-level industrial design centers, 191 municipal-level design and creative centers and 92 design and innovation-centered enterprises.

At the opening on Friday morning, more than 20 academics, industry leaders and heads of designers' organizations jointly released the World Design Cities Shanghai Manifesto DesignS, which called on using design as the engine for new quality productive forces and innovation.

Focused on the harmonious existence of human and nature, the manifesto called on the cultivation of designers and creative communities that facilitates industrial transformation and global economic vitality. Artificial intelligence should be used to shape a new paradigm to reform education and research. It also called on developing a new designing culture that involves everybody, and the collaboration with artificial intelligence, to promote the solution of complex social issues such as environmental problems.

A large-scale exhibition featuring the main theme Design Reframing Growth will go on until Oct 7. Covering an exhibition space of about 20,000 square meters, the exhibition showcases more than 3,000 objects of fashion, light industry and smart terminals and so on.