Inspired and Demoralised

Went to a design conference last Saturday called Design Boundaries. There are a total of 6 speakers. I took down some notes during the sessions. I dun usually go for such talks, but what caught my attention was the Labyrinth logos.

1. Yang Yeo - a Singaporean in Shanghai.

His presentation made me miss doing ATL. He did the Adidas Campaign for Beijing Olympics 2008 which is awesome. For that year, Adidas, for the first time, took over Nike in China. The environmental campaign he presented was quite cool too. He engaged an artist who did traditional Chinese paintings with images of pollution. You only see the pollution on a closer look; from far, it looks like a beautiful rural landscape.

In medal count for local Chinese brand, Anta, each of their 5536 store-windows becomes news feed for the public. With each medal won by China, they change the T-shirt with numbers on them. This campaign created a lot of media buzz at no extra cost of buying media. Now that's...really cool! The final tally at 51 medals was then printed for purchase. In Bruce Lee for Nokia, they created viral videos with "previously unreleased" footage of him playing pingpong with nunchucks.

Now Yang Yeo doesn't speak good Chinese. But he felt it is good to put yourself in an uncomfortable environment.

2. Outofstock - Singapore, Buenos Aires and Barcelona partnership.

Four people met in a competition in Stockholm. Despite cultural differences, they clicked. They use a lot of Skype. At this session, one was in Barcelona, 4am, while another was on holiday in Buenos Aires, 12am, talking to us via Skype. They mainly design furniture: Blackforest Table, Naked Chair, Biscuit stool for Hatched which they design the space as well. In Bella Pasta, there were plate lamps.

They like details and they like making things. And because they are constantly on the lookout for materials and craftsmen, it's great to have resources across the globe with this partnership. For example, in a lamp they presented, it was made by a glassmaker in Germany, a carpenter in Buenos Aires and assembled in Milan.

This was the moment I felt inspired and demoralised. Although it sounds easy, it's not. The Blackforest table design took 3 years to perfect. Eventually, this design and a few others was taken up by a reputable manufacturer and retailer. So you can literally buy their design off the shelf.

Do check out their website: www.outofstockdesign.com/

3. Danna Ojeda - an NTU professor from Amsterdam.

I got bored within 5 minutes and went to look for my colleagues.

Lefty was upstairs and WP was MIA. So, the two of us had lunch at 15 Minutes Cafe. After a while, Wee Peng called us and came to meet us. After lunch, we looked through some books Basheer displayed, and I bought one: Never Use White Type on a Black Background (And 50 other Ridiculous Design Rules). My favourite is no doubt, the last rule but I haven't been practising it lately.

4. Steve Lawler - www.kult.com.sg

We were a bit late, so missed his intro. He curated a series of books, defining and illustrating the words: Trust, Artificial, AIDS, Fortune and the latest, Fear which I have a copy :) In the website above, it presents interactive concepts to provoke thinking in bite-size portions for people to grasp.

5. FARM - local company, www.FARM.sg

This is by far the most Singaporean of the group. He claimed, "Joyful creativity is essential in our lives." He proceeded to define FARM.
Fun: Do stuff we enjoy doing. Try to capture the spirit of out projects.
Architecture: The experience of a space. Everything around adds up.
Rojak: Engage the design community
Mothership: Groom up & coming designers.

I was quite bored by his stuff except for one office interior which was based on guns.

6. Chung Yew Kee - a Singaporean in the Netherlands

"I Love Dutch Design" for 20 years and counting. Bold. Conceptual. Artistic. Ironic. Experience Design where the design is an experience in a "mind-twist" cafe concept, Nieuw Wonderland. To sell this concept, they staged a one-off lunch for potential investors.

There are six mingling booths at the cocktail lounge, including an opera singer. A quote from Alice in Wonderland, stencil-written in powder, so you can mess it up to illustrate memory fades. A memory corner houses different smells to illustrate how smells evoke memories. The theatre was funny. Holes were cut in a massive cloth so the guests heads pop up. This same cloth is pinned to the ceiling to show interesting slides from a projector. Food was served next: Bread in cups, Soup from a kettle and Garlic dipped in chocolate among others. The waiter serves you from a hole in the centre of the table, haha! I also liked that there are dried leaves everywhere. In the Breathing room, the space is decorated with flowers and more dried leaves on the floor. Then a Rabbit doing a timeline. And lastly, a graphic wishing fountain to cast wishes.

The Q&A with the afternoon speakers was interesting. I even got to ask a question, if they have any pet peeves or particular likes and dislikes. Steve says pet peeves are actually important to tell you what works and what doesn't. I can't rem the other 2 answers but i guess it didnt leave much of an impression. But Yew Kee struck me as the kinda person who truly believes in what he's doing and goes after it whole-heartedly. And any problem that erupts can be overcome by perserverance and adaptation. I take my hat off him.

We left the conference. Checked out the gallery in LaSalle; i like Downtown and the chopping board lamps. Then we went to check out some crystals, haha! Damn random lah! I bought a pink one to put at my window. WP says it helps to meet people; no harm trying, right? Anyway, it's pretty! It looks like there's a castle on top of a staircase. When they cleansed the crystal, I was a bit freaked out. They place my crystal in a large glass bowl ornament, then vibrate the glass by rolling a metal pounder-looking thingy around the rim.

We then went to have Vietnamese noodles for dinner, heehee!