Vox pop

Looking back over the year, what piece of design or visual culture has most inspired you and why?

‘A talk Stefan Sagmeister did for British Design & Art Direction. You don’t see someone so passionate about design (and life) that often. I went to Cuba a month ago, and when you see the poster design – the way they work and how they manage to keep going on – you put everything into perspective and realise what you take for granted living in London.’

Jesús Vicente, Designer, Emap

‘Products that have had a brush with the design process seem to pervade our lives more and more, yet few stand out as truly inspiring. Now and then a product with values that users might genuinely want to engage with slips through the mediocrity. The interface of an Apple i-Pod for example – how many other technology companies could have resisted messing that one up?’

Mike Woods, senior designer, Tangerine Product

Direction and Design

‘Eindhoven Academy arrived in Milan two weeks before the furniture fair in April and built a show out of whatever they could scavenge from the public highways. Their spontaneous ingenuity was an unexpected delight in the annual festival of high-production. It was also a magnificent achievement of team-working under duress. The mirrored table bearing a hundred cocktail glasses fashioned from several varieties of plastic bottle, sawn off at the shoulder and upturned, was one of the loveliest things I’ve ever seen. The pièce de résistance was a foot-high nude sculpted of butter, cooling on the balcony. That was just the party room. They did also make a few chairs and a publication and the inevitable ‘process documentation room’. And I think someone had confected a trash rocking horse.’

Emily Campbell, Head of design, British Council

‘Everything and nothing.’

Ian Anderson, Creative director, Designers Republic

‘Watching TV chef Jamie Oliver perform to an audience in San Francisco gave me the opportunity to witness his creative abilities. It wasn’t that I was inspired by his cooking talents, nor the part hearing him sing, play drums and cook curry at the same time. This guy inspires by pursuing his dream, and being clearly creative and influential in his own unique way in doing it. Where your inspirations come from doesn’t matter. Finding the way to use it is a matter of course.’

Mark Hill, Design consultant, Mark Hill Design Group