Today I went to The Design Museum, to see the Design Of The Year Nominees. I went to this last year, it's always an exciting event. Before considering graphic design, I wanted to be a product designer, so a lot of the products on exhibit interested me (as well as the graphic design of course!)
I've come across the project below before, something similar to the brief I would be doing with Pri. It was great to see the actual notes in person.
A keyboard for an ipad - not that innovative in my eyes, but well executed anyway.
I've come across the project below by Graphic Thought Facility. Since i've been in contact with them, i'll follow up with an email congratulating them on their entree.
Even though i'm a fan of typefaces, I did not feel the below project was too exciting.
The below publication was really interesting, and extremely thorough. I haven't come across Norm before, but after looking into them, i've realised they're a type foundry that have produced some of my favourite fonts.
The scoreboard:
A beautiful new BMW hybrid, with an extremely light chassis. I love the break lights.
A project for all the eco-designers:
The below advertising campaign had a great concept. Millions of vegetables a year are thrown away simply for being ugly. This campaign playfully looks at embracing this ugliness, therefore creating much less food waste.
The typeface below works perfectly as a brand identity. The identity is a highly characterful typeface that captures the quickness and scale of large hand-painted lettering used on warehouses, docks and ships throughout Glasgow’s industrial waterfront.
I had never heard of the studio 'Kellerberger-White', but i'll be sure to follow their work in the future.
Very hard to photograph, but an interesting process to create a book:
Another typeface entry- This one I wasn't so keen on. I understand it's appropriate for 'WIRED' magazine, but I found it lacked readability needed for a good headline.
A really clever idea to create a more green environment in cities:
A clever take on the kettle, saving water if only one cup is made at a time:
With independent magazines really becoming popular in the passed year or two, Riposte is a refreshing magazine that takes away the cliche's of women's magazines, creating something with much more value:
I was surprised this has not been done before, but a clever invention nonetheless:
A glimpse into the future - Biologically engineered plants that actually treat other plants. Here you can see the proposal of a plant that treats trees that are infected, removing the infection.
This project had my vote. I know it's not life saving but I thought it stood out as one of the more bold and crazy projects, that make me look forward to the future.
Conclusion
A hugely inspiring visit, even though I didn't really find much of the graphic design that impressive in comparison to some of the other work. This may be due to me being exposed to it all the time, but it may also be that graphic design has slightly less scope to be life saving as product design, simply due to being restricted to a clients needs a lot of the time.
In general, leaving the museum made me want to be really innovative with what I do. To push projects, to take risks, to create something that leaves impact.
One day I would love to be entered into the Design Of The Year awards for something with value and life changing. It would be absolutely amazing to not just design something that looks nice, but actually affects peoples lives for the better.
