Glasgow reveals plans for September festival

Glasgow this week unveiled its plans for September’s International Festival of Design. The festival is the city’s warm-up event towards it being the City of Architecture and Design in 1999.

Key to the 1996 festival is “opening up the world of design as never before”, says a spokeswoman. Speaking at the festival’s launch on Monday, Glasgow City Council leader Councillor Pat Lally said the programme is “unashamedly populist in approach, going far beyond the usual professional circles”.

The festival, said Lally, “will put Glasgow at the heart of the debate about the role and value of design in our society and economy”.

The festival will have three main sections – exhibitions, education and business. The exhibitions have at their heart the Design Show, a series of events planned for two pavilions to be erected in George Square, which will be the main public focus of the festival.

The education section includes designers going into schools, a series of TV programmes for schools, and a magazine called Design Times. The festival’s business programme centres on masterclasses where designers will discuss their work and the link between design and commercial success with Glasgow’s business community.

The programme also includes a new awards scheme, the Ecological Packaging Awards, for environmentally friendly Scottish packaging designs. The awards presentation kicks off the festival on 30 August.

The following day, a conference featuring the heads of five European design centres, including Anna Stenroos of Design Forum Finland, will take place at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall.

The 1996 festival’s logo (above) has been developed by Blue Peach from the initial identity by Graven Images. The festival is also tied in with this year’s Glasgow Festival of Visual Arts, for which Locofoco has designed a programme.