PUB and club design has come a long way from the red Dralon and autumnal carpeting decor of many a carousing night in the past.

These, days the demand is for theme designs, minimalism and - above all - originality.

The change, which has been happening speedily over the last several years, has come about via the traditional chicken-and-egg route.

Club, pub, disco and leisure centre owners, made aware of the need for a new look by a young discerning clientele, went in search of architect/designers made similarly aware. One of the first, and certainly most successful companies to answer the call was the McNally Design Group.

Set up by award-winning architect Mel McNally six years ago, the company has, like leisure design, come a long way since then.

With headquarters in Mount Street, Dublin, it now has regional headquarters in Singapore and Atlanta and has five design and manufacturing companies within the group.

Prime among these is The Irish Pub Company which, to order, will design, manufacture and instal "a quality authentic Irish pub" anywhere in the world. So far, they've built more than 190 pubs in 26 different countries on five different continents and have the capacity to construct 100 pubs per annum.

Further proof that design pays lies in the group employment figures - 85 in Ireland and a further 600 people directly employed in associated and sub contracted companies.

International Leisure Design Concepts (ILDC), is a younger sibling of The Irish Pub Company. Set up last year, it concentrates on architectural and interior design and the project management of restaurants, night-clubs and bars.

So far, ILDC has been responsible for the re-invention of venues as diverse as the Blazing Saddles Bar and Restaurant, Donegal (Wild West theme), The Blues Canal Bar, Milan (blues theme) Finn McCool's Bar, Tours, France (Celtic theme) and a number of theme pubs in the UK.

Their latest revamping is The Purty, the well-known Dun Laoghaire music and dance venue, which will officially open later this month.

Conor Kenny, sales manager for the group, describes the new Purty as a funky night club" and says ILDC worked with proprietor George Davis to create a comfortable, stylish and uniquely themed venue".

It has elements of 1970s design in the buttoned seating and fixtures and elements too of a '90s speakeasy bar. The colours are bold; strong yellows, greens, reds and terracotta. The music system is state of the art and there are hand-carved plaster panels in the bar area".

Both ILDC and The Irish Pub company quote an investment guideline of approximately £1,000 per square metre and a minimum size of 100 square metres. Payback, they say, ranges from less than one year to about three years, with an average payback of less than two years.

The Irish Pub Company claims that a 200-square-metre pub would represent an investment of some £200,000. Both companies claim it takes them 10 weeks, from contract to opening, to complete a job in Europe and 16 weeks in the Far East.

Validation for the McNally Design Group's design concept came recently when it was the only non-British company nominated for the 1997 Interior Design of the Year Award in the Molson British Entertainment and Discotheque Awards.

The nomination is for its design for the millennium night-club in Teeside and the award will be announced at the end of this month.