Design Sojourn | Strategic Industrial Design Blog

I must say London surprised me. In more ways than one and sad to say often unpleasant. Londoners have told me London is a city of surprises, you are never sure if things will happen the way that you expect it.

I wonder if it was Karma, but from the moment I boarded the plane weird things happen. The serving trolley smashed my B&O headphone jack and broke it, the hotel bus was fully booked and I had to lug my luggage in the Tube train up and down the stairs, and I got hotel room for smokers.

My other experiences, included trains randomly running late, design events not open at the right time indicated, shops not located as indicated in the map, and the best one, not letting me into a shop because is now not open to the public as it has changed management!

Oh well, at least I was in London!

I was fortunate to be invited by the British High Commission to meet and visit local designers and design consultants. That meant I got to be part of the “Design Embassy”. This I must say was a fantastic idea, its a place where international delegates met locals to conduct business.

Overall, I really enjoyed the festival. The quality of the work presented was pretty high, however as a lot of work was already presented at the Milan Furniture Fair, you do get some repeats. This means that you really need to only focus in the 3 big events, London Designers Block, 100% Design and 100% East.

I visited some of the fringe events, but went away unfulfilled and and uninspired as they were generally scattered and often subjected to the “surprises” mentioned above.

One last note, I found a reallysurprising thing (here it is again), the exhibitors that often showcased the best work were actually from Japan! I’m suitably inspired for Firmwareproject now!

Any ways do check out all the photos I took here:

Enjoy!