Hasta La Ideas

Dezeen promotion: designers Giulio Cappellini, Pauline Deltour and Ora Ito plus architects Ludovica and Roberto Palomba are confirmed to speak during trade fair Downtown Design Dubai, taking place from 29 October to 1 November.

The guest speakers will lead design talks during the inaugural Downtown Design Dubai, at the foot of the world’s tallest building the Burj Khalifa.

Furniture, lighting, accessories, flooring, textiles and new technologies will all be on show at a purpose-built venue on Mohammed Bin Rashid Boulevard in central Dubai.

Confirmed exhibitors include Italian furniture brands Poltrona Frau, Cassina and Cappellini as well as US chair manufacturer Emeco.

Installations by design groups Temporary Museum of New Design, Nouvelle Vague and Craftsmanship at The Workshop will be created inside the venue.

The four-day event will be free for trade visitors and industry professionals between 12pm and 8pm daily from 29 October to 1 November.

Members of the public can also visit from 5pm to 8pm on 29-31 October and 12pm to 6pm on 1 November.

Register to attend on the Downtown Design Dubai website or at the entrance desk of the venue. Images show products by confirmed exhibitors.

Keep reading for more information from the organisers:

Downtown Design announces exhibitors, speakers and special installations

» Carefully selected global interior design brands to showcase iconic and unique products.
» Guest speakers include designers Giulio Cappellini, Pauline Deltour, Ora Ito and architects Ludovica+Roberto Palomba.
» Special installations from the Temporary Museum, Nouvelle Vague and Craftsmanship at The Workshop.

Downtown Design, a new design trade fair in Dubai has announced its final list of 40 exhibitors for its first show, taking place from 29 October to 1 November. As well as individual brands, there will also be a stunning showcase of three special installations and a series of design talks hosted by high profile designers.

Downtown Design will for the first time in the Middle East bring together a selection of international design brands renowned for their quality products and focus on manufacturing craftsmanship. The inaugural show will be held at the custom-built location, ‘The Venue’, in Emaar’s Downtown Dubai, located on Mohammed Bin Rashid Boulevard. The event is geared specifically towards design industry professionals including architects, real estate developers and interior designers from across the Middle East and North Africa.

Confirmed participants include some of the world’s leading design brands exhibiting for the first time in the region. Featuring the very best in furniture, lighting, accessories, flooring, textiles and new technologies, Downtown Dubai’s exhibitors include: Atelier AK, Bolon, Cappellini, Carl Hansen, Cassina, Chi Wing Lo, De Castelli, De Vecchi Milano 1935, Dilmos Milano, Discipline, Emeco, Engeenius – Cykno, Evita Vonni Collections LTD, Fritz Hansen, Gaggenau, Gaia & Gino, Hossein Rezvani, Il Laboratorio dell’Imperfetto, Lamellux, Lisa Corti, Louis Poulsen, Muuto, Nouvelle Vague Volume 2, Pinetti, Poltrona Frau, Pouenat Ferronnier, Preciosa, Quadrature, Seletti, Serralunga, Temporary Museum for New Design, Theodore Alexander, USM, Verreum and Vitra. Al Khaznah Tannery from the UAE will also be making a surprise announcement during the fair.

To bolster the exhibition of high end design brands, Downtown Design will also be hosting a series of design talks to inform and educate visitors to the fair. Guest speakers include world renowned designer Giulio Cappellini, iconoclastic artist and designer Ora Ito, French product designer Pauline Deltour and the Italian Architect duo Ludovica+Roberto Palomba.

In addition to the trade fair, Downtown Design will host three installations, specially curated for the event, to engage its visitors and emphasise the quality, innovation and craftsmanship behind today’s contemporary design. Installations include: Nouvelle Vague, Craftsmanship at The Workshop and the Temporary Museum for New Design.

Organised by the Institut Français in the UAE, Nouvelle Vague is a unique design exhibition curated by Cédric Morisse. Nouvelle Vague is coming to the Middle East for the first time and will feature a specially curated collection of design with an exhibition curated in partnership with UAE’s Khalid Shafar.

The Craftsmanship at The Workshop installation will aim to show visitors the quality and skill that goes into product manufacturing in factories in Denmark and the careful selection of materials used. The stand will showcase works from Fritz Hansen, Carl Hansen and Louis Poulsen as well as featuring live craftsmen working on two items, the upholstery of the iconic egg chair and the weaving of a wishbone chair’s seat.

The Temporary Museum for New Design, the cornerstone of Milan’s Design Week and reputed for exhibiting work from some of the world’s leading product designers such as Karim Rashid, Marc Sadler and Marcel Wanders, has chosen Downtown Design for its first exhibition outside Milan. Known for their innovation and design entrepreneurship, they will be exhibiting pieces from cutting edge brands including Astrini, Crjos, Landor, Melongranoblu, Slide, Slide Art, Tagina and Zava.

Cristina Romelli Gervasoni, Downtown Design Fair Director, said: “Downtown Design brings quality driven, international commercial design brands to the Middle East. We aim to act as a platform for business networking. The Middle East is a very appealing market for the brands we have selected and we are delighted to be able to bring to Dubai new brands who are debuting in the Middle East for the first time at Downtown Design.

