So – it’s over. Flipping through my notebook after two days at the Design Indaba, these quotes stood out:
“You get power by giving away power.”
“The audience is more wonderful than you think.”
Design Indaba 2010 – Words that I will remember
28 Feb 2010 Leave a comment
in Design Indaba Tags: design indaba 2010
Design Indaba 2010 – Alejandro Aravena
28 Feb 2010 6 Comments
in Design Indaba, Inspiration Tags: alejandro aravena, housing, social housing
One of the most thought-provoking speakers at Design Indaba 2010: Alejandro Aravena.
Alejandro is a Chilean architect who focuses on that most challenging of problems – social housing for the poor. His talk was rather like the projects he showed us: stark, harsh, and with no attempt to soften unpleasant realities.
The audience did not like everything he said. More
Design Indaba 2010 – Christien Meindertsma
27 Feb 2010 Leave a comment
in Design Indaba, Inspiration Tags: christien meindertsma, design indaba 2010
Christien Meindertsma spoke on the last day of the Design Indaba 2010. She has a quietly confident style and a subtle sense of humour. Her talk was thought provoking and intriguing.
Christien is fascinated by the link between products and the materials they are made out of. Even when we have some understanding of what something is made of – the emotional and physical link is lacking. Christien attempts to remind us of this link.
For example, the “One Sheep Cardigan” project, in which she knitted a cardigan made out of all the wool of one specific sheep.
The cardigan is accompanied by the sheep’s identity ear-tag (the small yellow object) a “passport” of the sheep in question, and a trophy ribbon: More
Design Indaba 2010 – Troika
27 Feb 2010 Leave a comment
Another memorable Design Indaba presentation was by Troika, a design team made up of designer and illustrator Conny Freyer:
Designer Eva Rucki: More
Design Indaba 2010 – Martha Stewart
27 Feb 2010 Leave a comment
At the last day of the Design Indaba 2010, Martha Stewart showed how not to do it:
She misjudged her audience and delivered a talk that came across like a sales pitch. Surely Martha Stewart had something more to share than how to do “paint by numbers” glitter paintings? I wonder if she had attended any of the other speakers, and had no idea what the event was about?
The audience was soon muttering and giggling and tweeting: More
Design Indaba 2010 – Michael Bierut
27 Feb 2010 Leave a comment
I have a new hero: Michael Bierut. He set the tone for the Design Indaba 2010 with an insightful, witty and inspiring account of how he “almost blew it” on a high-profile project .
It must be tough to speak at the Indaba – you are asked to show off your work to an audience of highly competitive and critical people. It it easy to come over as egocentric or arrogant.
Instead, Michael did what a good teacher does – he reminded us that learning only happens when we reflect on our own mistakes.
He told us the story of his involvement in a project run by the Robin Hood Foundation – the L!brary Initiative. More
Faith47 at Design Indaba 2010
23 Feb 2010 2 Comments
Design Indaba 2010 starts…tomorrow! I’ll be blogging it again this year. In the mean time, I’m collecting resources on interesting speakers. For example:
I’ve always loved the “TV Lady” who watches over De Waal Drive. Now I know who created her: Faith47.
You can read more about Faith47 here:
>> her portfolio site – lots and lots of amazing images of her work.
>> an interview with Faith 47 on Forma.
>> an interview with Faith47 on Senses Lost.
>> Here is her MySpace profile.
>> Here is her Vimeo channel, with some videos 🙂
And you can follow find all the other links I’ve found about Design Indaba 2010 speakers here.
This post was first published on www.designindaba.com
Design Indaba 09 || Day 3||Frank Tjepkema
08 Mar 2009 Leave a comment
in Design Indaba, Opinions & reviews Tags: Design Indaba, frank tjepkama, tjep
Frank Tjepkema’s presentation started quite strangely. He showed us images of Holland as it might be in the future – a model of a sustainable city farm, its lack of warmth possibly caused by the inhumanely smooth computer generated graphics.
Frank Tjepkama then moved away from this slightly worrying vision of the future, and continued a theme that was apparent in many of the previous speakers – that of design that is concerned with the personal and the warmly human. More
Design Indaba 09 || Day 3 || Young Designers
08 Mar 2009 1 Comment
in Design Indaba, Opinions & reviews Tags: Design Indaba, revital cohen, young designers
The Pecha Kucha session at Design Indaba allowed a number of young designers to show their work.
They were Jon Stam, Sandhya Lalloo, Revital Chohen, Arno Mathies, Barbara Cilliers and Lauren Mackler. More
Design Indaba 09 || Day 3 || Nobumichi Tosa
08 Mar 2009 Leave a comment
in Design Indaba, Inspiration, Opinions & reviews Tags: Design Indaba, edelweis, maywa denki, nobumichi tosa
Nobumichi Tosa treated us to a wacky, nonsensical performance on the third day of the Design Indaba. He appeared on stage strapped into one of his absurd contraptions and proceeded to act out a ceremonial dance.
His mock formal greeting was punctuated with loud sounds produced by his strange instrument-outfit. More
Design Indaba 09 ||Day3|| Marian Bantjes
08 Mar 2009 Leave a comment
in Design Indaba, Illustration, Inspiration, Opinions & reviews Tags: design, Design Indaba, Design Indaba 2009, Marian Bantjes, typography
The last day of the Design Indaba started with Marian Bantjes who proceeded to make me most uncomfortable. She held out a vision of how life could be that I found deeply disturbing.
Work which is synonymous with love. Drawing and writing, ornament and pattern. And the promise that these are within reach if only one is willing to risk it all. More
Design Indaba 09 || Day 2 || Marcell Wanders
08 Mar 2009 1 Comment
in Design Indaba, Inspiration, Opinions & reviews Tags: Design Indaba, Marcell Wanders
Marcell Wanders did not so much talk as dance us through his presentation. We needed this sparking energy to revive us at the end of the long second day of the Design Indaba.
Here is another designer who’s presence dominated the occasion. He looked like a smooth and charming Lucifer, complete with casual jeans, jacket and a string of pearls. And the work he showed us spoke of a world of temptations and luxury most of us can only dream of. More
Design Indaba 09 || Day 2 || Ferran Adria
05 Mar 2009 Leave a comment
in Design Indaba, Inspiration, Opinions & reviews Tags: Design Indaba, ell bulli, ferran adria
One of the great stars of Design Indaba this year was Ferran Adria, the Spanish chef.
Ferran Adria has been called the “Picasso of cooking” and “the greatest chef in the world “. His restaurant, El Bulli receives over a million reservations a year of which only eight thousand get a table. More
Design Indaba 09 || Day 2 || Innocentive
03 Mar 2009 Leave a comment
in Design Indaba, Opinions & reviews Tags: Design Indaba 2009, innocentive, innovative, problems, solve
The great thing about the Desing Indaba is the spread of ideas one is exposed to. From the refined balance of Commonwealth, we moved on to the enthusiastism of Dwain Spradlin of Innocentive.
In a nutshell, Innocentive is an attempt to use the internet to harness humanities ability to problem solve. More
Design Indaba 09 || Day 2 || Patricia Urquiola
03 Mar 2009 Leave a comment
in Design Indaba, Opinions & reviews
One of the unexpected aspects of the Design Indaba was the impact that the speakers personality made on my perception of their work. Some people did not make much impact. Others fascinated us from the beginning with their presence. Such a one was Patricia Urquiola :
From the first moment she charmed the audience with her seemingly chaotic and warm manner. Like Dai Fujiwara, her broken english helped her to express herself more forcefully than the native English speakers. More
Masha du Toit 
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