Bevida mugs for Alex Liddy, designed by Housewares International - Homewares, 2004. Courtesy Housewares International - Homewares. Part of Sydney Designers Unplugged at the Powerhouse Museum.
I've Got Designs on You
29 July 2005
Art, architecture, interior design, furniture, jewellery, fashion, lighting, graphic design, digital design…. Design, design, design – it’s such an inherent part of our everyday and creative existences that often we can take for granted the intricate processes that go into the making of those objects we both covet for their beauty and overlook for their ordinariness. If it took 20 different prototypes before the humble Breville citrus juicer perfected the shape of its juicing cone, can you imagine the work that goes into designing water-free dishwashers, chandeliers, intricate jewellery pieces and public spaces?
Sydney Design 05 begins this week. Australia’s only annual festival that celebrates the many personalities of design, Sydney Design 05 is running over 16 days and presenting more than 50 events at the Powerhouse Museum in Ultimo and 23 other venues around town. Featuring exhibitions, displays, markets, awards, free lectures, master classes and tours, the 9th international design festival has an impressive line-up of events, a lot of them free.
Young blood: designer’s market, on Saturday 13 August is an opportunity to get in early and do a bit of savvy investment buying as some of the country’s best and brightest young designers showcase their original wares – with everything from fashion and jewellery to furniture and homewares on sale.
Throughout the festival Krispin K – mentor to Carson Kressley and Liberace – will present a series of design forecasts on the “hot ‘n’ not” of upcoming local and international design. Something of a stylemeister, K proved a hit at last year’s festival with his drier than dry witty observations.
Other highlights of the festival include curator Anne Watson’s talk “Fantastic Plastic: Design in Italy 1960s to Now”, the annual Design Awards Program, showcasing the best examples of innovative Australian design and the exhibition Sydney Designers Unplugged: people, process, product. This exhibition is promising, with the help of some of Sydney’s leading product designers, to reveal their respective paths from concept to reality with some of our most recognisable and used products. This includes the Victa lawnmover, the Dolphin torch and even the supermarket EFTPOS machine. The exhibition will feature initial sketches, renderings and prototypes and interviews with the designers – talking about their inspirations and design philosophies.
Keynote speaker for the festival is Paul Simmons, one half of the Glasgow-based design studio Timorous Beasties. Co-founded with Alistair McAuley, the studio has an impressive international reputation for their signature interpretations of traditional textiles and wallpapers and their juxtaposing of the old and new. Their design Glasgow Toile is typical of their work. It appears as a classic vista on 1800s Toile de Jouy wallpaper but on closer inspection it represents a confronting contemporary Glasgow scene, replete with depressing tower blocks, crack addicts, prostitutes and the homeless. Simmons, who with McAuley has been shortlisted for this year’s UK Designer of the Year Award, will be speaking on 18 August.
The festival has been organised by the Powerhouse Museum in collaboration with several design associations, including the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (NSW), the Design Institute of Australia, Australian Design Awards and the Australian Graphic Design Association.
More Information
Sydney Design 05
6 – 21 August
Powerhouse Museum & various locations
For more information and bookings, details about various entry fees and tickets for lectures, see the website.
Website: http://www.sydneydesign.com.au/
