beirut design week 2012 report

BEIRUT DESIGN WEEK REPORT | 1

REPORT2012 BEIRUT DESIGN WEEK

2 | BEIRUT DESIGN WEEK REPORT

MESSAGE FROM ORGANIZERSQUOTES INFOGRAPHICS

LAUNCH EVENT/ DESMEEMCONFERENCEPARTICIPATING DESIGNERS’ EVENTSOPEN STUDIOSWORKSHOPSTALKSSTREET INTERVENTIONSFILM SCREENINGS

SCREEN & PRINTOUTDOORSCOLLATERALS BY PARTICIPANTSTELEVISIONPRESS ADS & ARTICLESSPONSORS

4810

1418223032384041

444648505158


CONT

ENTS


BEIRUT DESIGN WEEK IS ORGANIZED BY MENA DESIGN RESEARCH CENTER

We at the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) Design Research Center believe that design-ers are far more capable of improving the world than their often undermined occupations as mere makers of beautiful things.

We have come to realize that the creative process involved in problem solving -whether in communications, products, environments or services- could be applied to a varied scale of disciplines and fields. The MENA Design Research Center is aimed at promoting this diverse understanding of design thinking through the implementation of design research and col-laborative multidisciplinary projects in the region. The MENA Design Research Center is a non-profit organization incubated by TAGbrands, a regional design and branding consultancy.

MENA DESIGN RESEARCH CENTER


THE FOUNDERS OF MENA DESIGN RESEARCH CENTER

Doreen Toutikian Director, MENA Design Research Center Since 2006, Doreen Toutikian has been dedicated to Design Research and education in the Middle East. During her postgraduate studies in Germany and the UK within the Master of European Design, Doreen became more familiar with the notion of being an interdisciplinary designer. She developed her understanding of design thinking based on creative methodologies for problem solving. She attended the Glasgow School of Art, where she studied product, service, system and social design. She worked on projects with Skills Development Scotland and Careers Scotland to provide better career choices for the Scottish youth.

In the Koeln International School of Design, she wrote her Master thesis book ‘Design Education in the Middle East’, which was awarded in the 2010 Cologne Design Prize.

Doreen believes that the key to successful design is collaboration. This belief has inspired her to initiate various projects with designers in order to encourage multi-disciplinary teamwork for social innovation. Such projects include ‘Public Design Intervention: Beirut’ and DESMEEM. In 2010, she moved back to Beirut and co-founded the MENA Design Research Center, as planned in the proposal of her master thesis book.

menadesignresearch.com

Maya Karanouh CEO, TAGbrandsIn the past decade Maya Karanouh has been an active entrepreneur, founding several companies and being a leading member of the regional creative sector. Maya is cur-rently the CEO at TAGbrands. As an award winning branding strategy firm that aligns brand image with the strategic objectives of the company, TAGbrands work impacts several aspects of the business including the retail environment, the relationship with customers and the organizational structure. TAGbrands is proud to have amongst its regional client base: Bank Audi, Doha Bank, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, Ghandour, Bonjus, Patchi, L’Oreal and Taanayel.

Through the company, Maya has been honoured to receive the following awards: the 2006 British Council’s Young Design Entrepreneur of the Year for Lebanon, 35 under 35 Global Women Entrepreneurs award in 2007 and Rising Talent” by the Women’s Forum in France in 2008.

As Maya is a strong believer in design and innovation she decided to co-found and incubate the MENA Design Research Center in 2010, a non-profit organization dedi-cated to design research and social change in the Middle East and North Africa as the CSR branch of TAGbrands.

tagbrands.com


Dear Friends,

We, the MENA Design Research Center founders and Beirut Design Week organizers, would like to take this opportunity to thank everybody who contributed in making the first Beirut Design Week a great success. We are pleased to note that we made head-lines in local regional and international press. Over 3500 attendees took part actively in launch events, workshops, talks, conferences, film screenings, and open studios whilst activating Beirut’s design community in one collaborative effort on multiple fronts. From established to young and upcoming designers, the participants showcased Beirut’s current design culture.

In this documentation of Beirut Design Week 2012, we have gathered a collection of images and text that summarize the major events that took place during the week. We have also included most of the online and printed press that were released regarding major events.

Amidst political turmoil and instability, we believe that Beirut Design Week is very im-portant for the country’s creative economy and brand image. We are dedicated to the progressive development of Beirut Design Week in the coming years and aspire to pro-mote it as a global event (like all design weeks in major cities), knowing that Lebanon is a small country with a young design history. We hope that Beirut Design Week becomes a yearly event where we all collaborate as one voice, and one entity to showcase Beirut as the Design Capital of the Middle East to the global community.

