I have just finished the task of judging the 2013 SURTEX International Student Design Competition, designtex®.
There were 50 entries for 15 schools from around the world.
The students were judged for surface design development, creativity and style, viability in the commercial market and overall presentation.
The final four will be notified in early April.
Something I have been acutely aware of for decades is the sad reality that subtle, delicate work is rarely chosen for recognition, as it is so hard to photograph. Computers haven't made the situation any better.
So extraverted, contrasty, dramatic work tends to dominate. Not surprising, but this does a great disservice to those excellent artists/designers who have a light and often poetic visual touch.
Looking at this current design work from many countries (not knowing who is from where), I was surprised by how the "flat" world has homogenized the language of design.
I suppose that is to be expected with world-wide markets.
Still, I would have liked to see more entries offering a unique, less safe vision of what the surfaces that surround and envelope us might look like.
If students are reined in to reflect a conservative business-like attitude, their potential contribution is stifled.
I missed a merging of skill and untamed creativity.
May the untamed creative impulse prevail!
Love the image you chose to illustrate your point. And....
ReplyDeleteOne thing a good old British Cathedral can do for me is - inspire. I only need to walk inside and feel the space and think of the master craftsmen who made the building in those days gone by and I am 'blown away'. Imagine being the one to put in the very first keystone and find that it all held together.
My feelings hold true for other massive architectural works.... the modern day Sultan Qaboos mosque in Oman is a beautiful example of stretching the limits of state of the art engineering tools. And so it goes on from the Hagia Sophia to the Sultan Qaboos Mosque... Heaven knows what your average man on the street thought of the first dome sitting on a cube... Perhaps..."surely there is a higher power holding it all together."
Where would the world be without inspired artists and craftsmen/women?