Let’s Stop Making Design Festivals For Designers

7 Jul

PUBLISHED BY CREATIVE BOOM

We all have a vision of what a design festival looks like. A few days filled with talks, workshops, exhibitions, pop-up shops and social gatherings aimed at inspiring, educating and fostering a sense of community among attendees.

These carefully curated events tend to be designed for those already working within the industry or hopeful of entering the creative workforce. Design festivals are made by designers for designers - but is it time for us to shake up that formula?

Lyall Bruce and Ryan McLeod, directors at Agency of None, did just that when they produced Dundee Design Festival and led the programming for the Scottish event in 2019 and 2021. They shook up the formula and redefined the potential of what a design festival could and should be.

In 2021, I was brought in to develop the festival's visual identity by working as a character designer. Agency of None held accessibility as one of its core values and used it as a marker for making all logistical and design decisions throughout the planning of the festival. We worked together to incorporate this into the brand design, which helped expand the festival's reach with new audiences.

Designs by Agency of None & Headless Greg

Why Accessibility Matters

Design festivals celebrate design. They can be joyous spaces filled with people who share passion, vision and talent. But they're not always the most inclusive.

The design industry sets a high barrier to entry, making it more difficult for people from disadvantaged social and economic backgrounds to progress. As a result, there is a problem with diversity in design. The creative workforce as a whole is not truly representative of the wider world and individuals from marginalised groups often struggle to see themselves reflected in the industry.

Design festivals are the ideal environments for dissolving these barriers. They present the opportunity to deliver varied and diverse content that appeals to broad audiences and show how engaging with design can enrich anyone’s life. For example, creativity’s positive influence on mental health has long been proven and festivals have the scope to encourage a whole new group of people to reap the therapeutic rewards of making.

Design festivals should emphasise the principle that creativity is for everyone. Together with Lyall and Ryan from Agency of None, I’ve put together six pointers for prioritising accessibility when organising a design festival…

1. First Impressions Count

The visual aesthetics of any festival matter because they reveal who the target audience is. Initial event promotions will steer how inclusive the event will be and give a sense of who is welcome to participate.

"Often, design festivals create visual identities that resonate with those already in the industry," says Ryan McLeod. "They tend to be quite abstract in form and content, which creates an instant barrier to those external from the design world. People are quick to judge whether something feels like it is for them or not."

Character design is universal. When Agency of None hired me to develop their visual identity, we designed a character system for online and in-person interactions. I created a toolkit complete with geometric body parts and fun facial features so that the branding felt engaging and easily recognisable.

2. Cut The Jargon

Designers tend to use sophisticated vocabulary and create short-form acronyms as they ascend the ranks. But sometimes, this alienates even people hailing from other sectors of the same industry. Implementing simpler language across channels will ensure that everyone involved can easily understand what you are trying to say.

"Industry-specific terminology can save time when having internal discussions, but language is an instant barrier to those on the outside looking in," says Lyall Bruce. "We made sure to remove complicated jargon from the festival's marketing assets and supporting materials to reinforce that design is something anyone can get involved in."

3. The Always-On Approach

Various obstacles, such as tight work schedules and demanding childcare needs, restrict some people from attending events. One way around this is to organise an event that doesn't require attendees to turn up for specific time slots or by being able to access the content online in their own space. It may prove a logistical challenge, but these changes will make access easier.

4. Location, Location, Location

For DDF 2021, the organisers chose to decentralise the festival and spread it out across four venues. The festival took over a couple of unused shop units and public parks. An all-pink shop was transformed and filled with astroturf flooring, while an old pump station was painted with floor-to-ceiling murals.

By inviting festival revellers into familiar surroundings, they could experience something truly out of the ordinary. Choosing to run the event in localised spots rather than big cultural buildings meant that Dundee dwellers could feel like their city was overrun with design and that it was beckoning them in.

5. Don't Forget The Fun

The festival intentionally included playful design demonstrations to create engaging and memorable experiences. It was truly immersive with giant ball runs explaining the design process, up-cycled centres celebrating sustainability, and character-building exercises centred around well-being.

One of the festival's events saw the transformation of a second-hand clothing store at The Finlathen Design House, remembers Ryan: "People queued for three hours to try things on, and kids were running straight from school to give it a go with many coming back with friends and family. Seeing such passion and excitement coming from people engaging with design was amazing!"

6. Leave A Legacy

"As producers, we structured the festival content around a specific yearly theme," says Lyall. "All of the experiences were developed as prototypes so that the concepts could continue to evolve after the festival."

Many of these have now been installed across Dundee and beyond. The popular experience of the upcycling centre has been introduced to various communities in the city. Meanwhile, the print-based design workshop, Poster Playground, has travelled all the way to Detroit.

Other bespoke installations have been re-homed at local libraries and schools, with items created at workshops or embedded in homes nationwide. Some of the 2019 festival volunteers, like myself, have gone on to work as designers in the 2021 edition. There is huge scope and opportunity for all those involved.

Accessibility was core to the Dundee Design Festival’s offering. McLeod explains: "Design is for everyone, and we've proved that creative content can be successfully delivered outside of the city centre to a broader audience. There is an appetite for communities to engage with design if they are given the opportunity."

This article was originally written for Creative Boom, a leading UK art and design platform.

Greg McIndoe