Let’s cease making design festivals for designers and make creativity obtainable to everybody

All of us have a imaginative and prescient of what a design competition would possibly seem like: just a few days stuffed with talks, workshops, exhibitions, pop-up outlets and social gatherings geared toward inspiring, educating and fostering a way of neighborhood amongst attendees.

These carefully-curated occasions are typically designed for these already working inside the trade or hopeful of getting into the artistic workforce. Design festivals are made by designers for designers – however ought to we shake up that system?

Lyall Bruce and Ryan McLeod, administrators at Agency of None, did simply that after they produced Dundee Design Festival and led the programming for the Scottish occasion in 2019 and 2021.

In 2021, I used to be introduced on to develop the festival’s visual identity by working as a personality designer. At the moment, I recognised how Company of None held accessibility as one in all its core values and used it as a marker for making logistical and design choices. So, I included this into its model design, which has helped increase the competition’s attain with new audiences.

Why Making Design Accessible is Essential

Design festivals have a good time design. At greatest, they’re joyous areas stuffed with individuals who share ardour, imaginative and prescient and expertise. However they don’t seem to be all the time essentially the most inclusive.

There’s an issue with variety in design. It is an trade that historically units a excessive barrier to entry, making it tougher for folks from deprived social and financial backgrounds to progress.

However design festivals are the perfect environments for dissolving these limitations. Not solely can they be liable for delivering extra diverse and numerous content material that appeals to broader audiences, however they’ll additionally dispel the parable that design isn’t for everybody. The design trade is a viable profession path for all kinds of individuals; creativity’s optimistic affect on psychological well being and well-being has lengthy been scientifically confirmed.

Festivals have the chance to redefine design and its skill to enhance lives. Design festivals ought to emphasise the precept that creativity is out there for everybody.

First Impressions Rely

Visible aesthetics matter as they reveal who the competition is focusing on. Preliminary occasion promotions will steer how inclusive the occasion might be and provides a way of who’s welcome to take part.

“Usually, design festivals create visible identities that resonate with these already within the trade,” says Ryan McLeod. “They are typically fairly summary in kind and content material, which creates an immediate barrier to these exterior from the design world. Individuals are fast to evaluate whether or not one thing seems like it’s for them or not.”

Character design is common. When Company of None employed me to develop their visible id, we created a personality system for on-line and in-person interactions. I made up a toolkit full with geometric physique components and enjoyable facial options to simply recognise the design throughout belongings.

Reduce The Jargon

Designers have a tendency to make use of subtle vocabulary and create short-form acronyms as they ascend the ranks. However generally, this alienates even folks hailing from different departments. Implementing easier language throughout channels will be certain that everybody concerned within the design chain understands their necessities.

“Business-specific terminology can save time when having inside discussions, however language is an immediate barrier to these on the surface trying in,” says Lyall Bruce. “We made certain to take away sophisticated jargon from the competition’s advertising belongings and supporting supplies to strengthen that design is one thing anybody can get entangled in.”

The ‘All the time On’ Strategy

Varied obstacles, similar to tight work schedules and demanding childcare wants, prohibit some folks from attending occasions. A method round that is to organise an occasion that does not require attendees to show up for particular time slots or by having the ability to entry the content material on-line in their very own area. It might show a logistical problem, however these modifications would make entry simpler.

Location, Location, Location

For DDF 2021, we selected to decentralise the competition and have it happen throughout 4 venues. We took over a few unused store items and public parks – a pink store was remodeled and stuffed with astroturf flooring, whereas an previous pump station was painted with floor-to-ceiling graphics.

By inviting competition revellers into acquainted environment, they might expertise one thing really out of the odd. Selecting to run the occasion in localised spots somewhat than massive cultural buildings meant that Dundee’s dwellers may really feel like their metropolis was overrun with design and that it was beckoning them in.

Do not Neglect The Enjoyable

We deliberately held playful design demonstrations to create partaking and memorable experiences. It was a very immersive competition with big ball runs explaining the design course of, up-cycled centres celebrating sustainability, and character-building workout routines centred round well-being.

One of many competition’s occasions noticed the transformation of a second-hand clothes retailer at The Finlathen Design Home, remembers McLeod: “Individuals queued for 3 hours to attempt issues on, and youngsters had been operating straight from faculty to offer it a go together with many coming again with family and friends. Seeing such ardour and pleasure coming from folks partaking with design was superb!”

Depart a Legacy

“As producers, we structured the competition content material round a particular yearly theme,” says Bruce. “All the experiences had been developed as prototypes in order that the ideas may proceed to evolve after the competition.”

Many of those have now been put in throughout Dundee and past. The favored expertise of the upcycling centre has been launched to numerous communities within the metropolis. In the meantime, the print-based design workshop, Poster Playground, has travelled all the way in which to Detroit.

Different bespoke installations have been re-homed at native libraries and colleges, with objects created at workshops or embedded in properties nationwide. A number of the 2019 festivals, like myself, have gone on to work as designers within the 2021 version. So there’s large scope and alternative for all these concerned.

Accessibility was core to the DDF’s providing. McLeod defined: “Design is for everybody, and we have proved that artistic content material might be efficiently delivered exterior of town centre to a broader viewers. There may be an urge for food for communities to have interaction with design if they’re given the chance.”