Today Danish Design Award nominated its finalists for 2018. The Award is a great example of how to celebrate the difference design can make, and what projects and areas designers are working on right now. Of course, I am mostly interested in projects that has real impact in the area of social design.
Especially two projects are very interesting as I know what philosophical and practical backgrounds the designers have, working and studying at the same institution where I am enrolled, Design School Kolding.
Firstly, is the project of Mathilde Bess – an inclusive design take on fashion clothes. In this case Mathildes project leans towards my idea of an accessory approach – designing health wearables for persons with different abilities. Mathilde has created fashion clothing for wheel chair users to critically debate how we perceive and reflect on the qualities of being a wheel chair user and fashionable. Her project raises an interesting discussion, and makes me think of the critical tensions of how we feature fashion as an element to be free and individual.
Secondly, the project TACTUS, which is a tool for child and youth with special needs to involve physical elements to start a dialogue based on emotional issues, is especially interesting.
Different from Mathilde, who creates critical discussion about inclusive design and fashion, TACTUS helps difficult subjects on its way for children and youths – to talk about serious issues, feelings and thoughts. The designers behind, JACQUELINE DE ABREW who has a jewellery background, and MAJA LINDSTRØM FREESE who has a fashion background, has worked with their practices of material understanding and aesthetics to create a box-set, helping to verbalise issues and topics that are normally hard to describe and talk about.
Through the materials in the box, the involved children in the design project got a ‘common third’ to talk through, when explaining how they were and felt at a certain time. The tactile approach could benefit many other areas of users to facilitate dialogues of intimate characters.
Congrats to all!
