A love for Design, Branding, Packaging ?
We got you covered — and more.
By Connie Fluhme
PR at VBAT
This spring/summer has a few very interesting events to offer for all of us who are interested in Design, Branding and Packaging.
From Austin to Amsterdam
This is a historical moment: For the first time UnderConsideration bring their Brand New Conference to Amsterdam — and they call it Brand Nieuwe Conference.
The Brand Nieuwe Conference is a two-day event, focusing on the practice of corporate and brand identity — a direct extension of the popular blog, Brand New. The conference consists of eight sessions each day offering a broad range of points of view with speakers from around the world practising in different environments, from global consultancies, to in-house groups, to small firms.
The tickets are worth every cent, as the event naturally features great speakers, to name only a few:
Debbie Millman (Sterling Brands, NYC, USA)
Named “one of the most influential designers working today” by Graphic Design USA, Debbie Millman is also an author, educator, brand strategist and host of the podcast Design Matters. As the founder and host of Design Matters, the first and longest running podcast about design, Millman has interviewed more than 250 design luminaries and cultural commentators, including Massimo Vignelli, Milton Glaser, Malcolm Gladwell, Dan Pink, Barbara Kruger, Seth Godin and more. In the 11 years since its inception, the show has garnered over a million download per year, a Cooper Hewitt National Design Award and — most recently — iTunes designated it one of the best podcasts of 2015.
Simon Dixon and Aporva Baxi (DixonBaxi, London, UK)
Simon Dixon and Aporva Baxi founded branding agency DixonBaxi in 2001.
Together they have a global reputation as leading creatives in branding and design, and are sought out by some of the world’s most forward-thinking companies to help them connect with and inspire their audiences.
DixonBaxi are a brand agency that help forge clear business purpose, inspire progress and create potent brand experiences — across TV, print, digital, mobile and advertising.
Brian Collins (Collins, NYC, USA)
Brian Collins is Chief Creative Officer and Co-Founder of COLLINS: a design company dedicated to creating experiences, communications and technologies that shape companies and people for the better.
Over his career, Brian has won every major creative award. His work has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, Creativity, Fortune, Creative Review, Graphis, NBC News, ABC News and Fast Company, which named him an American Master of Design. Business Week named his work as a retail “Wonder of the World.” His team’s design of Helios House in Los Angeles, the first gas station designed using environmentally sustainable construction principles, is included in The Cooper Hewitt National Museum of Design.
That’s only a few of the amazing speakers you can expect during Brand Nieuwe Conference.
Another thing we like about Brand Nieuwe Conference, is their Brand Identity which UnderConsideration have created for it. Usually they like to mix and match a number of ideas that are specific to the location of their host city, and Amsterdam has proven to be quite difficult. Because there are so many references to draw from, ideas to expand on, and visual idioms to embrace.
For Brand Nieuwe Conference they chose a few elements to build this Amsterdam-specific identity:
“Adopting the ××× visual device used throughout Amsterdam as part of the City’s official identity and a key design element of its coat of arms is borderline cliché and an expected design solution but we love ×’s and we weren’t going to deny ourselves the pleasure of using them as long as we made sure to offer a new take on it. From the very beginning we settled on this as the main identity element” (UnderConsideration).
“Another element is the distinctive Canal Ring structure at the heart of Amsterdam where each canal — Singel, Herengracht, Keizersgracht, and Prinsengracht — grow in diamater as they span away from the center. We love ×’s at UCllc but we have room in our heart for concentric circles just as well.”
The third and fourth element in the ID where the Rijksmuseum and the bicycles of Amsterdam.
Brand Nieuwe Conference
Beurs van Berlage, Amsterdam
June 20 & 21
Order your tickets here.
New Location: What Design Can Do
An international platform about the power of design
What Design Can Do showcases design as a catalyst of change and renewal and promotes it as a way of addressing the societal questions of our time. After 5 years at the Stadsschouburg Amsterdam, WDCD will be located at Muziekgebouw aan het IJ for the first time this summer.
What Design Can Do was initiated in 2011 by Richard van der Laken and Pepijn Zurburg of De Designpolitie to present best practices and visions, to provoke discussion and to facilitate exchange between disciplines. WDCD wants to let the public discover what design is capable of and call on designers to stand up, take responsibility and consider the pressing issues of our time.
