200+ design professionals/academics/nerds and freeloaders in an enormous old furnace room watching other design professionals/academics/nerds talking about design.
That’s where we went last Friday, to Liverpool; Designival at The Camp and Furnace. We’ve been to a fair few of these kind of events but not many have pulled off the perfect combination of relaxed social/networking and insightful speakers at the top of their game. The fact it’s basically a bar helped, as did the sunshine, but it definitely worked. The venue itself is pretty amazing and the surrounding area is another example of re-generating a run down part of town through building a creative community.
As ever some talks insightful, some crazy, some inspiring. Jonathan Sands gave away some, if not all of the secrets behind the global success of Elmwood, and Tom Evans was candid in the journey of his product designs. For me Jonathan Barnbrook was the most open about the full process and the public reaction to his David Bowie album artwork.
Looking forward to next years. Congrats to everyone involved.