I was recently asked to comment on the demise of Wedgwood, the famous ceramic (I dislike the term “pottery”) company.

I was interested to do so as I had worked with a similar company during my time at the Design Council. We were developing set of design demonstration projects, where we would bring designers into companies for a single day to identify how design could improve and help them be more successful. There was a fabulous response and we were turning companies away, despite there being no money available, just access to good designers for a single day.

One of the first companies approved was Portmeirion, who were famous for their range of exquisitely decorated plates depicting botanical illustrations. The mother of my first girlfriend was a devotee, but I was surprised to see that the company had made some worthy efforts to expand and appeal to wider range of customers by commissioning some quite innovative modern designs as well. Paul Priestman worked with them and helped them simplify their product range, and they seem to be surviving in a difficult world.

These companies are never as big as their public fame might lead you to think and it was a struggle to compete against changing fashion, which has moved away from traditional decoration, and cut price competition from China and Asia. From that point of view, it was not so surprising to hear of Wedgwood’s decent into administration.

But I found my self exasperated when I looked at Wedgwood’s web site and saw their line up of contemporary designers with whom they quite clearly hoped to appeal to a wider audience. Fashion designers Jasper Conran, interior designer Kelly Hoppen, bridal gown designer Vera Wong and Martha Stewart (not quite sure how to define her) have all created ranges which share whispery printed decorations in subtle colours on generic white porcelain. Not one ceramic designer amongst them, not one interesting form or innovative statement in site. Wes this what the great innovative and style creating brand had come to?

I took a look at another great ceramics brand, Rosenthal. What a difference. A gorgeous, arty and beautiful web site with innovative edgy designs as well as timeless classics. And not one bit of wispy decoration to be seen.

As I put in my article for the Crafts Council, this looks to me like a case of mis management by people who see the brand as just a logo to be applied to any old tat, who got in the celebrity decorators to appeal to the Baby Boomers. And the result, the death of one of the world’s great artistic, industrial and socially conscious enterprises.

I remember Robin Levien and David Queensbury complaining many years ago that there were no design commissions any more, it was just done by buyers, choosing from manufacturer’s catalogues. I suspect that is what these celebrity decorators are doing now and the results are bland beyond belief. It’s quite nice having Jamie Oliver’s smiling face on the wrapper of the plates I buy at Sainsbury’s but I don’t think for one moment his endorsement is the same as him designing them. Perhaps that the crux of it, design creativity has been replaced by celebrity endorsement. It’s just a taste thing now.

Live long and prosper to Portmeirion and Rosenthal and may the management of Wedgwood never be trusted with such important brands again.