I found these talks really helpful, as I have never been to a design festival before the whole concept seems rather daunting.
Stockholm Design Festival
-Turned into a design week that has run for over 10 years as an umbrella event for the furniture and light fair
-Guest of honour for 2014 was Gam Fratesi who created sculptured based on the idea of finding balance, which was a recurring theme through out the design festival.
-Guest of honour for 2013 was Nendo who created the 80 Sheets of Mountains instillation in order to express the way design expands whilst minimising the environmental impact as the instillation could be recycled afterwards.
- Another instillation in 2013, created by Anatomy of Communication, consisted of loads of sheets of paper presented in such a way that when you were stood underneath, you could see an interesting pattern. This instillation was displayed in an area of the festival where talks would take place.
-There is an area within the show called Greenhouse, where new talent can display their work relating to furniture or lights. The applicants can't be associated to any particular manufacturer and the products can't have been exhibited before.Through out this talk I noticed that the design festival involved a lot of instillations with interesting concepts. The presentation of the furniture also resembled that of instillations, which I thought was really interesting but also quite obvious as the designers have put a lot of effort into creating their furniture so they would want to present it in the most memorable way, which will also compliment their work.
Milan Design Festival
-Takes place outside the city centre-The trade fair includes contemporary displays of products
-Environments are created in order to showcase the work
-Emphasis on the type of companies that display their work there
( Moroso, Dedon, Kusch & Co)
-Tom Dixon from the Museum of Science and Technology showcased his project called Designer's Block, where he let people who attended the design festival create their own lampshade by the use of 3D printing.
- Alvaro Catalan De Ocon's PET Lamps were a really interesting concept. They were inspired by looking at plastic waste in the Amazon. They are created by recycling the plastic by weaving it to create lamps.
-Studio Swine's Sea Chair project was featured at the design festival. They built a machine to collect plastic waste from the sea.
-La Rinascente (an upmarket department store) was hacked in 2012. A studio space was built inside the store, combing the hacker and maker community. The intention was to allow making to change things socially.
-There was a lot of emphasis on the process of a project and not just the outcome. This allows people to engage with the project and understand the intention behind it.
Recent trends of the design festival
- discussion
-inside/outside environments
-non European designs
-socially engaged designs
-materials and waste
-3D printing
-open source
We were also given a talk about some of the instillations featured at London design festival, and I was really interested in the event, I researched into it a bit more so that I could gain a better understanding of what is featured at the design festival. I wanted to fully grasp the concept of a design festival before we have to start thinking about creating out own.
Common themes of a design festival:
-interactive work
-recycling
-representing nature in an alternative way
-rescuing nature
-problem solving
-over all colour pallet represented through posters, website, flyers & map
- specific locations chosen to represent different events
-local artists, designers and shops take part
-sponsors
- collaboration