We look forward to seeing you next year,

Doreen Toutikian and Maya KaranouhBeirut Design Week Founders and Organizers


A VERY SPECIAL THANKS TO

Our partners, sponsors and supporters are the heroes of the Beirut Design Week initiative, without them, none of this would have been possible. On such short notice, you all pulled through for us and we want you to know that we truly appreciate all your efforts in helping us.

Vrouyr Joubanian, for being the world’s most enduring Project Coordinator Ulrich Novak and Farid Majari from the Goethe InstituteBarbara Hewitt from the British Council Nada Sardouk and Mona Fares from Ministry of Tourism Brahim Samaha and Nidal Riachy from Laboratoire D’artDavid Munir Nabti from AltCityWael Hmaidan, Nadine Ajami and Layal Nehme from IndyactNada DebsNadine Fares from Curve MagazineDina Debbas for providing calming and soothing adviceThe whole team at Tagbrands for supporting and pitching in when neededCarol Murr from MTV for being a grear supporter and sponsorAlain Saba from Promonet MediaJihad and Rachad Achkar from Anis Printing Press Francois Harik and Marcus Matossian for creating great animationsAll the Desmeemers for putting their heart and soul into their projectsTony Feghali and Eliane Saade at AUB for all their support with the conferenceElie Hasbani at the Municipality of BeirutWyssem Nochi for his support and adviceZiad Mugraby for his great supportand all are our other sponsors, media partners, participants, friends and family.


“Beirut Design Week was a great opportunity for bringing together the local design world under one roof. There are a lot of designers who do not have their own space or who have only one or two objects that they would like to showcase...Beirut Design Week gave them the opportunity to showcase their work. It also gave professional design offices and outlets the incentive to present some of their new products or design processes. Beirut has a lot to offer in the design field and this could be the beginning of something very exciting for all of us as well as for future designers.”

Nada Debs(Text excerpt from Curve Magazine)

“Our workshop with Beirut Design Week was a great success, with many participants and a fantastic good spirit. We are looking forward for next year’s!”

Cyrille Najjar, White sur White

IMPRESSIONS OF BEIRUT DESIGN WEEK 2012

“its about time Beirut celebrated its design creative energy and curving the gap. Thank you BDW for taking the initiative in realizing this beauty project. ”

Wyssem NochiOn/Off


“We were really happy with the way Beirut Design Week went for us. We thought that the organizers did a good job communicating the Design Week and we had really great feedback from customers.”

Johnny Farah(Text excerpt from Curve Magazine)

“I thought Beirut Design Week was great, it allowed a gathering of design academics to present their experiences of how design has changed radically over the last 20 years - so setting an agenda for dealing with the present and engaging with the future. The conference format was inspired - it allowed the dissemination of the ideas debated across a broad spectrum of interests, professional backgrounds and age groups. The fact that the whole BDW/Mena project was structured as a dialogue was fantastic, professors and design practitioners opening themselves to involved discussion, rather than just delivering lectures or presenting work. Additionally, the juxtaposition of the established strengths of Lebanese design - jewelry, handicrafts and textiles - with the design research and social engagement of young practitioners and an international cohort of recent graduates was a landmark in how design can act as a tool for debate and fuelling social innovation.”

Prof. Gordon Hush, Glasgow School of Art

“Beirut Design Week in 2012 was a great step forward in gathering creative, problem-solving individuals and showcasing their talent, potential and innovations. Not only did it reinforce our faith in Lebanon’s hidden creative geniuses but also placed a large number of up and coming design hubs, collectives and people on the road map to local and international recognition. Looking forward to the next one!

The Creative Space Beirut


5 INTERESTING FACTS

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

The brand equity created with Beirut Design Week was so powerful in terms of marketing that many designers across the country created an event and promoted it as ‘during Beirut Design Week’ even though they were not part of the official participants list.

‘Beirut Design Week’ is now a registered trademark

Beirut Design Week is the only week long national event in the Middle East that is completely independent from art exhibits and events.

Beirut Design Week received:

New participants for next year’s Beirut Design Week have already started applying.

$100,000 in funding $200,000 funding in kind


EVEN

TS


BEIRUT DESIGN WEEK 2012

LAUNCH EVENT


BEIRUT DESIGN WEEK LAUNCH EVENTDESMEEM EXHIBITION AT THE MINISTRY OF TOURISM

Beirut Design Week 2012 was launched at the Ministry of Tourism in Hamra with the DESMEEM exibition. The launch event hosted over 450 visitors and marked the beginning of the first Design Week in the Middle East.


DESMEEM is the international design project of 27 designers from Europe and the Middle East, who collaborated with Lebanese NGOs to create more sustainable and efective solutions to a variety of l issues in Lebanon.



THE FUTURE OF DESIGN EDUCATION

CONFERENCE


THE FUTURE OF DESIGN EDUCATION CONFERENCE AT THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF BEIRUT

The main conference of Beirut Design

Week was held at the American University

of Beirut and included a line up of influential

design educators from Lebanon & around

the world. They came together in Beirut to discuss the future of

design education.


