Creative Alchemy
Find your inspiration in 2006
Claudie,
Welcome to the September Creative Alchemy Newsletter.
Please get in touch if you have any thoughts or
responses to the subjects I write about, or about our
events. I'd love to hear what's been useful or
interesting, or downright annoying...
Please feel free to forward this newsletter to your
network.
Sustainable design, is recycling the way forward?
I’ve spent the last week wandering around the various
events and exhibitions which make up the fantastic
London Design Festival (www.londondesignfestival.com).
If you live in or near London I’d recommend you check
some of this stuff out (before the 30th September).
Highlights for me were the various exhibitions around
Brick Lane, especially the Bombay Sapphire Glass Prize
(amazingly beautiful innovative design), and the talks
organised by Own-It (www.own-it.org) around Intellectual
property and patent issues for creative businesses and
the business of recycling design.
Being in that environment, surrounded by so much
innovation, it was easy to get excited about the
enormous potential of recycling materials both from a
design perspective but also in terms of the
environmental impact such projects appear to have.
Hearing from designers who have created partnerships
with organisations such as London Underground in order
to turn their old seat covers into high fashion
accessories (www.creativelyrecycledempire.co.uk) amongst
others (searching online I found these too, which are
also pretty cool, (www.springwise.com/eco_sustainability/
ecochic_entrepreneurs) it seems obvious at first that
this is the way forward in sustainable design. Creating
new from old is the perfect answer to a society adrift
in a sea of excess stuff, especially when we demand a
seemingly endless stream of newer, smaller, faster more
beautiful solutions to the same old problems.
However a representative from the Design Council (www.design-council.org.uk)
put a provocative spanner in the works when she asserted
the opinion that recycling in this way simply isn’t good
enough, and that the design community needs to consider
its responsibility to not simply adding to the world’s
over-production of more and more new (often indisposable)
products. The example raised was how even though MP3
players will, within the next five years obliterate the
market for plastic CD’s (surely a good environmental
consequence), many have un-removable batteries which
after 2-3 years will end up in landfill sites, poisoning
the earth.
Is this the design equivalent of the Catch 22, or is
there another way forward? How can designers raise the
bar on creating true sustainability rather than simply
being content with giving something a longer shelf life
or a different incarnation?
Answers on a postcard to this address.
Creative Alchemy Networking 3rd October
Detroit, 35 Earlham Street, Covent Garden, WC2H 9LA
Creative Alchemy brings together creative businesses and
freelancers from across the different creative sectors
for networking, discussion and socialising in a chilled
out smiley environment designed to encourage
collaboration and inspiration. Join us for a drink and
see what develops!
Register here to attend this event:
Coaching for Creative Businesses
|
Employee Engagement is the new hot topic in
how to retain top quality staff, whilst
maintaining peak performance, creativity and
motivation. Providing coaching to your staff
as an employee benefit will enable your
business to perform at the highest level,
increasing focus, performance and
creativity, whilst providing support and
stress management for your most valuable
resource - talented people. Get in touch to
find out how coaching could work for your
business, or forward this link to your HR
department.
Learn More |
