INDUSTRY RELATED: LONDON DESIGN FESTIVAL REVIEW
Our Inaugural Chunky Monthly Newsletter - not to be confused with the weekly single topic, just for kicks.
Industry Related is a weekly newsletter to unmask and straight-talk brand comms, from a multi-national, award-winning team that's worked with Airbnb, Diageo, The Eames Institute, Kartell, Harry's, and Savile Row.
Reporting here today collectively from London and New York, both rather rainy or at least threatening to be - and where we’ve just wrapped up the Oscars of Scotch, otherwise known as Keepers of the Quaich, in New York City.
THE OFFICIAL INDUSTRY RELATED LONDON DESIGN FESTIVAL REVIEW: Everything but the Design
Welcome to our exploration of the London Design Festival! Widely considered to be in the top three design festivals around the world, though, here at A-K, we’re not convinced that opinion is not solely based on the size of the city and not at all related to the quality of the fair. I mean, truly, Design Days Copenhagen has been making the case to be in the top three for years, which would mean booting either London, New York, or Milan - and let’s face it, it’s not going to be the latter. Not sure there’s a voting feature on here, but let’s hear from you on your top three!
Anyhoo, having just wrapped up the LDF as we call it, we’ve spent time thinking about the good, the bad, and the ugly - and naturally, we wanted to share our thoughts with you along with some tips and tricks for improvement. (We’re big on EXCELSIOR over here).
If you’re new here, the LDF is rather unique in the design festival world as it is technically no longer anchored to trade. Most design festivals have been built around a trade fair, like Salone del Mobile or the ICFF, which drives a concentration of buyers, specifiers, architects, interior designers, design teams, and the design enthusiastic to the host city during a particular week. In fact, London used to have a fair called 100% Design that we all had to watch die a slow and painful death due to a lack of, well, design thinking. So if you’re a brand looking to break into a market, it is probably not the most effective way to do so as there is no concentration of trade in one location. This is especially relevant for those in the furniture industry. To break that down, if you’re a new brand or new-to-market brand and you want to show up in London, display your product, write orders, and make some money during the LDF, good luck.
Events: A Critical Review
That said, the festival is a great place to connect and reconnect with potential clients, brands, interesting design humans, etc. through its robust roster of events. ICYMI, Alpha Kilo has a bitchin’ events team and lots of opinions on that front (as you may have noticed from last week’s read). For our next column, we head east for our presentation of “An Event Well Executed and UMM NO”.
Well Executed: Lee Broom
Here we have a space that has been completely reimagined from the last time you crossed the threshold, whether that was the week prior or even LDF 2023. It exudes an air of what can only be described as a monastic sanctuary of design. The event is well attended with recognisable key editors and industry Illuminati; not too busy, not too empty. The volume was just so as to engage in delightful conversation without having to scream. Lee and his team use simple curtains which create a natural flow in the space which meant that, while there was ample opportunity to reconnect with friends and industry peers, the room allowed for an ease of movement through the space without feeling overcrowded or claustrophobic. The cherry on top was, as ever, the charcuterie presentation which created a useful and beautiful centrepiece to the room.
UMMM No: Blond Party and too many others to count
Not that.☝️ Like the EXACT opposite. Sweaty clambering for cheap swill in a sea of unknown humans. If your idea of supporting the creative industries is providing the younger generation with some free drinks (caveat being they have to use skills gleaned from cave divers to reach the bar), this is a win. If you’re looking to engage, interact, build brand, etc. we’d encourage you to rethink your event strategy.
When planning your own event, start with one question: what do you want people to say about the event after it’s done? Everyone loves a quiz so well here’s a one-question quiz for you:
I would like my event to be talked about town as:
a. Chic with an elegant crowd
b. Best party ever
c. Loved their work
d. What a shitshow
If the answer is A - invest in food, build a curated guest list, and run a hard door.
If the answer is B - scrap the food, get a DJ, start late, and invest in A/V
If the answer is C - focus on the exhibition, the flow of the event, and giving your products space to be seen
If the answer is D - you should probably quit your job. There’s a better one out there for you.
Now that you’ve identified your vibe, consider the following:
When the dust settles, what does success look like? What would you like your event to say about your brand? It sounds basic but, we assure you, many brands just jump in without thought and this can lead to a disillusioning experience.
Consider your guest experience from invite to exit. How do you convey your chosen vibe? How will they move through the space? Ensure pathways that allow for ease of access to entry and exit, bars, and loos. And please, pay for extra staff - it makes all the difference. Clearing out dirty glassware from the shop floor, guiding guests, ensuring circulation of food and drink - definitely worth the investment!
Create space for your products. Remember? The reason for the party in the first place? - to be seen and engaged with by guests. Use platforms, lighting, risers, etc. and ensure these are considered in each element of event planning, from location of the bar to guest count. Nothing worse than hearing guests leave a party, asking, “Did you even see the new xx?”
