01 Mar 2008 1 Comment
in Design Indaba, Inspiration, Opinions & reviews Tags: design in japan, design indaba 2008, japanese design, mark dytham, pecha kucha
(The last speaker – Mark Dytham – was just impossible to draw. Maybe I was too tired and overfull of ideas.)
He is one of the originators of the Pecha Kucha manner of presenting work. This is an evening of young designers showcasing their work in slide shows – each slide lasting for 20 seconds, and only 20 slides may be shown. This has been a very successful phenomenon, there are apparently Pecha Kucha shows all over the world by now. Here is a link to a site about Pecha Kucha
01 Mar 2008 Leave a comment
in Design Indaba, Inspiration, Opinions & reviews Tags: color trends, colour trends, design indaba 2008, li edelkoort
Second to last speaker on Friday was Li Edelkoort – trendforecaster.
A powerful presence on stage.
She spoke around a slide show for a trend forecast she made five years ago, outlining the main themes and commenting on how relevant they still are.
01 Mar 2008 Leave a comment
in Design Indaba, Inspiration, Opinions & reviews Tags: design indaba 2008, jakob trollback, title design
Another speaker on Friday afternoon was Swedish Jakob Trollback. His company website is here.
He started his talk with a musical journey through his youth – starting with Abba, moving through jaz, Glen Gould and Brian Eno to Abdullah Ibrahim and the Soweto Boys.
01 Mar 2008 Leave a comment
in Inspiration, Opinions & reviews Tags: design indaba 2008, interactive installations, interactive lights, jason bruges, light sculptures
Another speaker on Firday was Jason Bruges – a creator of interactive installations. Here’s a link to his companies site.
There was an example of his work in the foyer of the indaba which amused me very much – its a sort of screen made of black modules, each with a very thin strip light. The lights switch on and off in patterns and its clear the thing is supposed to be responding to its environment as there are cameras embedded in some of the modules. After looking at it for some time and not being able to figure out how it was responding, I peered round the back to see a nest of wires and a rather stressed out looking individual frantically plugging and unplugging.
01 Mar 2008 Leave a comment
in Opinions & reviews Tags: design indaba 2008, fashion
After the (fabulous) lunch was a little fashion show with Nkhesani Nkosi, Gavin Rajah and Amanda Laird-Cherry. I could only seem to draw Nkosi’s designs.
01 Mar 2008 Leave a comment
in Design Indaba, Inspiration, Opinions & reviews Tags: breathing earth, design indaba 2008, internet stethoscope, new media, shakura scape, takemura
Takemura was for me the most interesting speaker of the day:
He started his talk by playing a sound of water dripping. He introduced himself and started speaking – and then explained that the sound is a real time feed of a water feature in a temple in Kyoto. We were listening -admittedly with some latency – to water dripping into a ceramic vessel thousands of kilometers away in Japan. He called this a “internet stethoscope”
01 Mar 2008 Leave a comment
in Opinions & reviews Tags: abbot miller, design indaba 2008, graphic design, graphic identity, maryland institute
Abbot Miller was the third speaker on Friday. Somehow he did not inspire any drawings, maybe because his talk was quite fascinating and I was looking at the screen, and not at him.
01 Mar 2008 Leave a comment
in Design Indaba, Opinions & reviews Tags: design indaba 2008, gert dumbar
Second speaker on Friday was Gert Dumbar, a dutch designer. He was great to draw.
He had a remarkable way of instantly establishing his pompous and rather self satisfied presence. But was nonetheless a very interesting speaker.
01 Mar 2008 1 Comment
in Opinions & reviews Tags: design indaba 2008, gary human, ogilvy
OK – I got to attend the entire day of Design Indaba on Friday. I’m going to write each speaker as a separate post, otherwise this post will get a bit long.
First up was Gary Human – executive director of Ogilvy. He introduced himself as the root of all evil, as a representative of advertising, where apparently the previous days speakers were much more concerned with all kinds of ecologically correct and relevant topics:
27 Feb 2008 1 Comment
in Design Indaba, Inspiration, Opinions & reviews Tags: airside, design indaba 2008, interactive design, stitches, the alien god meeghoteph
Today I got to go to one of the design indaba lectures – this one by Airside.
This is what I remember, aided by screenshots from their website at www.airside.co.uk
They call themselves a multidisciplinary design agency.
They’ve lasted for 10 years so far – their main aim is enjoyment and fun. They want their work to be experienced as one does a toy.
Masha du Toit 
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