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Ciao Milano

Cardiff Design Festival has been in Milan!.. Olwen represented Wales ( and the UK!) at a meeting of International Design Festival organisers in the Design Library Cafe in the Zona Tortona. Colleagues from Istanbul, Vienna, Berlin, Dutch design week (Eindhoven), Amsterdam & Utrecht & Seoul were there, and the event hosted by 'Design Partners' who run the Zona Tortona in Milan.

This follows the initial meeting in Istanbul last September, the purpose is to support each other and forge meaningful links with each other.

It seems that many festivals will take place in October 2008, and a global press release was suggested highlighting initiatives linking two or more festivals, such as a presence at each other's festivals, a workshop etc. So far we have Design Austria proposing an exhibition with us and interest from Eindhoven.

More immediately we have an opportunity to send our 2007 exhibition to Poland at the end of May - Poznan anyone? ( seriously - a few extra pairs of hands wouldn't go amiss!)

As for the trip - Milan was as wet as home over the weekend. But that didn't stop me walking the length and breadth of the centre to get a feel of the place. There was an interesting mix of very formal and spontaneous displays in the Zona Tortona, from a fully working metal fabrication workshop, some interesting electronic interactive product projects from Taiwan to some very sleek and stylish furniture as you'd expect. The Dutch are masters at taking over a disused space setting up a bit of scaffolding and a sushi conveyor belt and showing off their stuff - casual and witty!

Considering the theme this year was meant to be about green issues and environmentalism there were huge amounts of discarded printed material - shame.

I had supper with Festival friends Lynne and PJ  from Momentum, Cardiff and their staff, who were on their annual trip to the big furniture fair. It was lovely to relax with friends in an unfamiliar city.

Milan can rightly claim to be the world's design capital. The Milanese take it very seriously. Shopping and window shopping is a national pastime. The concept stores such as Tad are more like galleries. Even Macdonalds in the Duomo shopping arcade looks upmarket to compete with Gucci, Prada etc. - but I didn't buy anything! Honest!

photos to follow when I work out how to upload them!

latest developments

We had an exciting week last week; The Capitol Center have joined us as sponsors, and are organising a charity fashion show with Cancer Research and Catwalk Wales as part of the Festival. We'll also be inhabiting a Unit in the Centre, which is great news.

Plans for the Design Circle's Architecture Exhibition are progressing nicely, but we need to get the universities moving on the graduate show - all those academics on holiday - I dunno!

We've finalised arrangements for a Sponsors' & Partners' evening on the 20th May at The Point and secured an exciting speaker - Peers de Trense. Invites will be sent out shortly.

There are lots of meetings comming up - notably with Borders about a 'design trail' and an international Design Festival one in Milan at the end of the week - we'll be waving a Welsh dragon!

Olwen

Cardiff to host prestigious European Management Award

Organised by the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff UWIC the 2008 DME Award is a truly European award with a network of partners across all 30 European member and candidate states. Categories for the award cover a wide spectrum of businesses and organisations; from micro companies to multi-nationals, service and manufacturing sectors, public agencies and non profit organisations.

Last year's Design Festival proved to be more exciting, more ambitious and wider reaching than ever before!

The 3rd year of this annual event had a programme that inspired, informed and provoked as well as celebrating the creative design talent in Wales. We're now in the process of planning next year's festival which will be later in the year - October 2008. Watch this space!