Design Indaba: Lifestyle trends of the year

"There's more to great design than being a great designer", says Martin Lambie-Nairn, designer for Lambie-Nairn agency. His view is that you have to do other things as well in order to be a good designer: designers by their nature are curious. Their agency has grown from a cottage industry in 1997 to 45 people. They specialise mainly in refreshing broadcast brands - everything from Friends of the Earth to Disney. Known primarily for their ongoing work on the ID and conceptually charming titles for the BBC, as well as broadcasters and telecoms the world over.

Going Dutch...

Three top designers from the Netherlands were at Design Indaba to explain what makes Dutch design great... introduced by three trapeze chicks in orange leotards, doing their thing 10m off the ground! So, if you're passing the Convention Centre. the Dutch graphic design exhibit in the downstairs foyer is worth a visit.

A veteran and ambassador of Dutch design, Anton Beeke thoroughly contextualised the history of Holland - from when it was a land characterised by only swamps and water, to the present. A series of maps and text also put Cape Town and its place in the global Empire that was Holland in the 1500's and 1600's into the mix. The Holland of the 15th and 16th century was made up of 36 000 windmills and a nation of explorers, traders, pirates and refugees from all over Europe, and became a dominant economic world power until the British knocked them off their perch in the 17th century and where map making was big!

It is interesting to review that at least 10 artists who are still household names, from Rembrandt to van Gogh, are all in effect 'Dutchmen'. This fact, coupled with the wealth accumulated by global trade at the time, makes the VOC in effect, the first global multinational company and Holland's need for graphic designers essential.

Anton's body of work of mostly theatre posters and calendars is lavish with wit, passion and emotional and intellectual intelligence. It is intense, maverick, sexy, irreverent, beautiful, powerful and original. And all this from someone who started work as a butcher boy at age 14, because his parents could not afford to keep him in school.

From a design point of view, European money - the notes themselves - have always, pointed out Anton, been designed with care and pride by top end designers. Economics aside, it seems the hardest pill for him to swallow with regard to the changeover to the Euro, is that it is "ugly, ugly, ugly... money".

The Dutch company INSIDE/OUTSIDE (Petra Blaisse) is like a dream, where the natural landscape is allowed to flow seamlessly into the modern urban environment by means of paths, where curtains of every description demarcate spaces and carpets mimic gardens. Work on parks in Milan sees the modern urban infrastructure fold around the logic of parks, where green space is as important as a building and blurs the boundaries. This effect is enhanced by the use of curtains and drapes on any scale inside or out, which are sewn, pleated, tucked, folded and manipulated in a myriad of ways in order to regulate sun, light, wind, comfort and transparency.

A utopian urban environment?

The utopian urban environment is possible. The many delegates attending the Architecture Indaba would have had a opportunity to workshop with Blaisse and hopefully it will inspire them. This is urban design, so sensitively crafted that as Capetonians, we can hardly even imagine it.

Known as the doyenne of global trend forecasters, one of the 25 most influential people in fashion, Li Edelkoort's presentations are like visual cake, which was fitting as her presentation Thursday was entitled' Food: you are what you eat'. First up, we were invited to little party Li is hosting at the Convention Centre on Saturday night, on behalf of the City of Eindhoven - an initiative that will see Cape Town linked up 'like beads on a thread' with a certain number of secondary cities in the world who do a lot of effort in design.

Lifestyle trends of the year

Middle of the range products are: dead animals, brand owners and designers! You have been warned... go to the extreme frontiers of your domain!

Here are the top tends for 2005/6: