So what did I learn from KL Design Week:

1. How people incorporate philosophy into their artworks.

I remember being Kyoorius last year and there was a Japanese designer called Kenya Hara who spoke about the word ‘Muji’, which means emptiness, and how he design around emptiness.

This year, Shun Kawakami spoke about about the word ‘Ma’, which means space, and how he design using spaces. I really like his minimalistic style. Yes, his english was not very good and he ended talking to the translator more than to the audience but honestly speaking, I was more in awe with the simplicity of stuff such as his presentation slides. Through the whole presentation, a looping background music was played. To know what played during his presentation, go to artless inc. and listen to the background music for the site.

I went for the forum  where we have different designers all over the world and it was interesting to know what influence them. Childhood, environment, politics, religion and so much more.

2. Kuntzel+Deygas

I really like the illustration of their dogs. So cute. The dogs are called Caperino and Pepperone, and they explained how they came up with the dogs (and once again, I’m reminded that design is a process). I like how they did a valentine version of the dogs, which actually show that Cap and Pep are male dogs.

You can read their interview here. They mentioned a little bit about KL Design Week.

3. Chris Bosse

Too bad that I’m not an architecture student, but he give great hints to how he did his tasmanian tiger in 3d and from there, he modelled it out. He had a few students on stage to fix up a tasmanian tiger. That was not easy to fix because after everything is over, my colleague asked Chris whether we could do one for ourselves and bring it back to office. He said it was alright and three of us (my senior art director, art director and I) started fixing it.

The following day, my senior art director brought the tiger to the office and he placed it at my art director’s table. I don’t know what my art director was thinking, but he decided to put a pink ribbon to it.

So now the tiger is officially a female.

4. Stefan Sagmeister and happiness

He told us about making a list. He told us about design happiness.

Here are a few of his list:

• Complaining is silly. Either act or forget.
• Keeping a diary supports my personal development.
• Material luxuries are best enjoyed in small doses.
• Helping other people helps me.

To know more about his list, you can find it in his book:

This book basically display all the things he had learned, and he played a lot with typography with the things around him. One thing I like about this book is that you can change the covers. Click for a preview of his book.

In my earlier posts I was talking about happiness. That day, he spoke about happiness. I have to say that a few things on his list matches mine, but I define happiness in a different way, and it was good to see how people define the things in their life through everyday objects.