SQUA.RE Creative Director Daniel Scheffler attends the conference as Design Critic.
‘Since 1995,
Design Indaba has been committed to a vision that is built on the belief that creativity will fuel an economic revolution in South Africa.
As such, Design Indaba is
a celebration of design in a country iconic of the triumph of the human spirit. By attracting the world’s brightest talent, Design Indaba has become a respected institution on the creative landscape and one of the few global events that celebrates all the creative sectors -
graphic design, advertising, film, music, fashion design, industrial design, architecture, craft, visual art, new media, publishing, broadcasting and performing arts sector.'
DAY 1
The Design Indaba scores itself on the soccer theme this year as the International All Stars from various disciplines showcase innovation. Attended by art lovers, design haters, creative snobs and evangelists, moody corporates and thrilled educators, the conference is the heart of creative spirit.
Manabu Mizuno
With comedic simplicity the Japanese designer’s ideas stretch like a cat. Elegantly and cosily he reveals flesh in his idea of Miekata. Describing this term to encompass a
good business view or a story of a brand. The visionary designer adjured to the truth of placing a greater accent on the story, the fable, the narrative of a brand. Breaking down the principle of telling a tale in a three partitioning:
Concept, Context and Design. Adding value and experience to the brand through for example ‘finding wisdom from the past’. A mnemonic cadence to remember the value of parables.
Troika
A distinctive triad of prescience collectively fuse this multi-disciplinary creative practice. Visionary treasure billow around this group of individuals who take on projects that are more than onerous. Their collection of
rare world clocks at Heathrow airport’s Terminal 5 using a middle space between Low and Vector display technologies allows for an unconventional and
nouveau way of seeing time. An installation in the airport’s atrium transfixes passengers with the remembrance of the station and airport’s traveling board whispering click click click on the cloud-like structure high in the ceiling.
William Drenttel
Paying homage to Prince William Drentell calls himself, The Designer Formerly Know As William Drentell. This vibrantly quirky designer runs Winterhouse with partner Jessica Helfand. Describing their connection as two becoming one. Acknowledging the value of culture to not only stem and root in ‘pop’ but to seep much more interestingly into literature and politics. The rise of citizen journalism and design criticism as instruments for change; a change of value system within a change of impact-oriented thinking. The failure of systems like ‘
The Robin Hood Model’ where money is thieved from wealthy corporates to aid creative initiatives, ‘
The Tithing Model’ where 10% is contributed to all things creative and ‘
The Pro Bono Model’ where good work is done on the side is a clearly indicative of the need for a metamorphosis in terms of thinking. The new era is
a Post-Client World where design is for social innovation leading to an increase in
transformative platforms.
Wooster Collective &
Faith 47
Wooster starkly introduces the beauty of street art as a form of reaching people, unfeigned activism and the purest interventionism; they open their rosy eyes to seeing it as ephemeral, alluring and not just graffiti. Describing the art form with clear targets and dreams:
to beautify ugly spaces, to make a statement about proliferation of advertising, to
use public spaces as mass communication tool and to make people smile. Thus leading to the simple elegance of un-authorised acts of creativity; even reminiscent of a new spectacle of handsome sculptures and portly murals of heraldic Europe. In addition to the street art a natural progression has allowed for Gorilla Knitters and Gorilla Gardeners to burgeon in the midst of a urban elegy.
Marcelo Rosenbaum
With ethnic integrity and flair, this vivid Brazilian designer
recollects the familiarity of home and comfort in his electrification of bright colours. His gladdened vision is for the support of the local community, aiding Brazilians to transform the vision of their lives. In the human factor capacity, Rosenbaum uses emotional recollection like the dreams of children to reinvent locals’ lives. With a vision of sharing and a battle for the usage of cultural products inspired by the Rio Carnival the foresight of a new age of Brazilian design is palpable.
DAY 2
In scathing heat it continues…
Bruce Nussbaum
With a great focus on Designomics (Design driving Economics) the Innovation Professor from Parsons School in New York consecrates a New Economic Value affected by design. The new forces include: the rise and fall of nations, the rise and fall of generations (rising Gen Y), technology (digital cultures becoming real), urbanisation and global warming. With gusto and cat-licked-the-cream delight Nussbaum elaborated on co-creation and its importance for creating a new economic value where innovation is cultural as well as social. Reviewing the Gen Y to be global, pan-ethnic, urban, generative, ‘make’-oriented, trans-gendered and filled with participatory media.
