Oh dear, I started something yesterday by writing about my experience at Design Indaba and now I have no choice but to continue.
After getting to bed late last night due to blogging, I was tired this morning and didn’t quite manage to get out of bed as early as I hoped to. This necessitated parking in the CTICC and paying the price for the second day in a row. Once again I found a seat in the auditorium with mere moments to spare before the show commenced.
Today’s first speaker was Bruce Nussbaum, a Professor at Parson’s School for Design. He explained that his background was in financial journalism, and that one day he experienced somewhat of an epiphany on a plane when he saw a little girl squirt milk at people from her drinking bottle. He realized that it was the ring shaped design of the bottle that empowered this little girl to feed herself and “terrorise adults” on the plane to her own delight.
Nussbaum started investigating the impact of design, especially at the junction with economics. This ultimately swung his career in a new direction. He spoke about the influence of different generations and Gen Y’s trend of designing social systems rather than “artifacts”. In answering a question from the audience, he observed that our value system is being forced to change from “owning” to “sharing”, especially in the urban environment. This ties in with the concept of “co-creating” he introduced earlier in the talk. A couple of other points he made:
- “The black swan” (a rare sight) is the concept of expecting the unexpected in today’s world and economy.
- Design is optimistic, future-facing and concerned with creating the “new”.
The next item saw six graduate students from across the world share their latest projects in the so-called Pecha Kucha style. This means a quick time-limited presentation of slides. Apparently.
Three of these presentations stood out to me:
Inspired by a part in Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy where the lead character finds himself on a planet far more primitive than earth, Thomas Thwaites of the Royal College of Art in England, decided to attempt building a toaster from absolute scratch. He started by reverse engineering an existing toaster - the cheapest one he could find, categorizing the parts by the material they are made of and then going in search of them in their rawest form. He documented all the processes he went through extracting the materials needed and processing them by hand. Fascinating! Did he manage to make a toaster? Well, not really. He made something that vaguely resembles a toaster, but that’s not the point, is it?
Sonja Baumel, a designer from the Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands is challenging the boundaries between our bodies and the clothes we wear. Is a symbiosis possible with the invisible layers of bacteria already living on our skins? “Clothes” that automatically adjust to climate and temperature… Hmmm. She has even interned as a microbiologist to assist her studies. I’m not sure I completely followed her thinking, but it pretty much seemed that she was suggesting we wear mould. Seriously?!
Oliver Hermanus is a passionate filmmaker from Cape Town. He started off studying Film and Media at UCT, furthered his studies in California, worked as a Newspaper photographer back in SA, then went to London Film School on a scholarship. He discussed his process of designing complex characters using his past and present observations of friends and people in general. His graduation film Shirley Adams, set in the Cape Flats, has been well received and awarded.
Wow, all this happened before our first coffee break! After a well deserved caffeine boost, we re-filled the auditorium for the next session.
Design Indaba Projects were discussed next. These are socially conscious design initiatives. First Carleton School of Industrial Design in Canada presenting their ideas for furnishing the 10×10 housing project completed last year. Next up was Jurgen Bey from the Royal College of Arts in London. The Design Indaba website explains his involvement:
Jurgen Bey will be leading a delegation of 10 students to visit the Design Indaba Expo 2010. As part of their product design course, each of the students will be seeking to collaborate with one of the Design Indaba Expo exhibitors to design, develop and produce a new product. Working from the theme of “form follows fiction” and engaging with the topic of “manufactured landscapes”, the collaboration will be about more than simply the final “thing”. The eventual outcomes of the project will form part of a new Design Indaba range, which will go on to launch at the Milan Furniture Fair.
A few interesting comments from Bey:
- Why is so much money and human resources being spent on exploring the Moon and Mars for possible future colonization when we have so many uninhabited desert areas on earth?
- He observed women in, umm, I think it was Egypt, “farming” vegetables in bags so they could physically move the farm to safety away from thieves!
Michael Beirut took to the stage along with three filmmakers whom he interviewed about design related films they have recently made:
Doug Pray on Art & Copy, a film about advertising and creativity.
- Good advertising might actually reflect the personality of its creator, much like books, movies etc.
- Start with something “seemingly outrageous”.
- His movie features George Lois, legendary art director from the 50s and 60s saying that great advertising makes food taste better and cars run better, it’s all about perception.
- Lois and Tommy Hilfiger are featured explaining how Lois turned Hilfiger from a complete unknown into a fashion superpower overnight.
Eames Demetrios - as director of the Eames Office, founded by his grandparents, Charles and Ray Eames, he communicates, preserves and extends their work.
- See the 9 minute film “Powers of Ten”
- “Do not delegate understanding.” In other words, a DIY approach is the best way to gain insight into the materials, tools, processes and subject matter of your work.
- “Design is a willingness to surrender to the journey”.
- He showed a video clip of a fascinating “musical tower” made by his grandparents. It works with marbles rolling down metal plates.
- Find (or make) the tools to achieve your vision.
- The role of a designer is that of a host - to anticipate the needs of your “guest” (the audience/client/end user)
- Strive not to have a “design style”, rather leave a legacy of “problems well solved”!
Gary Hustwit on Helvetica and Objectified.
