credits: CR

Article by Rick Poynor on the Creative Review blog on how we should be getting more substance and less spiel from the current pandemic of design conferences.

For anyone who loves going to design conferences, we live in remarkable times (writes RICK POYNOR). There are dozens, if not hundreds, of them. A design conference always seems to be just starting or finishing somewhere in the world. It would be quite possible to make going to conferences into a full-time job and some of the more in-demand and tireless design conference speakers appear to be doing just that. When do they get their real work done, you might wonder? The answer is that they do a lot of their thinking in transit, at 30,000 feet, or in the away-from-it-all, vacation atmosphere of distant hotel rooms paid for by conference organisers who are thrilled they are willing to appear.

Too many “major” conferences do nothing more ambitious than offer a line-up of star speakers who are simply expected to say whatever they like about their own work. They give their standard spiel and, if you are lucky, it will be amusing, revealing in an anecdotal way and perhaps even inspiring. “Most recently, I went to Kyoorius Design Yatra in Goa,” says Michael Johnson. “That was quite something, with a great list of speakers.” Most were British or American and they included Kyle Cooper, Neville Brody, Wally Olins and – no conference is complete without him – Sagmeister. “Trouble is everyone did their ‘stump’ speech and it didn’t really feel unique to India.”

Design Conference: Isn’t it time we demanded more?