Hasta La Ideas

Dezeen wire: design brand strategist Mirko van den Winkel has published a free-to-download essay called Building a design brand, setting out why so few young design brands achieve financial success and offering advice on how to succeed – download the essay.

“Why do so few bright, young, starting design-brands actually make it?” says van den Winkel, who has worked with brands including Moroso and Established & Sons. “They often receive a lot of free press, exhibitions, even financial support, but rarely manage to grow and become a real brand.”

“What blocks them? Why did few others make it? Based on my experience as manager and as consultant I have written an analysis also including a lot of examples and some conclusions/lessons for young designers/entrepreneurs, for experienced managers in the business and for design-promoters.”

If you are interested please download your free copy here: http://www.mvdw.info/download-BdB.html

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Dezeen Wire: Louise Schouwenberg, one of the three Design Academy Eindhoven heads of masters courses who resigned last week, has sent us their official resignation letter to the members of the academy’s executive board.

Jan Boelen, Joost Grootens and Louise Schouwenberg resigned following a disagreement with the school over educational reform, in the same week as head of the masters school Gijs Bakker departed after 25 years and 31 masters students at the school celebrated their graduation.

Related: Li Edelkoort to resign as chair of Design Academy Eindhoven (June 2008) |See all our stories about Design Academy Eindhoven

Here’s the letter from the course heads:

5 July 2012

Honourable Members of the Executive Board

After months of ongoing talks about the contents and organisation of the Master programs of the Design Academy Eindhoven we have now reached a breaking point. The Executive Board wishes to retain a trajectory of renewal and innovation that we feel will have devastating implications for the quality of our courses.

Heartened by our strong commitment to the contents of our education we have been trying these past years to uphold what we believe to be the quality standards befitting the (Master) program of DAE. Initially, we received the support of the educational system which contributed to the name and fame of this school and helped procure the status of “Excellent” in 2008. The system in question was implemented in the 80ies by a visionary and generous board, who realised that proper design education could only be accomplished if leading designers, architects, artists and theoreticians were persuaded to engage in the academy’s educational activities.

The heads of department were carefully selected based on their outspoken views on their discipline. They were given maximum autonomy and latitude in choosing their own topics and assembling their own staff of lecturers. It worked. To date the academy harbours an array of experienced lecturers, acknowledged experts with a firm footing in their professional practice. In the past decades the academy has thus been able to train numerous students who now count among the cream of the international design world.

As the heads of the three Master programs we have continued the structure Gijs Bakker introduced for the Masters. We have worked together with altering teams of lecturers, all operating at the forefront of their disciplines. The recent, successful accreditation has shown that the Master programs have succeeded in generating the much-needed critical mass that was previously lacking. As the programs have become appealing to more and better international students, this has helped attract a choice of magnificent lecturers. Commitment, passion and dedication have followed naturally from the confidence anchored up to today in the program’s open structure. Additionally, this open structure has secured DAE’s present international benchmark position in the perception of Dutch design.

For years, the current Executive Board has been without an artistic director with vision for the discipline as well as design education (the content of an institute of learning cannot be stationed incidentally with an artistic ‘curator’ for exam exhibitions). The lack of vision appears most of all in the educational reform schemes for the next couple of years. The substantive experts (Deans of Design and Teachers) become subordinate to the educationalists/managers (Deans of Education), while ‘interpreters’ need to bridge content and education (Translators, Mentors, Facilitators, Connector, Deans of Education). This complex system is no longer based on trust and dynamics, but on distrust, hierarchy and control.

The comparative autonomy of the heads of department and their teams of lecturers, which has brought worldwide success to the original model DAE, is to be relinquished.

The role that we, and with us all former heads of department, could play as Deans of Design in this new set-up, has been radically marginalised. The dominant system will be one of educational management, whose main purpose appears to be to stifle creativity and substantive development in a tangle of meetings. The newly created functions and reciprocal apportionment of roles express the desire to control: to divide and rule. This is a set-up we can no longer commit ourselves to.

You have left us no other option than to jointly bid farewell as of the start of the new academic year – to the school, three marvellous research fields, fellow lecturers and, above all, a group of highly dedicated students. A painful, but inevitable decision.

Jan Boelen, head Social Design
Louise Schouwenberg, head Contextual Design
Joost Grootens, head Information Design

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Eindhoven masters heads appeared first on Dezeen.

