I went to the China Design Now exhibit at the V&A museum. As all the V&A featured exhibits, China Design Now is very well curated and interesting. I’ve never been in China, I’ve always wanted to go, and now even more.
The exhibit is organized in three areas. Shenzen: Frontier City, focusing on print, digital media, product, editorial design and music. The second area is Shanghai: Dream City, featuring product, fashion, advertisement, celebrity culture and status symbols. The last areas focuses on Beijing: Future City, showcasing the architectural explosion; big statements about Chinese heritage and their expectations of the future…
A zoom into Chinese culture, China Design Now is worth visiting and comes down on July 13th/08.
May 6th, 2008
I wonder what do they see when you place a bag with liquids on top of the laptop. No mater how often I travel the inconsistent new rules across airports always surprises me.
March 20th, 2008
About three weeks ago I took this photo of amazing large scale photography outside the Amsterdam train station.
March 20th, 2008
I became a member of the London Design Museum . I have to confess that I did it because of solidarity with the design community, to be honest I have mixed feelings about the museum. Every time I go, I truly enjoy the solo exhibits they tend to be the perfect size, they have good lighting and there are well curated, like Jean Prouve’s current exhibit. Nevertheless, I’ve never seen a single good collective exhibit. They tend to be not well curated, and the interactive sections fell old…
The current Brit Insurance Design Awards 2008 exhibit is not the exemption. However there are some projects, like the Replenishing Body Kiosk by Ross Phillips that although are not innovative, there are fun and easy to use. The Body Kiosk consists of a small touch screen, a projection setup, and a video camera where visitors can record themselves for about 2 seconds and replace the footage projected on the wall with new footage of themselves. Also interesting is an infrared illuminated wall that displays graphics only visible through your mobile device screen and camera lens.
What truly disappointed me was Hussein Chalayan’s A/W ‘07 led’s dress selection… He is one of my favorite fashion designers, but I’ve seen led dresses poorly executed over the last 7 years and Hussein’s led dress is not better in any way. Who is going to where a XX kg. Led dress in rainy London, or, anywhere else?, How can you move or seat comfortably? I’m so over unusable fashion…
March 14th, 2008
How do you show textile design? How do you show ties design? Well, here, a clever finish way.
March 11th, 2008
Giving fashion the light it deserves, appears written on black type on several windows in Amsterdam’s Red Light District. A refreshing intervention by local fashion designers, where they replaced the ladies under the red bulbs by an elegant display of well lit fashion. An initiative cleverly sponsored by Phillips that surprises, is unexpected, and goes way beyond good lighting.
March 1st, 2008
My favorite fence in Paris at the musée du quai Branly.
February 2nd, 2008
I took this photo in a small town an hour away from Helsinki. Satu, a co-worker told me that this construction system for fences in one of the oldest in Finland, and that nowadays is very rare to find examples of them.
February 2nd, 2008
A month ago I visited my friend Shereen who lives in The Hague. We went to grad school together where we became friends. On Saturday she took me to Utretch and we visited the Dutch Design Center that exhibits furniture, rugs and diverse objects. When we saw the lamps in photo above we both agreed that they reminded us a lighting project I worked on back in grad school.
My favorite design thinking is Dutch, balanced and beautiful. While we walked through the design center I continued thinking about “Less is more, Less is more, Less is more”… but yesterday I read 10 things I’ve learnt, an article by Milton Glaser. He mentioned among so many other interesting things that “less is not necessarily more” and that a lot of times it can be completely wrong. I have to say that by the end of the article he enriched my view on various things, it is true that “just enough is more”, and that is what dutch design is about –just enough.
January 8th, 2008
…just around the corner from home
January 8th, 2008
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