For three decades now the magazine Items has been the Netherlands’ design conscience. Items is serious and thoughtful; it is more about the culture of design than about the business of the market. ‘In our pages you won’t find the usual overstyled parade of chairs,’ says editor-in-chief Max Bruinsma. Het interview staat in Connecting the Dots #5 dat verschijnt bij het London Design Festival 2012.
De second edition of the Amsterdam conference What Design Can Do, in May 2012, brought bright minds from all over the world together to investigate what design can do to address the world’s truly pressing problems. I wrote a roundup for the magazine Items. ‘The role of the designer is somewhere between compassion and expertise.’
Conferences used to be about star designers showing pretty things. Now they’re about sharing social concerns. The second edition of the Amsterdam conference What Design Can Do was all about how the social role that design can play. The designer is now both a catalyst and a go-between: part problem-solver, part community organizer, part dreamer. I interviewed Hella Jongerius at the conference and for the magazine Items I wrote an essay which you can read here.
Photos: The theme of ‘WDCD’ in 2013 will be ‘Collaboration’ | project by Febrik in the Lebanese refugee camp Burj el Barajneh | colored vases series 3 by Hella Jongerius | graphic design on the streets of Bogotá from the blog Popular de Lujo Read the article…