Design to feature in Liverpool Capital of Culture
D&AD and the Design Business Association are organising a design symposium in Liverpool this October, a late addition to the city’s European Capital of Culture celebrations, Design Week can reveal.
D&AD and the Design Business Association are organising a design symposium in Liverpool this October, a late addition to the city’s European Capital of Culture celebrations, Design Week can reveal.
The one-day conference will address business and creative issues affecting design. D&AD and the DBA are collaborating with Design Show Liverpool organiser Design Initiative and three local design consultancies to programme the symposium.
A symposium steering committee was set up in February, prompted by Design Week’s coverage highlighting the paucity of design events scheduled for Liverpool’s Capital of Culture year (DW 16 January).
‘We were grumbling in January, but are now driving plans for the symposium, and organising our own exhibitions for later in the year,’ says Smiling Wolf managing director Simon Rhodes, one of the three local consultancies involved.
The programme is likely to include a D&AD President’s Lecture, a DBA presentation and a networking event. DI is seeking public and private sponsorship, and aims to attract up to 250 delegates.
Meanwhile, DI has ditched plans to showcase commercial design at the inaugural Design Show Liverpool later in June. The exhibition will focus on furniture, homewares, fashion and jewellery design instead.
Rhodes dismissed concerns that weekend rail engineering works on the London/Liverpool line will dent visitor numbers to the design events.
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Love the idea of a symposium in October. Well. I would love it even more if I had the faintest idea of what it is all about!!!! Typical of how the 08 year is being handled for all creative in Liverpool. If you have someone in the know – then you know.
Having recently written an article about the exclusion of many of the Liverpool agencies from being involved in the whole 08 experience, I find it amazing that not only where three Liverpool agencies chosen for this event, but this is the first we have heard of it.