Creative Review

April 2008 issue
Last year, Creative Review staff were lucky enough to attend conferences in Cannes, Havana, Monterrey and Goa. A few weeks ago, I was at the Design Indaba in Cape Town. Just before Xmas I met someone who organises a conference in Mar Del Plata, Argentina that is attended by 2000 designers. Every year, more and more talks and conferences are added to the creative calendar, but what are they for?
I have fond memories of many conferences and count myself very fortunate to be able to attend events in some beautiful parts of the world. But, every so often, as yet another designer launches into his (it usually is his not her) hour of show and tell, I start to wonder whether audiences shouldn’t be demanding a little more from the platform. OK, so it’s always interesting to hear great people talk about great work, but there aren’t many who can do themselves justice in front of a crowd (those that can quickly become regular fixtures on the circuit carving out almost a second career as public speakers). Too often it’s just an hour of good-natured, slightly bumbling description about this project or that one followed by a couple of questions along the lines of “how come you’re so great?” or, inevitably, “where do you get your ideas?”
Often audiences come away from these sessions saying “wow, wasn’t so-and-so amazing!” but what they really mean is that the work is amazing – so-and-so was really a bit dull, trotted out the same old work we’d already seen ad nauseum in magazines and overran his time-slot so there was no time for questions, no matter how dull.
And yet still they come, from Tijuana to Tokyo, Singapore to Spain. In the advertising world, confer­ences tend to run on a different model. We organise some ourselves – they’re shorter and certainly more expensive than design conferences with £500 being a typical ticket price. But for that you get a highly targeted, very thoroughly researched event where speakers are explicitly briefed and subject matter explored in depth.
Some design conferences are like that, but not many. Too few, as Rick Poynor discusses on page 57, take ticket-holders beyond bland exposition. At least with Design Indaba, however, attendees know that some of their ticket money is going towards funding a very worthwhile project: 10 × 10 (see page 60). The Indaba organisers have tapped in to their enviable contact list to engage ten teams of architects to build ten streets of houses in South Africa’s townships.
On their own, these 100 houses are a drop in the vast ocean of South Africa’s housing crisis, but the combined talents of some of the world’s leading architects will hopefully throw up better and more sustainable solutions that can be replicated throughout not just South Africa but the world
Patrick Burgoyne, Editor.
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ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ FILM BY ROEL WOUTERS
Well, we would like this... This is the piece of work Roel created in response to being named one of our Creative Futures, earlier this year. Enjoy!
NOMIS DAMN BOOTS FILM
So, you're a new player in the football boots market. You're up against the likes of Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Umbro and you need to make a promotional film that will stand out. Step in director Woof Wan-Bau at Nexus. We love this film created by new agency Johannes Leonardo. “The web film format of the spot allowed me to make something that didn't have to be squeezed into the normal 30-60 seconds," says Woof Wan-Bau which meant that we didn't have to rush the sequences along and that we could try something a little different. Pretty much everything was achieved in camera for aesthetic reasons, so it was a huge job for the art department and wardrobe to have everything ready and working on time”.
JUSTICE PROMO: DVNO
Not 100% sure but we think this video is by SoMe, the Parisian illustrator/designer responsible for all artwork on releases from the Ed Banger label. The idea is simple: lyrics as logos with a 70s disco flavour.
MeekFM Typographic Synthesizer
This was posted up on the Creative Review Facebook page recently. To be honest, it's beyond our comprehension - but we like it all the same!