Listen up and get excited – A Design Film Festival 2013 has returned to our shores after a yearlong hiatus!
The Festival was conceived in 2010 by Anonymous, a local multidisciplinary studio that integrates creative direction, content and design. It has travelled around the world (Portland, Berlin, Taipei, Kaohsiung and Bangkok) in the past few years to critical acclaim, being featured in various publications such as Monocle, The Wall Street Journal and The Business Times, to name but a few.
This year, 12 films, specially selected from an international submission of 60 design-themed films, will be screened over the weekend of 15-16 June at the Drama Theatre, School Of The Arts. The films, though thematically centered on design, are diverse in the treatment of their respective subject matters. Catch The Human Scale and be fascinated by urban planning and its impact on humans, or witness popular geek culture in full play in Comic-Con Episode IV. As long as you have an interest in the creativity of the everyday, there is a film for you at A Design Film Festival.
Ticket sales are a testimony to the success of the Festival. They have witnessed an upward trend: 1800 tickets were sold in 2010, 2500 the following year, and sales are anticipated to reach 4500 tickets in this year’s installment.
I am personally thrilled to be catching Design Is One, a documentary on Massimo and Lella Vignelli, the husband-and-wife power duo who have transformed the world of design in the past 3 decades. The Italian-born architect-designers have a mantra that guides their livelihood, “If you can’t find it, design it.” Their work has permeated our everyday, having created corporate identities for American Airlines, Bloomingdale’s, Ford and Knoll, Fodor’s travel guides and a version of the New York subway map.
Deyan Sudjic, director of the Design Museum London says of the stunning success the duo has reaped, “The most remarkable thing is their consistency. There’s no sense of the passage of time. Their work is not trapped in a style.”
So take your pick of the offerings available at A Design Film Festival, and come on down! I’ll be seeing you there.
