Founded & directed by Dutch graphic designer Richard van der Laken, WDCD aims to reintroduce a social element to design, focussing on how design as a discipline can be a catalyst for change and renewal. Now in its third year, the festival will bring together over 1000 designers to take part in sessions, workshops and talks in venues across Amsterdam. Disparate and celebrated design figures attending from around the world include web designers, magazine editors, artists, social designers, architects and social thinkers, including:
Rahul Mehrotra, Architect
Urban-Think Tank, Research & Architecture
Pedro Reyes, Artist
Hellicar & Lewis, Interaction designers
Dunne & Raby, Design thinkers
Lidewij Edelkoort, Trend Forecaster
Carlo Antonelli, Editor-in-Chief, Wired Italy
and many more,
Aiming to evolve into a multi-day festival WDCD bills itself as an activist conference, aiming to tackle real issues by presenting real solutions drawing on its pool of talented contributors. This year the event breaks down into several thematic areas, asking What Design Can Do for Publishing, Education, Branding, Research, Food and the Screen. The main conference taking place at rather splendid Stadschowburg theatre, and satellite events spread across Amsterdam city centre, from the Applestore to the rejuvenated Stedelijk museum.
The event will be reported via social media and a daily blog, but also in dedicated publications produced in real time during the conference. The aim is to push their manifesto for propositional design forward through as many enduring channels as possible, as a disciplinary agenda. The almost evangelical attitude towards maximum exchange is mirrored in the event programming itself; rather than relying on lengthy lectures, the conference features workshops, collaborative working sessions and even design ‘speed-dating’ – intense, short conversations with invited participants on thematic topics, in between longer workshop sessions – in order to share ideas and feedback.
What Design Can Do takes place on May 16th and 17th in Amsterdam; as media partners Blueprint will be featuring exclusive interviews and content with participants; stay tuned for much more..
What Design Can Do 2013
Stadsschouwburg Theatre & various venues, Amsterdam
16-17 May 2013
