Beazley Design of the Year 2017, The Design Museum.
Being a graphic designer you would of thought that I would of been to the Design Museum in London before now but after an email last month about the ‘Beazley Design of the Year’ exhibition, I finally decided to give it a look. The exhibition has categories that cover Architecture, Digital, Fashion, Graphics, Product and Transport which explore the most innovative, relevant and thought-provoking projects in contemporary design. Going into the exhibition I had no idea what to expect, but I was given a ballot paper with all the designs written on it so I could make an informed decision and submit my vote at the end. Knowing I could vote at the end I made sure read and understood each project that was on display and thoughout the time I was meandering about the exhibit my mind did change quite a lot as to which was my design of the year. In fact I had to loop around the exhibition a couple of times before I made my final decision.
My top five projects that caught my eye included the ‘Rapid Liquid Printing by Self-Assembly Lab, MIT and Christophe Guberan and Steelcase’ (A process that prints products in 3D space via a gel suspension), ‘Lycée Schorge Secondary School by Kéré Architecture’ (A school built from locally sourced materials in Baking Faso), Me & EU (A variety of postcards that were created to be sent across Europe, with the aim of remaining connected after the Brexit referendum), ‘Air-Ink’ (an ink made from air pollution), and finally Nimuno Loops by Chrome Cherry Design Studio (a tape which Lego builders can use to stick down and build on any surface).
Each had their own interesting story behind them and after narrowing it down to them five, and about to make my decision, I watched a presentation towards the end which was celebrating the Design of the Year Awards for the past ten years. One project they touched on was the year the iPhone was nominated but didn’t win, however it was was blatantly the most commercially successful design and changed the mobile telephone industry. So with this in mind and after a hard think I decided to stick to my graphic design guns and nominate the ‘ME&EU postcards’.
Image Credit: Me & EU by Nathan Smith and Sam T Smith.
It was a very close decision for me between that and the Nimuno Loops. The reason for this is because I found the postcards the most engaging and most interesting as, after I viewed and read about them, they were always in the back of my mind while learning about the other projects. Even though the Brexit decision to leave was only by a very narrow margin, I believe it is important for rest of Europe to understand that the UK is still connected to Europe and that not all of Britain wanted to leave the EU. I always appreciate great graphic design and hope the EU postcard project gets the award, as its a subject I can relate to because Brexit is probably the most significant political decision I’ve had to make in my life so far. However judging by previous winners, I don’t think it will win but I REMAIN positive and will keep an eye out for the results in a couple of months time.
Really interesting exhibition to go to as it not only displayed great graphic design but great design in other disciplines. It also gave an insight into possible future global trends so definitely worth a look!
Check out there website for more information: www.designmuseum.org