I had the pleasure of meeting very briefly Boris Anthony at Xtech in Paris. He’s an interaction designer working and living in Montreal and these days is organising the local edition of Pecha Kucha. I think he feels, like me that there must be more to design that what we are made to believe or… Continue reading Kindred spirits: Pecha Kucha in Montreal.
Category: Thoughts
Valérie Sangin: photography and Montreal (Day 2 of looking)
I had dinner last night with a good friend of mine, Valérie Sangin, a photographer who specialises in creative portraits and of course we had to catch up and I got her to share some of her experience, working in Montreal. Things weren’t that peachy. Talented to bits, and very creative, she has been freelancing… Continue reading Valérie Sangin: photography and Montreal (Day 2 of looking)
Media and government in design (Day 1 of looking)
As I walked back from breakfast at Café Eldorado, (I could have sworn there was another nice breakfast place on Mont-Royal), I walked past Le Point-Vert on St-Laurent and figured I would start my search for everything design in Montreal by buying Design Lines a so called “Ultimate guide to design in the city”. It… Continue reading Media and government in design (Day 1 of looking)
Sleep less indeed
Went to see Design products show from the RCA (headed by Ron Arad) and I have to say I think the general trend in product design master’s is to make designers become more and more conceptual to the point of hovering in a grey area between art and design. In any case, I wasn’t moved… Continue reading Sleep less indeed
In transit
I’m in a non-descript hotel in Amsterdam, a place I called my home for 8 months. Now I stay in hotels here. There’s something terribly disturbing about traveling to 4 different cities in the same week especially when you’ve lived significant amounts of time in some and no time at all in others. You brush… Continue reading In transit
Quote of the day
“If you really want your life to pass by in front of you like a movie, just travel, you can forget your life” – Andy Warhol
Thishappened.org: a cultural report
Most “normal” people, when they relocate, take a comfortable flight, try to minimize their stress levels and enjoy unpacking with a glass of white wine and a nice meal. Not this girl. I woke up last wednesday at 6 in the morning to take a cab with my flatmate D’arcy to Schipol to drop my… Continue reading Thishappened.org: a cultural report
About design schools and worldly expectations
I thought that this related beautifully to the opposite rants found recently online about what design schools are teaching nowadays (I’m mainly talking about Adaptive Path’s call for designers who can actually make things, and Peter Hall’s claim that there should be more holistic and systemic thinking in education). Via the always great Pintday.
Soundbites at Cybersalvations
Live-blogging has lost it’s sheen for me lately. Especially when you know that whatever it is that you just saw is going to be filmed and available within 24 hours, then the written reports, the work of a typist almost, doesn’t seem that appealing. It’s like going to the theater to go to a conference… Continue reading Soundbites at Cybersalvations
Quote of the day
“To compete in this new design arena the industry is going to have to change. To start with, it would benefit from throwing off the aesthetic myth that design is about sprinkling magic dust on ugly products” – From an article by Menzies Lowe in NewDesign magazine, issue48.