Hasta La Ideas

‘Tis the season for another thought-provoking design conference! Our friends at Parsons the New School for Design have teamed up with the Köln International School of Design (part of the University of Applied Sciences Cologne) to present the Critical Gift of Design, a conference and exhibition exploring what design is capable of giving to the world. “We understand that design is not a neutral act,” said Joel Towers, executive dean of Parsons, in a statement announcing the interdisciplinary event. “With the Critical Gift, we are taking a step back to assess how we have used this power throughout history—for better and worse—and how we might apply it in the future to benefit an increasingly complex and global society.” The assessing and applying begins tomorrow evening in the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center‘s cozy Kellen Auditorium with “Beauty and the Design of Aliveness,” a keynote address by Elaine Scarry, the Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard. Thusly invigorated, attendees will go forth and confer in Friday breakout discussion sessions led by participants including MoMA’s Paola Antonelli, graphic designer Ruedi Baur, and Jamer Hunt, director of the MFA program in Transdisciplinary Design at Parsons. No time for lively discussion and debate? Pop over to check out the “The Present,” a corresponding exhibition that features work by Parsons and KISD students. On view through Sunday, it showcases critical product design, subversive videos, satirical stories, and other projects intended to challenge visitors to consider whether design is a gift or a curse. We’re going to go with gift.

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Looks from the Tokyo Fashion Festa, presented at the Fashion Institute of Technology in advance of the “Japan Fashion Now” exhibition, on view through April 2, 2011 at the Museum at FIT (Photos: UnBeige)

Whether you can distinguish a Shibuya denizen from an Akihabara type at 40 paces or still can’t quite get your head around those wide-eyed manga cuties, you’ll be fascinated by the proceedings of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology’s Japan Fashion Now Symposium. The two-day confab, which takes place tomorrow and Friday at FIT, will delve into the astonishingly diverse sartorial world featured in the museum’s current exhibition exploring the evolution of contemporary Japanese fashion from Rei Kawakubo and the avant-garde gang to gothic-punk-Lolita styles and Cosplay. “Japan continues to be on the cutting-edge—maybe even the bleeding edge—of fashion,” says Valerie Steele, director of the Museum at FIT and curator of the exhibition. “Some of the most interesting designers—including menswear designers—combine avant-garde and sub-cultural styles. Equally significant is the Japanese obsession (not too strong a word) with perfecting classic utilitarian garments, such as jeans and work wear.” Symposium attendees will settle in a series of presentations and conversations that focus on everything from the Tokyo shopping scene (in a talk by Tiffany Godoy) and Japanese men’s fashion magazines (Masafumi Monden) to the “perverse cuteness in JapaneseGirl culture” (Laura Miller) and artist Yoshitomo Nara (Miwako Tezuka). Pre-registration for the symposium is now closed, but our friends at FIT assure us that you can sign up on-site.

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Whether you’re more interested in the wallcoverings favored by Jeffrey Bilhuber or Smart Design’s latest triumph on the sustainable syringe front, we’ve got a symposium for you. The Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and GE kick things off tomorrow with “Why Design Now? Solving Global Challenges,” a conference that will explore the role of design in solving some of the world’s most pressing challenges. Held in conjunction with the museum’s ongoing National Design Triennial exhibition, the day-long event will bring together thought leaders, scientists, and designers to share their expertise on how design can accelerate innovation and improve efficiency and scalability of solutions to address urgent global needs.

The in-person confab reached capacity faster than you can say “Richard Saul Wurman” (the TED Conference founder who will be giving the keynote address), but our friends at Core 77 will be livestreaming the entire event here, and we’ll provide tasty, bite-sized updates via Twitter. So call in sick to work and spend your Friday listening to Gravity Tank founder director Chris Conley discuss designing products for everyday lives (scheduled for 10:50 a.m. EST), and don’t miss your shot (zing!) to hear Smart Design’s Dan Formosa and Eric Freitag‘s present a case study on the Cimzia Prefilled Syringe (2:50 p.m.). Also on tap: moderated discussions about green design (9:50 a.m.), international design (11:30 a.m.), and healthcare reform (3:10 p.m.) featuring panelists including Pentagram partner and 2010 National Design Award winner Lisa Strausfeld, Parsons dean Joel Towers, and the Cooper-Hewitt’s own Ellen Lupton and Bill Moggridge.

Things take a turn for the domestic on Saturday, October 2, as the ever more fantastic Museum of the City of New York holds its fourth annual Home Design in New York event. Presented in partnership with the New York School of Interior Design and Taconic Builders, the symposium will explore some of the city’s great residential spaces with the help of interior design luminaries such as the aforementioned Mr. Bilhuber, Albert Hadley, and Amy Lau. Donald Albrecht and Judith Gura will moderate the afternoon’s proceedings as speakers including James Zemaitis of Sotheby’s and Anthony Victoria, an expert in 18th century European furnishings (bring on the commodes!), each focus on a particular New York space and discuss its importance in design history—or just why they really, really like it. Learn more and reserve your space here.

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Fresh off his taking over at the Cooper-Hewitt, IDEO co-founder Bill Moggridge will soon be kicking off a series of hosted conversations with important design people, aptly called and homespun sounding, “Bill’s Design Talks.” The first arrives next Thursday the 27th, from 6:30 to 8:00 at the Cooper, but will also be streamed live online; a nice plus for all of you/us outside of that thriving metropolis. And because it’s always wise to start strong, Moggridge has decided to start with as fine a line up as they come. The details:

A partner at Pentagram, critic at Yale and co-founder of Design Observer, [Michael Bierut] is one of the world’s most admired graphic designers. We at Cooper-Hewitt were thrilled with the design that he created for our Triennial exhibition catalog! He will be the first presenter in a new series of conversations, Bill’s Design Talks, moderated by Bill Moggridge.

Yves Ludwig is the graphic designer at Pentagram who developed the full design for the Triennial catalog. She and Michael will show the design process as a case study and discuss the design of this piece in a broader context, followed by a discussion with members of the contributing team at the museum.

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What’s better than a great conference? A great conference that gives us an excuse to use vintage circus graphics! Back by popular demand is the Mediabistro Circus. The third annual confab on the covergence of digital and traditional media is set for Thursday, May 20 at 92YTribeca in New York City. This year’s Circus is focused on media “visionaries and provocateurs” who also happen to be women. Among the speakers are Dwell President Michela O’Connor Abrams, Gilt Groupe CEO Susan Lyne, and Lisa Hsia, senior vice president of new media at Bravo. Click here for the full agenda and then prepare yourself by perusing circusmuseum.nl, our favorite online collection of circus memorabilia. Feeling nostalgic? Check out our design-minded coverage of last year’s Circus here.

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