Highs and lows?

Thank you for coming to Intersections and for all the great questions. Please let us know your general thoughts on the conference here, or you can post against particular sessions, which are listed in the Feedback category.

And if you write about a session in your own blog please 'ping' the TrackBack URL for the session post, so your post will also appear there for others to discover. For more general thoughts you can ping this post.

Comments

[Andrea Siodmok]

Great to be in Newcastle for the Intersections conference, the quayside formed a superb backdrop for the event. I thought the speakers and attendees were high octane and particularly enjoyed Richard Seymour's views on the implications of Renaissance 3. It was also good to see so many familiar faces and have such engaging debates and conversations both at the event and afterwards. Well done Kev, I look forward to hearing other people's thoughts.

[Lauren Tan]

The breadth of subjects covered in the keynotes and the calibre of speakers was nothing short of impressive and provocative. Great work, Kevin on pulling it together!

I am looking forward to the various conference captures that this blog, the Design Council and Northumbria University will be producing shortly. Also to other feedback from delegates here.

Wonderful to meet everyone too!

[Guy Julier]

For me, the conference was a bit like turning the dial on a radio between Classic FM and BBC Radio Three. One extreme was entertaining but uniformly bland, the other was often enriching and inquisitive.

Some speakers – notably the less well-known ones – provided deep discussion of the meanings of what they were doing. They had clearly thought through the issues and processes in which they are engaged to give insightful, critical analysis. They communicated a sense of the social, economic or environmental purposes of what they were doing and how design worked within these.

There were also a lot of sound-byte design utterances, however, where observations didn’t really add up to a coherent, rounded position. It is difficult to debate design when it is presented either through bluster or inspid ‘reflections’.

Of course, most designers are employed to design not to be top-rate lecturers. Some do it well, others less effectively. So for me, the one intersection that the conference lacked was a productive meeting of the academic and the practitioner worlds. This is despite the fact that its audience appeared to be split this way 50:50.

There are plenty of really interesting academics doing research that deals with design and global change who can provide provocative, reasoned analyses. Some, such as Nina Wakeford, Lucy Kimbell or Elizabeth Shove, draw from a range of humanities and social science disciplines into thinking about design processes. Others, such as Celia Lury, David Bell, Allen Scott and Angela McRobbie help us understand the role of design in global flows of information, regeneration, geo-politics or political economy.

It’s really important that events like Intersections happen. Congratulations Kevin and crew! Let’s keep debating, discussing and… designing.

[Kevin McCullagh]

Thanks for your thoughtful comments Guy. A quick reply on the issue of why there weren't more academics on the platform. The brief I was given was to curate a ‘Design Practice’ conference, which would focus on insights into how it is changing. So right from the get-go a decision had been made to focus on pathfinding practitioners and leave more theoretical/academic discussions to other conferences.

[Guy Julier]

Point taken, Kevin. It was productive to hear from designers about what they're doing, and to meet more of them. Being stuck away in academia means that you don't often get such opportunities to chat with people at the coal face.

[Satish]

Interesting conference with conflicting viewpoints at least proving that it was a debate to move issues forward and not sit still in agreement.

I'd be interesting in a blog update as to when and where the podcasts will be available as it'd be great to review some of the talks. If the speakers would mind uploading their presentations that would also be great although I can understand if they won't want to do that.

[Justine Gaubert]

In response to previous post, *clears throat*

I love soundbites.
I love reflections.
I'm bored with academics.
I loved intersections.

Thanks for a fantastic two days. It was so refreshing to hear practitioners talk about ideas and inspirations rather than blah blah strategy, blah blah effectiveness, blah blah academia, blah blah web 2.00 ('same as before but twice as bad' Andy Altman), .

As a design practitioner and, erm, thinker, I loved it, and have come away with a head full of ideas and new ways of working.

As an organisation who specializes in user centred design, the highlight for me had to be Richard Seymour's comment on collaboration/consultation:

"Look at, and understand, emerging behaviours, but stop asking people in croydon what they want.. they don't know what they want and they'll lie for a kitkat and a fiver."

Thanks for a fast-paced, thoughtfully selected group of speakers and a well organised conference.

Couldn't fault it. (Apart from having to smoke in a car park!)

Thanks and very best wishes

Justine Gaubert
theWorkshop
Copywriter/Spoken Word organiser, FRSA

[dori]

A very inspiring conference about design, designers and how the guys manage to look after each other. I have great difficulty to believe that so few ladies could be found to give presentations.
I was attracted to the conferece because of the Dott07 exhibition and to meet all the 'normal' people (meaning: not designers) that have been doing a great job in the Dott program.
But the presentations were entertaining and that is great.

[Mark Bailey - Northumbria School of Design]

Great work Kev (and team); a terrific bunch of speakers and good territory covered. My only concern, or comment, would be that I wonder what the rest of d world has been up to if they found much of this content really new. It all sounded like what I, simplisticly perhaps, call 'good design'; thinking about and empathisisng with the people and society who will experience the designed thing, understanding it's relevance and value to individuals and business through creating a narrative (story) and then promoting it with craft, enthusiasm and passion!

The good thing about such an event is that it is afirming to hear good practice re-stated and illustrated in differnet and compelling ways!

Personally, I'd appreciate a little more informed, polar debate and a little less 'previous-speaker' poking! But hey, I'm already looking forward to the next intersection!

[Rish]

Highs: Undoubtedly Peter Higgins, who I think not only captured the imagination of all in the hall, but really underscored the InterSections theme for me - how learning, inspiration and creativity from different practices and fields can lead to fabulous work in others. Richard Seymour too. was provocative in a compelling way, and his reminder that humanism has to underpin all our actions should be taken heed of. And James Woudhuysen's corrective was, as ever, stimulating.

Lows: For me, the over-arching sense that, as a practice, design and designers are still to a degree on the back-foot when it comes to making the case for greater involvement in all aspects of business. And for me that will come with a greater involvement with - not running away from - advertising, marketing and communications. Having jumped the fence into the latter, I was struck by the absence of someone from these fields, to offer these persepctives. Design will not win the role it seeks (at least as I understood it from the discussion round the conference) - representing and understanding people's needs and desires to business and the wider world - until it understands the fact that moving upstream into strategy also means engaging with these 'feared' disciplines too.

More practically, I personally could have done with somewhere to plug my laptop in. And someway of capturing some of the really intriguing lunch and coffee-brak discussions would have been fab too.

[Alan Mumby]

an excellent conference, you obviously spent time considering your speakers - they, on the whole were very good. it would be good to bring an event like this down to Cardiff one day.