Every edition of What Design Can Do is loosely organised around a few key themes that dominate today’s discourse and that address important issues at hand. Speakers are invited to share insights and visions related to these topics, and breakout sessions hosted by various partners provide opportunities for visitors to dig in and explore these themes further. The three themes that will be addressed at WDCD2016 are: What Africa Can Do For Europe, What Design Can Do for Music, and What Design Can Do for Refugees.
This year, WDCD also launched the What Design Can Do for Refugees Challenge:
The call for entries has ended and now the the contribute phase is on. Anyone can help to improve the proposals that have been entered. Simply register on the challenge platform and share your comments on the many entries.
The WDCD Refugee Challenge is a joint initiative of What Design Can Do, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and IKEA Foundation.
Brilliant speakers can be expected at WDCD, so again, the investment for the tickets are worth every penny. Also here, we name only a few highlights.
Peter Saville, Graphic Design, UK
Peter Saville is an artist and designer whose contribution to culture has been unique. As a founder and art director of the legendary independent UK label Factory Records he accessed a mass audience through pop music, best exemplified in the series of record sleeves he created for Joy Division and New Order between 1979 and 1993. Other artists Saville designed for include King Crimson, Roxy Music, Duran Duran, Wham!, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Ultravox and Peter Gabriel.
Ravi Naidoo, Design, South Africa
A project launched in 2001 to send the first African into space is exemplary for the Ravi Naidoo method. Coupled with that effort was a new brand, called Hip To Be Square, aimed at promoting maths, science and technology among youths.
Developing consciousness, increasing ambition among people and adding to the economy inspired the founding of Design Indaba in 1995, a three-day design conference with speakers from all corners of the world aimed at boosting creative industries in Africa. Today, the Design Indaba Festival brings its annual celebration of creativity to six Southern African cities, showcasing design across a variety of formats and empowering local creative economies. Naidoo: ‘There is a recent study from the University of Cape Town, which shows that Design Indaba has added 1.7 billion rand to the economy in the last five years.’
Marcus Lyall, Experience Design, UK
Marcus Lyall is a designer and director who specialises in projects involving moving images, interaction and live performance. ‘I like creating simple, bold gestures that connect with audiences,’ he says. ‘I work with a mixture of music, art and commercial clients, often taking projects from first sketches to final delivery.’
Lyall studied graphic design and audio-visual studies at Central St Martins in the early nineties, becoming involved in the dance music scene. He started creating projection shows for concerts and club nights, which led him to working on live shows for bands including U2, The Rolling Stones, The Chemical Brothers and Oasis.
VBAT are particularly happy of seeing Marcus as speaker at What Design Can Do! Recently we did a C-Word Talk with him here at the agency, and VBAT MeetMarket will do a hands-on breakout session with Marcus on the topic What Design Can Do for Music, in cooperation with the Dutch composer Joep Beving. We’ll update you soon on this session, which will be extraordinary for sure.
What Design Can Do
June 30 & July 1
Muziekgebouw aan het IJ, Amsterdam
Order your tickets here.
From the big conferences and events to the precious exhibit on packaging design as icing on the cake:
From Japan, with love
Too Pretty to Throw Away: Packaging Design from Japan
Japanmuseum Sieboldhuis in Leiden will host a very promising exhibition on beautiful packaging design from Japan. Maarten van Disseldorp, Creative at VBAT and passionate Japan lover, spotted this event which many of VBAT’s creatives will want to visit.
Product packaging forms a fascinating part of Japan’s consumer culture. Whereas modern-day technologies and marketing strategies often determine their form, the design is frequently inspired by decorative motifs such as those found on art objects from the past. The aesthetics of packaging is also strongly influenced by Japanese traditions of gift-wrapping. Too pretty to throw away: Packaging Design from Japan illustrates through museum objects, consumer items and gift wrappings, how past and present are united in packaging design.
Lectures, workshops and guided tours will be organised as part of this exhibition.
Too pretty to throw away: Packaging Design from Japan
June 10 — August 28
Japanmuseum Sieboldhuis, Leiden
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Written by Connie Fluhme
PR at VBAT