Knowing that not everyone can come out of the gate rolling in it, especially If you’re a small brand, here are a few tips on how to execute without breaking the bank:
Find a partner if you can - a complementary brand looking to do something fresh who will be happy to host you in the space is clutch. Explore your network - who might you be able to offer a mutually beneficial arrangement to that offsets costs for everyone
Size doesn’t matter, but quality does. Create the most epic little jewel box and spend some budget on an excellent photographer. Ask the pros if they have an apprentice you could work with or even contact the art schools.
The Rant: We’re so over “design districts”
Earlier this year, we started working with the brilliant Andrea Caputo on the launch of his Drop City project. He raised such a good point on design districts that we haven’t been able to shake it after six months - what is the purpose of creating made-up design districts that disappear following the festival? If every neighbourhood is a design district, there is no design district, just a city.
Definition of a Design District from our friends at ChatGPT: A design district in a city typically emerges as a creative and commercial hub where designers, architects, artists, and creative industries converge.
One could argue, Shoreditch probably takes the cake by this definition, though nary an upstart could afford the rent these days. We’ll also give Brompton kudos for not only championing young designers and innovative thought through brilliant installations curated by the genius of Jane Withers. To their name, they have numerous showrooms in a concentrated area, as well as the V&A, which has one of our favourite curatorial divisions - Design Now - which collects icons of the moment, from the controversial metal pointy things used to stop unhoused people from sleeping on covered sills, to a wooden leg splint designed by Ray & Charles Eames from 1942 (tres chic).
Beyond that, we’re basically just naming neighborhoods in the city. Yes, London is one of the most creative cities in the world. That’s why we’re here and we are HERE FOR IT. So of course, there will be creativity in every corner, but to bastardise the notion of a design district to draw patronage to the Mandarin Oriental’s new bar is truly a step too far. How is that driving the conversation around design forward, supporting creative industries across the city, or even tangentially aligned to design? (Let me guess, they used an interior designer.🙄)
Sadly, it seems anyone with £700 can buy an entry into the official London Design Festival guide, get a big red banner to place out front of their shop/flat/public loo, and “participate” in the festival (UMMM… IDEA!!), which leaves us asking: is this lack of curation and over-commercialisation really doing anything for the design industry? And if not, isn’t it time to rethink it entirely?
The Goss
A rather hilarious antagonist of the festival this year was everyone’s favourite RSVP app, Eventbrite. Yes, it seems it was wreaking havoc in the streets; as the go-to invite platform so many events were over-subscribed thanks to their open RSVP system. It seems every Tom, Jack, and James who got the forwarded link had RSVP’d - and let’s face it when you’re a junior architect on a limited budget, you are going to share a free drinks invite AROUND. Also, as one could check the guest count, much conversation was to be had in regards to skipping the clearly oversubscribed events to avoid the chaos.
Our favourite RSVP-related scandal was when it got around that the Official LDF Party had 40K RSVPs because someone had opened it to the public. Turns out, total fake news. We’re told the number was closer to 400 RSVPs, but we do love when a bit of gossip goes out of control, and honestly, with the vision of chaotic queuing and throngs of hopeful humans pushing their phones aglow with an Eventbrite QR code closer and closer to the door staff that was seen all over town, it was believable. Also believable is that this repeated scene was probably more prolifically on display throughout the LDF than any actual design. Perhaps next year, a talented design studio should take on the design of invitation and queue management.
One Sentence Reviews
Don’t take our word for it. We asked some of those whose opinions we value highly to give us a one-sentence review on the LDF. Here they are for you:
Hugo MacDonald, owner of the brilliant design gallery BARD, “(There was) 10x the amount of communication compared to the reality on the ground. We are all guilty in our own ways of hype - but for our collective sanity we need to calm down” (Note from Editor: Noted.)
Henrietta Thompson, prolific freelance journalist, author, and public speaker, “This year’s festival for me was a refreshing reminder that the best design is often discovered in the small things: the simple and the everyday, shop windows that make you smile, treasures hidden in galleries, the extremely well-made things we use without thinking. And of course, it’s about celebrating and bumping into the people who create them too.”
David Kendall, CMO of legendary David Collins Studio in response to the question of if we could get from him a one-sentence review of LDF, “Of course, but the only thing I went to was your party.”
Thanks so much for reading and feel free to comment, protest, and share your stories, opinions, and insights as well!
With Love from Alpha Kilo
Funnily enough, I had an interesting conversation this morning about the different parts of LDF that work really well - like those at the V&A and Brompton Design District, which concluded on how it's also because they use such great curators (like Jane W) for example. In general it's advice I've given too... that the value of a good curator to any exhibition can be huge. I wonder if LDF might eventually bring in an overarching curator... a thought!