Zlin Design Week 2023
24. April 2023Best in Design Exhibition, Fashion Show and Conference about Design that also Helps in Space. Zlin Design Week 2023 Inspires with “Design for All”
The Zlin Design Week festival will once again bring fresh air to the design field from 3 to 10 May. The inspiring programme of the ninth year of the festival will introduce visitors to universal design principles at various locations in Zlín. The idea of “Design for All,” which runs through the whole festival week, will be presented in more detail in the exhibition of the same name with examples of specific solutions and their impact on everyday life. The Conference will bring fresh perspectives in the design field, with a speech by industrial designer and Norway’s only astronaut candidate Nima Shahinian. The festival supports young talents in the international competition and related exhibition “Best in Design” for designers under 30. In addition, the work of the finalists and winners across the past years of the competition is presented in a Fashion show. Visitors to Zlin Design Week can look forward to exhibitions and outdoor installations, workshops, a design market, parties, and a cultural programme for creators, the public, and schools to choose from. For all interested, the festival provides a space for meeting and learning about how design influences our lives.
What does universal design mean? The Design for All exhibition will offer an overview of how universal design involves our lives, with several examples of specific solutions. “Our intention was to see the exhibition as a place where a clothing designer, a furniture company owner, an urban architect, and a local cultural enthusiast can meet, and the projects on display can pass on something to each of them – a reflection on the value of design in our lives, on what a universal and inclusive approach brings to us, a spark for debate about the possible barriers we all commonly encounter. We are very pleased that the curators Thea Urdal and Herman Greng Billett from Norway and the duo of Slovak architects Tomáš Tholt and Danica Pišteková have been involved in the preparation,” says festival director Jitka Smolíková. The exhibition runs until 24 May in building 61 of the former Bata industrial complex.
Conference “Design and Marketing for All”
The ZDW Conference, which will take place on 9 May at the Impact Hub in Zlín, will bring know-how and fresh perspectives in the field of design, as well as in other sectors, in a hybrid form, i.e., on-site and online. The title “Design and Marketing for All” suggests that the lectures, panel discussions, and workshops will also venture into the areas of products, services, and marketing. As guests and speakers, Zlin Design Week invites those who can share inspiring insights, case studies, and experiences based on projects they are working on themselves. The universe of universal design is explored by one of the ZDW Conference’s main speakers – an industrial designer and Norway’s only astronaut candidate Nima Shahinian. Universal design is crucial for longer journeys into space, while at the same time, technologies developed for the space environment also influence those used in everyday life. Shahinian is preparing to test space stations for people with various mobility limitations. Speakers from Norway have strong representation at this year’s ZDW Conference. Herman Freng Billet, who has been responsible for projects ranging from mobile devices to stadiums, and designer Thea Urdal, who creates spaces for interaction, can draw on their multidisciplinary design practice. Both are also curating parts of the exhibition. Anthony Giannoumis is one of the world’s leaders in connecting the worlds of business and inclusive innovation. Inclusion in design is also of interest to Anne Aagaard, who is looking for new impulses for design in the public sector and has experience in creating and implementing an inclusive visual style for the city of Oslo and is now working at the Deichman Library. She shares her experience in providing open library services with Tomáš Štefek, a lecturer and methodologist in this field and director of the Bratislava City Library. Another guest, Raquel Marcos, a Spanish multidisciplinary artist and member of the feminist architect group Equal Saree, designs public spaces to work for different groups. Industrial designer Ana Correia de Barros, from Portugal, is an inclusive and human-centered design expert. Her compatriot Joana Couto Da Silva focuses her design research work on healthcare.
Tereza Fasurová, a Senior Participation Specialist at the Prague Institute of Planning and Development (IPR Prague), who focuses on public and stakeholder involvement in urban planning, and Dominika Potužáková, a researcher and designer, will bring a Czech perspective to the conference. She leads the research in the project Legible Prague, which was awarded the Czech Grand Design award in the Graphic Design category. The ZDW Conference program, both online and offline, is delivered in English but with simultaneous translation into Czech.
Specialized workshops at the Conference
Workshops are prepared for Conference visitors only, which will broaden the topics of the lectures in depth. Dr. Anthony Giannoumis will present how to incorporate the topic of inclusion (DEI – Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) into business processes. Radek Pavlíček, a leading Czech expert on accessibility, will advise on how to be accessible when publishing information on social networks and how to promote your activities in a more accessible way. Ana Correia de Barros and Joana Couto da Silva will focus on inclusive design in healthcare.
Best in Design Competition for Young Designers
Zlin Design Week supports new talents who want to discover and develop new paths for design. Attention is drawn to inspiring disruptions of the status quo by the international “Best in Design” competition for creatives under 30. The finalists of the fourteenth edition of the competition will be featured from 3 to 31 May at the G18 Gallery and in the public space of Zlín. The exhibition will provide a space for connecting clothing, visual communication, and industrial solutions, products, and services. The work of the finalists and winners across the past years of the “Best in Design” competition is then presented in a Fashion show set in the unusual space of the Tomas Bata Memorial in Zlín. The concept extending into performance will connect the fashion show with this commemoration place. The Fashion show with respect to the Tomas Bata Memorial will take place on 10 May, preceded by a programme of discussions and workshops related to the universal design and inclusive fashion festival theme.
New website which help teams to get started with Universal Design
The topic of universal design is addressed by the closely linked project and website www.designprovsechny.cz/en It educates designers and marketers, the general public, and public municipalities looking for a way to get started. The website provides inspiration through case studies, articles showing forms of universal design from small to large-scale implementations, from digital and web accessibility to service design, recommended methods, and a list of experts to collaborate with.
Accompanying programme
The ZDW festival creates a platform for young designers, professionals, and the public to meet. The festival week will be special by installations in public spaces throughout Zlín, prepared in cooperation with festival partners and other designers. Visitors can broaden their horizons during discussions on the podcast platform “Design CANTEEN” or during guided tours. Various workshops give design fans the space to involve their own creativity, while at the one-day design market, they can buy something from the offer of selected Czech and Slovak brands in a Pop-up Shop. At the same time, other exhibitions are taking place in Zlín and its surroundings, such as Inspiration: Le Corbusier at Zlín Castle, which will present the ideas of the great 20th-century architect and the work of Czech and foreign designers who are inspired by modernism and brutalism of the last century. There will be an accompanying cultural programme with various musical genres, dance performances, and projections. The parties of Zlin Design Week are an opportunity to celebrate design.
About Projects:
Zlin Design Week
Zlin Design Week is a week-long design festival where everyone can find inspiration. Through the festival, we are creating for the ninth time a platform for presentation, expression, sharing, unexpected connections, and meeting young designers with professionals. We support young talents and bring fresh air to the design field. The project was created in 2015 at the Faculty of Multimedia Communications at Tomas Bata University in Zlín thanks to the interdisciplinary collaboration of design, marketing, photography, and audiovisual.
Design for All
Design for All explores the concept of universal design, i.e., accessibility and the possibilities of designing products and services for the widest possible audience, including those with some kind of disability (e.g., physical or mental, temporary or permanent, or cultural). The ambition of the Conference, the exhibition, and the website is to spread awareness of this topic and how to apply it to your projects. Whether it is spatial, digital, or service accessibility.
The Design for All project is closely connected in terms of programme and organization with the week-long design festival Zlin Design Week, organized by the Faculty of Multimedia Communications of Tomas Bata University in Zlín. The conference, exhibition, and information website are part of the project Universal Design – mapping the potential and involvement of the new generation in the creative industries supported by the EEA Grants.