“Alongside the exhibition, Downtown Design will also feature an extensive programme for trade professionals and visitors to engage with some of the world’s leading designers and to network with key figures in the industry. By providing a unique platform to give international brands access to the rapidly growing market of the Middle East & North Africa (MENA), Downtown Design is set to become a key design show on Dubai’s creative landscape, thereby fulfilling His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE, recent decree of increasing the overall contribution to the creative sector to Dubai’s GDP.”

The four-day event, which will be free for trade visitors and industry professionals between 12pm and 8pm daily, will also be open to members of the public from 5pm to 8pm on 29-31 October and 12-6pm on Friday 1st November.

www.downtowndesign.com

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Downtown Design Dubai appeared first on Dezeen.

Among the graphic design firms participating in the “Image of the Studio” exhibition are (from left) Pentagram, Craig & Karl, and RoAndCo Studio.

“Giving visual form to the city is a special kind of design problem,” wrote urban planner Kevin Lynch in his 1960 book The Image of the City. But how does the urban environment, in all of its forms, affect those who spend their days solving design problems? A new exhibition looks for answers in a cross-section of New York City graphic design firms, from Alfafa Studio to Zut Alors.

“Image of the Studio,” which opens tomorrow at Cooper Union’s Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography, features original work from 78 firms that are then tied together—through data visualizations and information graphics—in a shared portrait of what it means to be a New York design studio. Co-organized by Athletics, which is also among the participating firms, the show aims to “map the contours and trace the edges of a dynamic discipline in a city that is itself always in flux.” But not everything is in flux: all materials from the exhibition will be archived at the Herb Lubalin Study Center and online here.

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Reporting by Jenny Hsu

Earlier this year, Parsons The New School for Design and storied Italian furniture manufacturer Poltrona Frau presented Wasteless, a competition where students were asked to repurpose leather scraps from the production floor into new and exciting products. This competition culminated with a visit to Poltrona Frau’s factory, museum, and research and development center in Tolentino, Italy, by the three student winners: Yuna Kim, Benjamin Billick and myself. For one week in July, we were immersed in the brand, its history, and its manufacturing and production processes, as we experienced a unique opportunity to further develop and refine our winning designs. Our time in Tolentino was marked by a rich and open exchange with everyone at Frau, from the brand director to the marketing and communications team, the designers, leather technicians and the master artisans.

We began our week at the Poltrona Frau Museum to sharpen our understanding of the company’s century-long history and identity. This was an essential step in further refining our design into the language of Poltrona Frau. We then were introduced to the Poltrona Frau factory and research lab, which was certainly one of the highlights of our trip (well, come to think of it, everything we did while there blew our minds). We were amazed to observe the artisans at work on a range of projects, from iconic furniture models to the interiors of the latest Ferraris and Maseratis. It’s one thing to read about a technique from a book and trying to master it—but utterly fail every time—and another to witness the artisans perform their magic.

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Central Saint Martins graduates have produced a series of illustrations highlighting facts about human decision-making to promote economist Noreena Hertz’s new book, Eyes Wide Open: How to Make Decisions in a Confusing World.

Hertz’s book, published by HarperCollins, is described as a guide to making informed choices when bombarded with data. Using findings from scientific studies, Hertz warns against becoming over-reliant on expert opinions, massaged figures and marketing speak – in a study of 82,000 predictions by 284 experts over a sixteen-year period, she says, experts got no more right than a monkey randomly sticking a pin on a board.

It also offers practical advice on how to make “smarter” decisions, encouraging readers to eat before making tough financial choices and meditate to improve their rational thought.

Images: Top, Clio Isadora. Above, Nicholas Carter

The finished collection will be used in press coverage of the book, on the Eyes Wide Open website and on social media. The project was led by Tanya Brennand-Roper, a content producer at HarperCollins and a lecturer and former student at Saint Martins.

Above: Jack Averill

“As Hertz’s book is full of facts and statistics – something that might be considered quite dry, visually speaking – we wanted to create a visual language for online communications,” she explains. “We hope they get the message across and offer something different to a traditional pie chart or graph. It’s a little lighter, and more engaging for a younger audience who can like or share the images with their friends,” she adds.

Above: Josh Philip Saunders

It’s one of a series of projects HarperCollins has worked on with Saint Martins – students recently designed a cover for the late novelist William Wharton’s book, Birdy – and Brennand-Roper says the recent graduates offered a fresh take on design.

Above: Aya Arden-Clarke

“Sometimes, working with more experienced designers can produce a more corporate finish. People fresh out of art school have a different way of looking at things, as they’re still experimenting and developing their visual style and everything they’ve learned is fresh in their mind. And for the students and graduates, it’s a chance to gain experience of working with different clients on live, high-profile briefs,” she says.

Above: Josh Phillip Saunders

It’s a witty set of designs from a promising group of illustrators, and an interesting alternative to traditional data visualisation. “It kind of adds an extra layer to the book and the way we as book publishers as choosing to market our content,” says Brennand-Roper.

Eyes Wide Open: How to Make Decisions in a Confusing World is published by HarperCollins (£14.99, ebook £7.49). To listen to an interview with Hertz about the book, click here.

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