Peter Zec

Professor Dr. Peter Zec, born in 1956, studied Media Science, Psychology and Art Science.

Since May 2001, Peter Zec is president of the red dot GmbH & Co. KG. Since 1991, he has been president of the internationally renowned Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen. In 1993, he accepted the professorship of Business Communication at the University of Applied Sciences Berlin.

From September 2005 to October 2007, Zec was president of the international umbrella organisation of design ICSID (International Council of Societies of Industrial Design) and from October 2006 to October 2007 chairman of the International Design Alliance IDA, thus holding the highest official posts in the design world. As a former Icsid president, he now holds the rank of “Icsid Senator” and is consulted on all important issues concerning the association.

For over 20 years, Peter Zec has been working as a design consultant with numerous companies in foreign countries. He has gained world-wide recognition with lectures in more than 30 countries.

In October 2006, the leading German magazine for economics, the “WirtschaftsWoche“, elected Peter Zec one of the “20 creative unconventional thinkers worldwide changing the appearance of their companies and creating completely new markets”.

From 1986 to 1988 he was head of the specialist field “image” and as such was highly involved in the planning of the Centre of Arts and Media Technologies (ZKM), which had been established in Karlsruhe. Before he started working for the Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen, Peter Zec was president of the Federation of German Graphic Designers (BDG) and the Association of German Industrial Designers (VDID).

As an expert on the German as well as the international design scene he is the publisher of the "red dot design yearbook” and the “red dot communication design yearbook”. He has published the following books among others: Informationsdesign (1988), Design goes virtual! (1996), German Design Standards (1997; 2005), Designing Success (1999), Good Design. (2000), Orientierung im Raum (2002), Hall of Fame. Companies Searching for Excellence in Design (2003; 2007), Return on Ideas – Better by Design (2006), Who’s Who in Design (2003; 2007), The Design Value – a Strategy for Business Success (2010).

Peter Zec lives in Essen and Berlin.