At 100% Design London
Join our roving reporter, Jackie Hawkins, in London for 100% Design.
Day One
Well, its that crazy time of year again. Just when you think you have recovered from pounding the pavements of London from one event to the other courtesy of the London Design Festival, they add on four days of 100% Design in the cavernous halls of the Earls Court Exhibition Centre. My feet are sore, my kidneys are suffering from all the free Veuve Clicquot, but I’m happy.
This year’s event is definitely an improvement on previous years, and so it should be; 100%Design is this year celebrating 15 years of trading. For those of you not too familiar with 100%, it is the largest single hub of the London Design Festival, with over 350 exhibitors launching new products from all over the globe. In short, to most designers this translates as a BIG BLOODY DEAL. If you want to get your stuff out there and be seen, this is the place to do it.
From the most notable designers of our day to the best in design manufacturing, you can expect your work to be seen by the likes of Tom Dixon and Mr. Cappellini himself. Both spotted I hasten to add, at last night’s Icon Magazine party in Clerkenwell, and if I hadn’t drunk so many Gin and Tonics I might have felt obliged to engage them in some witty conversation about THE topic on most people’s lips at the moment. You see, there seems to be a bit of rebellion about ‘named designers’, designers known largely for their name over the standard of their work. Fair point, I reckon, and that is why this year’s show designed by JAM is so spot-on. They have made it interactive and less static, with live demo’s of making and workshops showing process and creativity at work. There is always a danger that design can take itself too seriously, and somehow JAM have managed to make this an all-together more accessible and friendly event and less ‘high-brow’. I’m all for that: so long as they don’t run out of the Veuve!
