See New Worlds
The Six Cities Design Festival in Dundee focused on visual storytelling, and how this unique strength developed the city.
Through a cutting-edge combination of comics, video gaming and biotechnology, Dundee has contributed in many ways to the art and science of creating new worlds. The Festival extended an invitation to explore, support and become a part of these ever-evolving realms.
Festival Highlights in Dundee
During the Festival Dundee Contemporary Arts was host to the critically acclaimed exhibition, Peacocks Among the Ruins. The show explored the use of the natural world within interior design, providing a mixture of historical and contemporary pieces. Colourful and opinionated, Peacocks Among the Ruins was co-curated by the celebrated Glasgow design duo Timorous Beasties, and DCA. It was accompanied by a successful series of exhibition-themed workshops that were enjoyed by people of all ages.
Visual storytelling was the topic of many Festival happenings in Dundee, thanks to the city's rich history in comic book publishing. The comics of Dundee-based publishing house DC Thomson have long commanded worldwide audiences, making their publishing of a specially commissioned Festival comic, See New Worlds, truly special. The Biff! Bam!! Crikey!!! comic conference explored the history and contemporary significance of comic design, and an attempt to break the world record for the longest comic strip got the community creating together.
At Caird Hall, a Designer Double Bill featuring Martin Lambie-Nairn, of London based digital media firm Lambie Nairn - responsible for rebranding the BBC, and Hector Pottie of Glasgow design firm Marque Creative, brought their experiences of working in the competitive design arena to Dundee. Watch it here.
The Design into Business programme delivered a series of events at building awareness of the value of design to business. The highlight was a national conference Business Insights: Profiting by Design in Dundee. An inspiring day for for businesses of all sizes, it offered an exclusive how-to from leading business gurus with their experiences of boosting profits and adding value through investment in good design.
