Every year the Swedish government invests capital in different projects. In recent years the Swedish government has chosen to invest in design. The reason for this is that the government wants industry to use design as a competitive source. Two organizations, Svensk Form and Stiftelsen Svensk Indistridesign, have been assigned to improve industry and society’s under¬standing of design. But government initiatives have a tendency of “running out into the sand” or not “following through” the whole way. Historically it has been difficult to influence in¬dustry with state initiatives.

The purpose of this essay is to analyze and evaluate if the project, Designåret 2005, can influ¬ence the cooperation between a design agency and a company. To reach our goal we have carried out six deep going interviews based on a quantitative method. The interviews were made with three design agencies, Ytterborn & Fuentes, Ergonomidesign, Pangea Design, and with three companies, Arla Foods, Gustavsberg, Scania. Interviews were done with at least one representative from every agency or company.

Our results showed that depending on how a company worked with design they were influenced by government initiatives such as Designåret 2005.