- “I made it because I wanted to watch it!”
Beirut concluded by commenting on the surprising amount of showmanship exhibited by creatives featured in the films - they are not actors after all.
Lunch was served. There were enough wraps to feed an army and I did not need a second invitation. They were much easier to eat standing than yesterday’s chopstick challenge, yet unlike yesterday, a lot of people sat down on the floor to eat. Even the dessert was finger friendly - Italian kisses on sticks!
A very impressive moustache took to the floor next. Behind this moustache was Piyush Pandey of Ogilvy & Mather, India’s most influential man in advertising (according to the Economic Times). He spoke about finding common ground across the boundaries of culture and language: the human heart. He told of an Indian belief that there are nine emotions, his favourite is humour and he incorporates it into a lot of his work. Because of the vast cultural and language diversity in India, the commercials he directs often use little or no spoken language, rather communicating purely visually. He showed a few of the television commercials he has directed, many of them were hilarious. Another groundbreaking achievement was the introduction of animated commercials during the 2009 Indian Premier League cricket. This campaign defied the common Indian notion that “cartoons” are meant for children only, and the effect was that many adults embraced the simple “zoozoo” character, they had created for the Vodafone commercials.
The next speaker, Stefan G. Bucher, is a graphic designer originally from Germany but now residing in the USA. He is best known for his series of whimsical characters created from random ink blotches on dailymonster.com. He introduced himself with a fast paced animated montage and went on to entertained us thoroughly with his dry wit and insight into the workings of a designer’s mind. Some of the thought provoking things he shared:
- “My brain is not a team player,” on self-doubt.
- “Your brain is like an unruly pit-bull - it will chew up the furniture at best.”
- Exercise “greed control” - if money becomes your motivation the quality of your work decreases.
- Understand how your brain works and set up a life for yourself that allows you to do what you love.
- Be useful, don’t be boring. You will never be hungry or lonely.
- Nobody will care about your ideas as much as you do.
It was time for the afternoon coffee break and I made an observation of my own: moist brownie cupcakes: good, raw brownie cupcakes: bad.
The Bouroullec Brothers, Ronan and Erwan from France were next but unfortunately only one of the product design duo could make it since Erwan had become a father three days ago. Ronan Bouroullec spoke about their fantastic and innovative work in a distinct French accent and he was very nervous which made for quite an entertaining talk. I simply had to write down a number of things he said since they were so peculiar- very insightful and brilliant, but some were somewhat bizarre. Remember to read all the following quotes in a French accent omitting the H at the beginning of any word starting on one:
- “Our work is based on a tension between him and me.”
- “We don’t want more clients and hope to do less projects in future.”
- On an office system they designed: “It was a good design because many production companies copied it. Problem is, some of the copies are better than this one.”
- On a modular room-divider screen system: “They stopped production because it was a disaster.”
- Showing a (completely random) rough sketch of an enormous dog lying on a small city, with a tower that looks like it’s impaling the dog: “This is a dog on a city.” Responding to the audience laughing: “It is a very serious drawing, not a joke at all.”
- “Our studio is a research space where we sew a lot.”
- “It’s an interesting challenge producing comfort out of nothing.”
- Referring to a boat-house they designed: “This is a floating house.”
- On an oversized ceiling light they designed: “This is quite an absurd light.”
- “Sometimes it is the dream of a designer to do a full plastic chair. We did it.”
- “For me the project is finished when the picture is good and everything has been done to help it to exist.”
- “It is very important to have a lot of doubt and not be so proud of what you do.”
One particularly intriguing project was an organic looking plastic modular room divider he called the “algae”. Also the “Vegetal” chair designed for Vitra is an outstanding piece of work.
The final speaker for the day was Tord Boontje, a UK product designer, hailing from the Netherlands. He absolutely lives and breathes the “use what you’ve got” approach, creating amazing things from remixing everyday materials. “You don’t need much to be a factory,” he said. He started his career by simply making his own unique minimalist furniture. He now collaborates with craftspeople across the world on exciting design solutions using what they already have at their disposal. Most notably he invigorated a clay pot making industry in the forests of Guatamala and woven garden furniture on the streets of Senegal. Other notable projects were:
- Incredibly detailed lights and chandeliers made from different materials like paper, steel and crochet.
- The offcuts from the steel chandeliers are made into jewellery.
- “Lace” made from grass and raffia.
- A complex “spiderweb sofa”.
- A bizarre thing he calls the “Thick Fig Wardrobe” (correction) covered in enamel leaves and featuring a bronze tree inside.
Boontje had a few odd comments of his own:
- On an embroidery of a crow he did on one of his early pieces of furniture: “Once the crow was on the chair, I knew everything was possible. There were no boundaries anymore.”
- “(My work is) made more with love than with skill.”
- On a rug he designed: ” What’s nicer to lie on than a little field of flowers?”
Phew, that’s all I have to say.
Exercise “greed control” - if money becomes your motivation the quality of your work decreases. - Stefan Bucher
We were actually talking about this last night!
When money starts becoming your main motivation the quality of your work will automatically decrease!
Thank goodness I’m going into journalism. No danger of being sidetracked by money in this profession :)