KL Design Week

I decided to check out the KL Design Week after hearing about it by my KLickrs friends. The embarked on a project, assigning a total of 20 photographers on 10 locations, to capture ….. Photographs. It was then collated into a mini exhibit. The Design Week started proper yesterday and according to the program pamphlet, it will go on until the end of the month of May. There were six main locations, and the KLickrs got ourselves a booth at the CapSquare. Just a nice little corner exhibit. Unfortunately due to my work - sigh! - I can’t offer anything more apart from support.

Some of the exhibitsSince I was free this morning, I decided to check them out. Located on the second floor, it was right around the corner, near the Subway outlet there. Since I reached there just after noon, Shafina was busy putting up the photos as it was taken down when they left for home last night for security reasons. They also decided, rather than using LCD projectors, we used portable LCD displays instead, plastered onto the display wall. I had to leave before everything was ready unfortunately. I took the time to visit the other exhibit as well.

List of KLickrs who participatedBeing put upHard at workApart from CapSquare, the other venues involved were Pavilion, National Art Gallery, Galeri Petronas at KLCC, map/Dutamas and KL Convention Centre. Apart from exhibits, there were also series of talks and lectures, with conferences and symposia held at the KLCC venues. Please refer to the KLDW website for more details. I spend an hour or so looking at the stalls at CapSquare, mainly put up by design students from various colleges and universities. Some of them have pretty neat concept. Take one USM student, in collaboration with Zoo Negara exhibited a prototype board game. It was pretty basic but the idea shone through. Unfortunately most of the exhibits need more design development as just by looking, it was not very clear what they were trying to put across. The fact that I was there too early, and the exhibitors have not yet arrived clearly does not help. I did email a few of them though asking questions and giving my thoughts.

Another exhibit that caught my eye was done by another student. I was afraid, I can’t remember where he is currently studying but I managed to grab his card. His name is Ling Koh Yong. He developed five cartoon characters which he called ‘Teens Like Me’, with all the interactions and teenage angst. It was exhibited by a series of caricature as proof of concept. Again, the fact that Mr Ling was not there did not help me in visualising the interactions between the characters as if they were fully developed, I can imagine them being made into a cartoon series on TV, or at least on the web. I got the phone number but it was best searched via Facebook. There were other more commercial exhibits, but I was more interested in what the students had to offer. I am a University Lecturer after all ….

Up in the cloudI think, with better publicity, the Design Week may make more of an impact. As it was, it was pretty low key as far as I can tell. When I told my friends, I was checking out the KL Design Week, I got mainly blank stares. There were a few student exhibits, but none were from UniKL, Lim Kok Wing of Multimedia University as far as I can see. I was expecting more participation from these so called ‘design powerhouses’, ones which I expected to produce the designers of the future. More work here is needed I think.