From left to right, the speakers and moderators of the confer-ence:

Linda Selwood Choueiry (NDU), Uta Brandes (Koeln Interna-tional School of Design), Halim Choueiry (AUST), Michael Erl-hoff (Koeln International School of Design), Gordon Hush (Glasgow School of Art), Doreen Toutikian (moderator/ director MENA Design Research Cen-ter), Jamer Hunt (Parsons New School), Simon Mhanna (mod-erator), Ayssar Arida, and Tim Marshall (Parsons New School).



52 PARTICIPATING DESIGNERS


PARTICIPATING DESIGNERS

Jewelry


Beirut Design Week 2012, the first design event of such a large scale in the region, included 52 participants and over 50 events. These events include collection launches, book launches, performances, catwalks, open studios, workshops, talks, and street interventions.

In the next pages, you will find the photos of events of the participating designers that took place in Beirut during the week.


SARAH’S BAG

Sarah’s Bag hosted a special visitors day where people came to discover her latest bag collections, with a ‘Making Of’ video projection.

NADA DEBS

Nada Debs invited the public to an ‘Artisanal Performance’, where artisans work with their hands on her furniture designs in Saifi Village


ANNABEL KARIM KASSAR

CAI LIGHT

Annabelle Karim Kassar and CAI Light displayed their designs in Balima, a restaurant in Saifi Village.

NADA ZEINEH

Nada Zeineh had an impressive collection launch in her Sursock boutique with a lovely rooftop overlooking the city at sunset. Guests included some of Beirut’s more charismatic characters.


MARIA HALIOS SPARE ARTS GALLERY

Spare Arts gallery displayed their latest furniture collection and hosted a newcomer into the scene, in Mar Mikhael.

‘Boho Beirut’, the title of the new book that was launched by Shirine Saad at Maria Halios design showroom in Mar Mikhael.


MUKHI SISTERS

Aterlier G launched their new collection of colorful flowy dresses ‘Four Years on the Move’ at their space in Sassine.

ATELIER G

GEORGES EL TEN

Georges El Ten displayed his new collection ‘Out of Clutter’ at Spare Arts Galery in Mar Mikahel. His works are interpretations of musical pieces into illustrations on metal plates.

An upcoming young and trendy duo, bursting on to the jewellery design scene are the Mukhi Sisters. Their event in Beirut Souks brought together a surge of happy visitors, each getting their own special goody bag.


OPEN STUDIOS

MAAJOUN

Maajoun, a young duo of typographers and communication designers opened up their doors to other young and curious designers along with homemade cake and beverages. Their studio is located in Corniche al Mazraa.

.PSLAB

Internationally acclaimed, Beirut-based .PSLAB opened up their perfect postmodern design studios to the public with private tours by the staff in Mar Mikhael.

Open Studios refer to the days that the participating designers invited the public to visit their studios and offices to be informed about how and where they work.


MAAJOUN

APRACTICE

Apractice, an architecture studio in Gemmayzeh invited guests to explore their new interiors and a showcase of their work.

CREATIVE SPACE

A non-profit initiative, the Creative Space in Achrafieh, hosted the entire international team of speakers of the Beirut Design Week conference and met with their young ambitious fashion designers.


RANDA TABBAH - JEWELLERY DESIGNJOHNNY FARAH - BAG DESIGN

Randa Tabbah’s boutique in Saifi welcomed dozens of people who learnt how to make their own jewellery pieces.

Johnny Farah’s bag making workshop was such a success that they had to add extra sessions to accomodate the curious participants. The photoshoot with Joe Keserwani was one of the highlights of the Beirut Design Week.

WORKSHOPS


WHITE SUR WHITE - PRODUCT DESIGN

White Sur White’s workshop allowed designers and architects to manufacture their product designs using 3D printing at their studio in Achrafieh.

MIRADA MADRID - DESIGNPRENEURS

Mirada Madrid’s workshop ‘Designpreneurs’ served to bridge the gap between being a designer and an entrepreuneur at AltCity, Hamra.


DESIGN RESEARCH COMPANY - DESIGN RESEARCH

Design Research Company partners Bianca Bender and Pia Drechsel from Cologne came especially to shre their expertise on Design Research at Laboratoire D’Art. Gemmayze.


DENSITY DESIGN - INFOGRAPHICS

Density Design infographic experts Giorgio Roberto Uboldi and Donato Ricci taught the participants how to create infographics using tags about Lebanon from international news reports. This resulted in an exhibition of the created works on the last day of Beirut Design Week.


SERVICE DESIGN - GIULIA BAZOLI & EEVA CAMPBELL

In the Service Design Workshop the participants were asked to design a service for different scenarios using various methods.


