I headed down on at the start of the week and assuming since the event was called London Design Week that there would be lots of stuff on, in reality all the events up to Thursday were very small, which meant I did a lot of trooping around London to see very little and then as of Thursday had little time to see everything as it was all going on at once all over the place. This was a bit frustrating and I will learn from the mistake, I was also kind of expecting to see a lot more interesting gadgets and uses of technology than I actually did in reality. Most of the products I saw came from the more arty, thought provoking side of product design, the side of which I am not particularly involved in but all the same enjoy certain aspects. I especially enjoy playful design, a little tongue in cheek. People who design objects with a completely different purpose to what their original use was for. I think in a way people feel that this form of design is a bit pointless and almost of waste of money, but I tend to think of it as a usable form of art or sculpture. A product with a message, that you can interact with as opposed to looking at it from a distance surrounded by do not touch signs.
I was interested to go check out the new designers exhibition, as it is interesting to see what work graduates produce. The show was varied, a mix of products and graphic design, I particularly enjoyed the work of James Plant with his removable lightbulbs being a particular point of interest for visitors. Glowing spheres suspended from the ceiling by guitar cables, the spheres could be removed from the cables and moved around the room as a transportable source of light. The idea was playful yet functional, it was funny watching people's faces as someone would pull the bulb off the cable.
Tent is a major exhibition space during the festival held at the Truman Brewery in Shoreditch. It combines new work, by designers and also old design classics sold by showrooms across britain. 4 Designers stood out here, Tom Price produced 5 chairs in a series called Meltdown. These were essentially random off cuts of plastic based materials, melted together to form chairs. I liked the use of obscure materials, and the fact that the process of manufacture was still completely visible, the designs weren't essentially about the final visual outcome but about the process.
Pencil bench by Boex was another highlight, essentially a bench with a series of holes drilled into it and then hundreds of pink pencils placed in these holes. Watching people tentatively sit down in fear that they would snap the pencils, and then to be surprised by the comfort, again a fun and playful design, the choice of pink pencils added an nice aesthetic touch.
The showstopper came form Freshwest Design (I think, should have probably taken a note of the name at the time!). Yet another chair probably not functional as a chair. Based up on the small wooden toys with little animals held together by pieces of string, which when you pressed the underside of the base of the toy, would cause the string to loose tension and the animal to collapse. Well they applied this idea to a chair, really intriguing and eery to watch. You would be looking a this chunky chair and then suddenly to everyone's shock it would just collapse. But what really made the design was when it became a chair once more, it was as if the wood became possessed or there was someone in the room controlling the chair, it would essentially come back to life in a way that was hard to believe. Unfortunately I can't find any info on it but I would imagine somewhere on the internet there is a youtube video of the design.
Finally I visited DesignersBloc, this event was set up gorilla event to 100%design attracting newer practices and a more laid back attitude. There were lots of interesting pieces of work and it was well exhibited in an interesting and none pretentious environment. One idea that really stood out, and I wonder if the designer really realised the potential of the idea was by 1000 Volt Design. In a series called Punchuation, was a plate that had a hole in it so it could be hung, I get the impression this was just a playful idea, but is actually an extremely practical way of storing plates both in a shop and at home.
Overall it was an interesting week, that really had nothing to do with my degree. Although I definitely got something out of it, and really appreciated the craft and aesthetical element to product design. It made a change from the user focused, engineering side of design that I am currently working in.
J
