Dutch Design Week

I came staggering home late this evening with a massive pile of portfolio pieces, pamphlets and business cards. 9 days. 300 events. Sponsorship from one of the most respected industrial design companies in the business.

My entire day was spent in the city of Eindhoven at Dutch Design Week. I saw senior projects and exhibits from famous designers in Holland. I networked and took photos. I saw work that I loved, and work that I did not care for at all. Perhaps even more important, I began to really think about what type of company I might like to work for.

In regards to capstone, I paid special attention to how the work was displayed. One neat idea at a student exhibition was how the artists' statements were displayed. Rather than hanging them on the wall, they had a thick pad of paper at each exhibit so viewers could tear off a page and either read it off to the side and then return it to the stack before viewing the work (probably a preventative measure for traffic), or keep it to take home and remember about later on. Each page contained the artist's statement, their contact information, the category of design they studied, and also any awards they had received for design. I thought it was a great idea, only the downside of it could result in a messy gallery and lots of littering.


A few other thoughts:

interactive exhibits

artist and title of work at the base of the exhibit

I am starting to see how much of a focus Holland has on its design community, and that is extremely encouraging.