VIDEO DOCUMENTATION - NINA MARTIN, GIORGIO BORDIGA & SARA MANZINI

The Video Documentation Workshop required that each participant develop a new perpective of Beirut. The results were exhibited on the last day of Beirut DEsign Week at Laboratoire D’Art.


TALKS

Audiences gathered from all over to AltCity in Hamra from Tuesday til Friday to learn from a multitude of designers and their experiences.

Simon Mhanna and Linda Selwood Choueiry deliver their talk ‘Emotion Flows with Mindful Design’.

Joanna Choukeir tells the public about Imgaination Studio, a social design project to eliminate sectarian differences.


Left: Joumana Ibrahim reveals the issues involved with the lack of public information in Lebanon.

Right: Samer Yamani talks about the Design Road project which plans to come to Beirut next.

Left: Ziad Abillama discusses ‘Are Derrida and Design Strangers that never Met?’ at Atelier S/Z in Gemmayze.

Top right: Sarah Naim, delivering a DESMEEM talk about the role of design in creative education alongside her teammates Sara Manzini and Tatiana Toutikian.

Bottom right: Connie Yeh delivers a DESMEEM talk about the role of design in Energy consumption awareness with teammates Karim Badra, Farah Yassine, and Peter Mattar (below right).

Right: A DESMEEM talk with the Sustainable Consumerism team (Mary Rizk, Giorgio Uboldi, Marwa Boukarim & Nisrine Sarkis) anout how we can use plastic bags to design everyday objects.


STREET INTERVENTIONSALL AROUND BEIRUT

EXPAND

PACMAN

Image courtesy of Brofessional Review

The Urban Pacman team was at the St. Nicholas Stairs in Gemmayze on the last day of the week selling road signs as memorabilia, a sarcastic take on urban laws in Beirut.

Two daring communication designers (Elie Bou Fadel & Sara Makki) decided to take their designs to the streets of Beirut and EXPAND people’s visual field of perception.


EXPAND

FILM SCREENINGSAT ST. NICHOLAS STAIRS IN GEMMAYZE

Every night of Beirut Design Week, a curated selection of design documentary films were screened on the St. Nicholas Gemmayzeh Stairs.

BEIRUT DESIGN WEEK REPORT | 43 COM

MUN

ICAT

ION


SCREEN & PRINT

The MENA Design Research Center cordially invites you to the launching event of theBeirut Design Week & Desmeem Exhibition

DATE 6 PM, 25th June 2012VENUE Ministry of Tourism, HamraRSVP [email protected]

For more information please visit www.beirutdesignweek.com

2012

BEIRUTDESIGNWEEK

Organized by

DATE 10 AM to 4 PM, 27th of June 2012VENUE West Hall, AUB

GUEST SPEAKERS

2012

BEIRUTDESIGNWEEK

Organized by

THE FUTURE OFDESIGN EDUCATIONCONFERENCEThe MENA Design Research Center cordially invites you to attend the Beirut Design Week Conference.

Tim Marshall Parsons New School for Design

Jamer Hunt Parsons New School for Design

Uta Brandes Koeln International School of Design

Michael Erlhoff Koeln International School of Design

Gordon Hush Glasgow School of Art

Ayssar Arida Q-DAR

Howayda Al Harithy American University of Beirut

Linda Selwood Choueiri Notre Dame University

Halim Choueiry American University of Science & Technology

Randa Abdel Baki Lebanese American University

Marc Baroud Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts

Beirut Design Week 2012 website

Invitation cards


Map

Catalogue


OUTDOORSMORE THAN 40 BILLBOARDS ALL OVER BEIRUT


OUTDOORS5000 POSTERS ALL OVER BEIRUT


COLLATERALS BY PARTICIPATING DESIGNERSADAPTATION OF BEIRUT DESIGN WEEK LOGO


TVC ON MTVSHORT ANIMATION

TV spot promoting Beirut Design Week on MTV for 2 weeks


PRESS ADSBeirut Design Week was advertised in Local & regional print magazines.


PRESS ARTICLESBeirut Design Week was covered by the following local and international newspapers, magazines, and blogs.


LOCAL NEWSPAPERS


A SPECIAL 27 PAGE REVIEW IN CURVE MAGAZINE


ONLINE ARTICLESLOCAL & INTERNATIONAL PRESS


Beirut Design Week was featured on dozens of local, regional and international online magazines , these are some samples.

MAIN PARTNERS

INSTITUTIONAL PARTNERS

MEDIA PARTNERS

The Mapping Company

MENA Design Research Center2nd floor Block D, Lazarieh BldgRiad El Solh, Beirut, LebanonT +961 1 980 089 (ext 117)E [email protected]

DESMEEM NGO PARTNERS

beirut design week 2012 report

Documents

regional design

social design

successful design

mena design research

master of european design

public design intervention

cologne design prize

mena middle east