Dezeen Wire: as the sliding roof on Wimbledon’s Centre Court was closed today to allow the men’s singles final between Andy Murray and Roger Federer to continue despite heavy rain, The Telegraph argues that the Populous-designed cover is the real star of this year’s championships.

The Telegraph interviews the lead designer, Rod Sheard, who said: ““Grass is much more delicate than human beings. We can take off our coats or jumpers to cool down. Grass can’t, so if we just put the roof over, it would sweat and turn the court into a skating ring. The air conditioning we put in at Wimbledon is all about the grass, not the crowds.”

The roof was completed in 2009 and cost an estimated £80-£100 million.

See all our stories about sports design | See all our stories about tennis | Grimshaw to design new masterplan for Wimbledon

Here’s some text from Populous about the roof:

CHALLENGE. Populous are privileged to have been working with the AELTC for a decade now, helping the Club to evolve and stay at the very forefront of Grand Slam tennis. To accommodate increasing visitor levels and give players and members the level of facilities they expect while maintaining the unmistakable atmosphere has required a careful balance of innovation and tradition – nowhere more so than with the retractable roof at Centre Court. The specifics were scientifically demanding, yet the internal environment with a closed roof had to keep the feel of ‘tennis in an English garden’, with players and spectators alike feeling comfortable.

INNOVATION. The hydraulically operated roof measures 65×75 metres and is a ‘folding fabric concertina’ with steel trusses supporting a translucent fabric skin. This skin allows natural light to reach the grass on the court, while an airflow removes condensation from within the bowl. In this way optimum player performance and spectator comfort is maintained and the sense of tradition that pervades the historic 1922 show court remains undisturbed. Beneath the roof, extra rows of seating, new wider seats, lifts and new members facilities enhance the experience even further.

IMPACT. Guaranteeing a schedule of play avoids major disruption to the event programme, which in turn ensures Wimbledon retains its status as the premier Grand Slam tennis event within the tennis calendar, with broadcast coverage of the tournament going out to an audience of millions worldwide.

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Dezeen wire: the heads of all three masters courses at Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands have resigned following a disagreement with the school over educational reform.

Jan Boelen, Joost Grootens and Louise Schouwenberg, who respectively headed the Social Design, Information Design and Contextual Design masters courses, have stepped down with Nederland Dagblad reporting that they “fear that the autonomy of the Masters [is] at stake, and that [is] compromising the quality of education” (translated from Dutch).

The resignations came on the day that 31 masters students at the school, which is one of the best regarded and most influential design schools in the word, celebrated their graduation.

Eindhoven Dagblad reported Boelen as saying “the Design Academy [is] in great need of an artistic director” (translated from Dutch).

This week also saw the departure of masters school head Gijs Bakker. The Droog co-founder left after 25 years at the academy with Boelen, Grootens and Schouwenberg  due to share responsiblities for the department, according to nrc.nl, which also reports Boelen as saying:

“We had a discussion with the board would like to carry on the vision of the school on the changing role of design in society. But substantive discussion does not occur. Instead, a bureaucratic school system implemented where managers in charge and we professionally as staff no longer have decision-making. “ (Translated from Dutch).

Related: Li Edelkoort to resign as chair of Design Academy Eindhoven (June 2008) | See all our stories about Design Academy Eindhoven

Design Academy Eindhoven have posted the following statement on their website:

New phase master education

After our official announcement that the heads of the master department resigned, information was send to the media by the heads themselves. We still respect their choice and meanwhile stick to our strategic mission regarding renewed education. For us it is important to continue the dialogue with the people involved. Today we have spoken with stakeholders like tutors, employees, students and the student council. The Executive Board has informed them personally  about the DAE strategy which safeguards the quality of our master course.

We now focus on the continuous development of the master education which meets the high standard we all set. We strongly believe in our human centered design focus. And by doing so, we want to stimulate all skills of our gifted students who look a the world with the use of heart, hands and head.

Previous offical anouncement

As we celebrate the annual graduation of our master students – the heads of the three master research programmes have decided to leave our academy. Jan Boelen, Joost Grootens and Louise Schouwenberg will continue their careers elsewhere. We thank them for their effort and expertise and wish them all the best on their journey.

Meanwhile, we proceed to develop the position of the heads to guarantee the best solution possible which safeguards our values in the field of master education.

We will evolve our master education on an excellent level with a strong, highly valuable focus on design, research and strategy within the context of the world we live in. We cherish our DNA and believe in the cultural meaning, social relevance and economic value of design. This is carried out by our highly skilled students and teachers from all over the world.

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