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What Makes a Design of the Year?
Designs of the Year come in many shapes and forms, from design that taps into the cultural zeitgeist through to products that change the world. Join Designs of the Year nominator Alex Bec, Director of It’s Nice That and specially invited guests as we unpack what it takes to make the grade.
Tickets include entry to the Designs of the Year exhibition before the talk begins. Doors will open at 18:30. The Designs of the Year exhibition will be open for ticket holders to view between 18.30 and 19:00, and will then close. The talk will start at 19:00 and last for 1 hour.
Designs of the Year, now in its 8th year is an innovative, thought provoking exhibition of 76 international projects designed or launched in the twelve months from November 2013 to the end October 2014. Selected by invited nominators (renowned academics, critics and designers) the projects cover 6 areas of design - architecture, product, graphic, fashion, digital and transport design. When making their choices, Designs of the Year nominators are asked to consider the following criteria:
Design that promotes or delivers change
Design that captures the spirit of the year
Design that enables access
Projects that extend design practice
This talk will ask a nominator to tackle each question in turn offering their thoughts and reflections on their chosen designs and the criteria in question.
more about the speakers
Alex has helped take It’s Nice That from start-up to respected creative media company that reaches half a million people every month. Alex has also worked as a Visiting Creative Director at Wolff Olins, been awarded a D&AD yellow pencil and a nomination for the prestigious Designs of the Year award at the Design Museum, for which Alex is also a nominator.
Hettie Judah is a British author who has written extensively about fashion, art and design in various international publications. She is a contributing editor to ArtReview, for which she has a long-running column on visual culture, and a features writer for the Business of Fashion.
Nicolas is a London based cross-disciplinary designer entrepreneur behind influential and acclaimed companies Poke, Hulger, Plumen, Antirom and the Lovie Awards. Nicolas’ main interests are located at the crossroads between art, design and technology in this period of intense change.
Dr Catharine Rossi is a Senior Lecturer in Design History at Kingston University, London engaged in researching, writing and curating design. Her publications include The Italian Avant-Garde:1968-1976 (Sternberg Press, 2013) co-edited with Alex Coles and Crafting design in Italy: from post-war to postmodernism (Manchester University Press, February 2015).
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