Hot off the press, last minute inspiration from Olivia Lee.
“The V&A Symposium left a deep impression in my mind with regards to this whole sustainability issue. I actually wanted to do a written piece but I couldn’t put the time together and the illustrations articulate some of my thoughts/observations in a faster and more light-hearted way.”
By: Oliva Lee
The Royal College of Art are KithKin’s neighbours in Designers Block, with their exhibition “Disruptive Thinking”. Working with professionals in other non design fields, the work is well informed, endlessly interesting, presenting fantastical possibilities of everyday experience.
The design and manufacturing company “Inflate” create inflatable pop up structures, used for a wide range of events in the shape of portable offices, bars and night clubs. Their individual inflatable changing room in army camouflage can be seen at the stand at the entrance of 100% design. Here you can see how it all works, by making your own inflatable key ring. At the stand Mahani Baharum and Gaia Fachini are encouraging people to dig into their pockets and then trap the miscellaneous contents in between two pieces of translucent PVC and which can then be inflated.
Ben Hugh’s “Claystation” workshop is back again, this year inviting you to design your own chair and win the opportunity to have it made into a full size version. Designers, students, children and families are making their way over, given an A3 paper template of a mini “Onepiece Chair” and invited to decorate it however they choose and then fold their design into the chair . Over then week the stand has built up a colourful array of mini “Onepiece Chairs”, alongside the full sized version. Paper for the project has been supplied by Whitelines.
Heading down to Trafalgar square to see Jaime Hayóns’ chess set installation, I found myself disappointed, I’d been too wrapped up preparing for the main weekend of the show, that the installation had packed away. Game over. There went my plan to rein-act the longest professional chess game in history, saved me 269 moves and 20 hours and 15 minutes.
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We extensively surveyed at 100% design asking the all important question, what percentage of 100% design, is design? 20 people later, and a lot of musings, the results are in. It seems that only 62.0505% is design, with answers ranging from 0.01% to infinity.
The stupid question raised another, ever pondered, question: well depends what you mean by design? We have no answer, but here are some of the thoughts of people we spoke to:
55% “Design / 45% nonsense
5% They just nick things that have been done before, from different eras, and call it new
70% - “ There was a brochure in the toilet, they’ve produced as many variations as possible, as many colour ways, a lot of it is just covering all the bases”
Sometimes its very art, sometimes its very design, sometimes its very commercial, where is the border?
The main similarity between Masako Sato and her work is the fact that they both just make you want to smile. The Tokyo based designer is at Designer’s Block this year with her beautifully simple “mushroom hook” and “whipped cream accessory”.
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