So on Wednesday last week, I toddled off to the Design Indaba 2008 - all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (or is that bushy-haired?). Anyway, I was really looking forward to this year's conference because last year I went for the first time and was absolutely blown away. I have to admit, it wasn't quite as good this year, though that's not to say it was bad. On the contrary, some of the speakers were absolutely brilliant! There were quite a few speakers from the industrial design field, and while I have the utmost respect for all those guys, it wasn't quite 'my cup of tea' and I found their talks a little dull. But the rest was great.
Some speakers stood out more than others. Some of the guys who really 'blew my hair back' included Airside (http://www.airside.co.uk/), Jakob Trollbäck (http://www.trollback.com), Mirko Ilić (http://mirkoilic.com), Paul D Miller - aka DJ Spooky (http://www.djspooky.com/) and the very impressive Shinichi Takemura (http://www.tangible-earth.com/).
Using the tag-line 'Creativity can...' this year's Indaba had a significant environmental theme. My take on it is the everyone has a responsibility to make a change. Creatives (and this includes product designers, graphic designers, copywriters, the whole toot) have the advantage of working with a medium that can reach a fairly large audience, and so it is our responsibility to promote better environmental practices. This theme was apparent in the both the presentations and the oh-so-fabulous delegate goodie bags. From programme books with recycled elephant poo covers to the lovely natural fibre bag and T-shirt. (Thanks Woolies!)
And that was that.
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