New Designers Exhibition- Business Design Centre

On the 13th July, I went to the New Deisgners Exhibition in London. It featured displays by graduates from univertsities throughout the country in the fields of furniture design, graphics and interactive media, illustration and animation, product design and spatial design. There were also talks given by several employees from the visual communications and marketing department at Nike.

I listened to one talk, given by Alvin Chan, a senior brand designer. He gave a background to his career- from working at design agencies in Australia to becoming involved in designer exchange programs in Europe and finally accepting the job at Nike. He explained that he was at first apprehensive of taking the job at Nike because it might mean compromising his integrity by working for a global company, and also that he would be bored designing for a single brand. These fears were unfounded, he said, as he was able to work with some of the most talented people in the industry, and there were many projects running alongside each other that he had the opportunity to stamp any number of different personalities onto.

Unfortunately, Chan did not give much insight into how the design team at Nike works- the rest of the talk became something of an advert for Nike products! However, I did find his career path and his reasoning behind wanting to work at a big brand very interesting and informative.

Finally, I took the above photo because I really liked the entrance to the centre! The large glass atrium is very obviously art deco-inspired, and these shape are repeated throughout the building in the other windows and also by the structures inside.