The development of Brazilian design is in full swing, and it is quite likely to become an international force.

Our highly-creative, mixed-race cultural universe, allied to the exuberant natural surroundings that offer us uniquely exotic materials, provide the ideal ambience for a national Design school, the result of a perfect match between technique, aesthetics and technology.

Brazilian design is still young if compared to its history in other countries. The movement got under way in 1963 with the creation of ESDI - Higher School for Industrial Design, a bold move by the then state governor Carlos Lacerda. ESDI was a first for Brazil and also for Latin America, born at a time when Brazilian design did not stand out abroad as having its own features. Companies in search of good design considered it simpler to just buy in or copy foreign technology.

Many things have changed since then, and Brazilian companies have noticed improvements, not only in the look of their products, but also in their quality of use, making them highly productive, enhancing the worth of their brands and the competitiveness of their products.

It is worth noting that what we call products are the various results of creative processes involving aesthetics and technology, aiming not only at the mass production of consumer goods and their packaging, but also environmental comfort, the urban landscape, large-scale shows, various media for representation, and also the body and its wrapping.

The creation of the Veiga de Almeida University Design School is therefore highly opportune, at this time when we live and wear Design, and when Design represents a daily intervention in our lives and our relations with the visual world that surrounds us.

The aim of the school could be none other than qualifying responsible designers, in touch with the contemporary and the vanguard, prepared to act as cultural leaders for the twenty-first century and guardians of the environment of our planet.