DMY International Design Festival Berlin 2008

Are there objective criteria that enable to determine the quality of design? Yes. Or is it simply a matter of taste? Again, yes - meaning, therefore, that the Jury’s selection can be subjected to interpretation. This year, for the first time, five international jurors were requested to select a top ten amongst 300 applicants. The experts – designers, experts, consultants – required only three sessions to make their choice. For instance, with their surveillance camera disguised as a bird-house, ‘chris & ruby in friesland’ were an almost instant univocal choice, as were the knitted lamps by Kwangho Lee from South Korea. Further darlings: Aylin Kayser & Christian Metzner’s ‘Ikarus’ wax lamp, as well as the new production technique of the ‘Plopp’ tin stool by Oskar Zieta, which enables to produce serial unicums. A common denominator? The objects all play with critical irony and unusual or familiar materials that are set in a new, unexpected context – arty, experimental and hardly commercial. It is hard to imagine that some of these projects will find their way into sleek designer showrooms or furniture fairs in a season or two. “Creativity comes before business. We consider our selection as a preliminary stage, a laboratory where new ideas take shape for the first time,” explains Åke Rudolf, DMY curator and member of the jury. His personal favourite, by the way – and this happens to be a matter of taste after all – is the knit lamp, which graces galleries and living-rooms with equal ease.