Thus releasing the needs of Gen Y to create/remix to physically and spiritually affect content. Thus
revolutionising design to be future facing at all times. Most interesting is Nussbaum’s excitement about the change of the form of books as they expand to incorporate interaction and reveals our need as humans to share. An interesting idea for South Africa would thus be to see how the government can push policies for accessibility to online and digital worlds.
Oliver Hermanus
As film director hailing from Cape Town this creative wisdom-speaker spoke his
20 slides for Pecha Kucha about the development of character for film. Explaining how the character changes over the course of a narrative and with true vision sees detail as the greatest consideration to developing a character fully. Expansive and voluminous the character can shift from a ghost to a flesh, to blood, to body, to spirit.
Bouroullec Brothers
Combining contemporary art and furniture design the
double trouble team from France explodes with greenery and forestry. With work for Vitra this equivocal pair created chairs leading to nostalgic dreamy afternoon laying in grass looking up at trees and their leaves with tiny veins and magic.
Tord Boontje
From The Netherlands this wacky, queer designer enfolds his love of flowers and floral all around him. Inscribed to his belief of using what is available for use
he believes in creating with love. Leading to his pioneering sight to
fuse technology and tradition. For instance the modernity of dye cutting and ancient techniques of carpet weaving.
DAY 3
Enthused with superlative ideas…
Li Edelkoort
In short this intuitive
goddess of all affairs of life has given the minions an instruction to return to a stiller life. With the world moving to a federation of family, shapes and spaces are reordering to expose not only their physicality but also the gaps and interest between them. As it moves closer the need for a partner as a mirror of the self emerges. Even a New Man who is publicly tender and softer has revealed himself.
Han Feng
Desired and wanted this designer is wondrously acclaimed for her costume design of
Madame Butterfly (directed by Anthony Minghella) and
The Bone-setter’s Daughter. With a background in the making of eccentric and ill-fitting scarves she is currently working on the costumes for Handel’s Semele, and on the film arena for the Karate Kid remake.
Christien Meindertsma
By looking at the principle of one sheep, one cardigan this demure designer from Holland gently massages her ideas of
looking at the full life cycle of raw materials like wool, flax and pig. Thus creating a pixie-like magic with her ability to charm and inspire a brilliance in thinking. Her book called Pig 05049 follows a diagram of an entire existence of a pig from his bones to his skin and in which commercial products it arrives in.
Martha Stewart
The brand is back, it’s bolder, it’s more encompassing and it can probably not be halted. With glistening rows of ideas, this branded personality has extended her clean, neat, vibrant and homely brand into the homes of every perfect family and all the families that strive for this perfection. A new way of thinking about Gatsby perhaps in pursuit of an American Dream that now comes in eggshell and so much beige. With her
focus being on homemade and handmade she owns the market in terms of Craft and Crafting in consumer’s minds. With simple illustrative business model where core content is surrounded by omni-media, merchandising and direct commerce/internet
Martha Stewart is the Madonna of do it yourself craft.
Alejandro Aravena
With a simplistic focus on using design form in a strategic way this designer has
infused hope into the every day mundane lives of South Americans. With practices incorporating
relevancy,
preciseness and
irreducibility Aravena sees creativity as a consequence not a goal. Now with key factors like infrastructure, public space, transport and housing he sees appreciation of these as most crucial. Thus in execution giving people the tools to partially build their own homes and thus increasing the value of these homes (in the right areas and with a concentration of creating home-businesses) and appreciating their assets.
Protofarm 2050
As elucidation the Protofarm 2050 idea is
the sustainable cultivation of renewable resources. A uniquely collaborative vision of what farming could be in 2050.
Designers 5.5 created city guide books with urban recipes (eating rats and cockroaches inclusive).
Dunne & Raby believes in designing for the overpopulation and embracing a new kind of activist who wants to keep species wild. Also in synthetic biology where plants are modified to become digestible and nutritious and humans’ digestive systems are engineered to absorb cellulose.
Frank Tjepkema forward thinks to a self-sufficiency that leads to self-containment where farms can exist completely off the grid e.g. making theme parks useful by turning them into farms thus providing ecotainment. The Future Farmers want to use old container ships and create floating farms and gardens where diet, water and psychological needs are taken into perfect unified consideration.
Revital Cohen believes that form follows function and that by replacing your appendix with an artificial energy generator the human body will become the farm: thus the appearance of Homoevolutus where man creates and designs his own evolution.
