Cathy's Art Diary

Fascinating exhibition at the Design Museum of their annual survey of 70 projects from across the design world that they consider to ne the best this year. I always enjoy this show for its range of items from ones which you have seen already in the shops such as Muji’s range of simple white kitchen gadgets to ones which are still aspirational. I like the inclusion of graphic design and architecture in the show but it tends to be the objects which catch your eye an imagination. I was fascinated by the space cups designed so that astronauts can drink coffee in space which uses the shape an passive capillary forces to love coffee into the mouth. I loved a bicycle navigation tool but more for the smart clip on design it used than the technology involved. The products designed for Third World Countries and disaster areas are fascinating. I loved a flat pack house, partly designed by the Ikea Foundation, for use in disaster conditions which comes in two packs including tool...

Inspiring exhibition at the Design Museum of nominees in the Design of the Year completion with six categories of architecture, fashion, digital, product, graphics and transport. There was a wonderful array of great ideas! My favorites this year included the new take on a kettle which was a rod you put in a cup on a heat conducting pad which boiled water for you, or I think that’s my understanding of it! Most inspiring was a toilet for developing world which could be put in areas with no water supply. These seemed to produce water for washing hands and the waste product could be collected and made into fertilizer and other products. Fun ideas included a street light which records shadow patterns of people passing beneath and replays them. These are already around in Bristol and there was a delightful film of people dancing with other people’s shadows and devising things they could do to create weird shadows.   Things I was not so convinced by included a building i...