13th – 17th June @ The Old Fire Station, Silver Street

Following the success of last year’s event, Bristol Design Festival 2008 is back - and this time, it means business…

We aren’t half lucky here in Bristol; we have the Harbour Festival, the Festival of Ideas, The Comic Expo and the Bristol Filmmakers Festival plus numerous arts and cultural initiatives across the region; so when some local designers decided to create an event to showcase the abundance of local design talent in the city last year, they certainly had their work cut out. Thankfully, the event was a roaring success: more than 1,200 visitors came to see the best of Bristol design over three days, including this year’s returning sponsors, Smarter Products, oodles of well known local creatives, as well as a number of inventors from BBC1’s Dragon’s Den.

Now Bristol Design Festival 2008 looks set to go stellar. Not only has it moved location to one of Bristol’s most famous buildings, The Old Fire Station on Silver Street, but it is attracting interest from the wider design community. “Bristol is a very creative city and yet nothing existed which celebrated design,” says event coordinator, Duncan Iraci, a final year student at UWE’s Creative Product Design degree at the Bristol Institute of Technology. “We wanted to promote the city as a creative hub and centre of excellence for design.”

(Photo: Heidi Gough)

“This year we want to collaborate with other new and existing creative events going on under the Bristol Design Festival umbrella. We are working in partnership with Bristol City Council to organise an Eco-Design Exhibition at the Create Centre from the 23rd of June and we are hoping to put even more designers in touch with potential employers, entrepreneurs and customers,” says Neil Ferguson, event director.

The focal point of last year’s festival was the Grafikea competition and it is back by popular demand. Budding designers can participate by modifying a £9.99 IKEA coffee table and competing for the £250 prize money with the best of the bunch being judged on the opening night. The public can get involved too by voting via text for their favourite designs and after the prize giving, the tables will go on sale. Local schools, colleges and universities are also taking part, with the festival playing host to the final exhibition show for UWE’s Creative Product Design students.

“Designers from all backgrounds are welcome,” stresses Duncan McKean, event supervisor and another UWE design student. “Even if you only tinker around in your shed or dabble at the weekends, you can exhibit. And it’s not only Bristolians; designers from all regions are being encouraged to exhibit.”

“Whatever your design background; product, furniture, lighting, graphic art, illustration, interiors fashion, packaging or textiles, you can exhibit,” adds Iraci, “the more the merrier!”

So now’s the time to dust off that half built squirrel feeder hidden in the shed, dig out the blue-prints for your top secret bed-making machine and get conceptual. You never know who might be watching…

If you fancy yourself as the next Terrence Conran and want to get involved, either as a exhibitor, sponsor or extra pair of hands, visit:
www.bristoldesignfestival.com

Verity Gough