DCA Design Receives Queen’s Award for International Trade
October 18, 2012 – 9:27 am
From left to right: Rob Bassil, Martin Dunne, Robert Woolston and Nick Mival.
Product design bureau DCA Design International (Warwick, UK) has received the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in recognition of its achievements in international trade. Lord-Lieutenant of Warwickshire Martin Dunne, the official representative for the Queen in the county, presented the award this week to Managing Director Robert Woolston and fellow directors Rob Bassil and Nick Mival in the DCA studios in the heart of Warwick. Medical product design is a core business area for the company.
Ranked as the UK’s number one product design consultancy for seven consecutive years by Design Week magazine, the firm has also recently been awarded a Plimsoll Award for Outstanding Company for 2012.
“You may not have heard of us, but you will certainly be familiar with some of the iconic and durable products we have designed, such as the Stanley knife, the BT KX phone boxes and London Underground Central Line trains,” said Woolston during the award ceremony. “The scope and impact of our work continues to grow, now across an international stage. Two mainstays of our success are the long-standing relationships that we have developed with many leading companies and the strength of the skill base within the fantastic team of staff we have built over time.”
Over the last decade, DCA has embraced an international outlook. Much of the company’s growth over this period has come from exporting expertise in product innovation to multinational corporations, leading to the creation of a diverse range of market-leading products in each of their four market sectors of operation: medical and scientific, commercial and industrial, consumer and transport. The success of DCA’s approach has been recognised in the granting of the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Trade.
In addition to its existing offices in Warwick’s Church Street, Market Place and Hiron Way, DCA has recently added a fourth site to its growing Warwick campus. Brook Hall, a former Victorian Baptist church in central Warwick, houses a new studio for 30 people. Like all of DCA’s existing studios, Brook Hall houses a vibrant mix of researchers, designers and engineers.
“As we expand towards 150 staff in Warwick, rather than relocate to a single building on an industrial estate, we are creating a DCA campus across the centre of town in an interesting mix of buildings,” explained Woolston.
