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Not just pretty 'faces: the evolution of the digital designer

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Digital/new media/interactive designers are going through an identity crisis. Their skills can be of key strategic importance yet they are so often brought to a project at the last minute. What kinds of skills are required to develop the types of immersive, comprehensive and multi-channel brand experiences that consumers and businesses are expecting?

CREDIT CARD BOOKINGS ONLY

Digital/new media/interactive designers are going through an identity crisis. Their skills can be of key strategic importance yet they are so often brought to a project at the last minute. Furthermore is seems that the craft of the designer - typography, form and function and attention to layout is often overlooked. What kinds of skills are required to develop the types of immersive, comprehensive and multi-channel brand experiences that consumers and businesses are expecting? And how can our design professionals step up to the plate? These issues and more will be up for discussion at this dynamo london evening event developed in association with design week.

The Premise:

The ability of a good digital strategy to cut costs, streamline processes and increase productivity has an obvious universal appeal. However, implemented badly and organisations can find themselves caught up in costly development cycles resulting in clunky interfaces and redundant technology. This is where the role of the skilled interactive designer becomes of key strategic importance. Drawing on the ability of the designer to think about the underlying strategic problem or issue from the outset, combined with the desire to have an end product that is usable and fit for purpose - particularly in a digital framework, makes the interactive designer one of the key components of a successful product or service.

dynamo london and Design Week have joined forces to engage with digital designers at all levels and provide a challenging and thought provoking evening event.

The Issues:

Chaired by Lynda Relph-Knight, Editor of Design Week, with insights and inspiration from Malcolm Garrett (dynamo london), Clive Grinyer (Orange) and Simon Crab (Lateral) ; this lively industry conversation sets out to explore the following issues:

In a digital world design can be a broad ranging term, covering brand development, systems architecture and content development. From its origins in graphic design - how is the role of the digital designer developing?

With developments and trends in the industry taking a much more social slant, bringing content to the fore - and user generated content at that, how important is the design function in creating long lasting success?

With more businesses being set-up and managed by creative people - What are the issues facing these businesses, the design professionals and their clients and all other new media stakeholders?

What is education/academia doing to shape the role of the digital designer, and how can educational institutions ensure that ever evolving industry requirements are met during the training of young talent.

The Speakers:

Chair: Lynda Relph-Knight has been Editor of Design Week for most of its 20-year life. She has therefore witnessed the boom, bust and recovery of the digital design world and is very much looking forward to the next boom. She is a journalist, who previously worked on architecture titles before slipping over into design in the late 1980s.

As Creative Director of Lateral, Simon Crab leads the creative development and the day-to-day management of the company. Since graduating in Fine Art at Slade College, he’s been working with digital media. In 1990 he set up the digital arm of the print multinational, Wace, specialising in CD Rom design and production, and in-store EPOS systems for clients such as Lego, British Airways, and the Body Shop. He joined Obsolete as a designer and programmer in 1993, and moved to co-found digital communications agency Lateral in 1997.

Simon has a specific interest in digital and mobile marketing in Asia. He has traveled the area widely speaking at events, consulting for brands and researching new trends and emerging markets. Currently Lateral is working with a Chinese content provider developing applications for mobile phones and has been working with a number of clients on mobile marketing activities and integrated digital marketing campaigns.

Malcolm Garrett RDI FRSA is Creative Director at London-based AIG (Applied Information Group). His work is widely regarded as having a seminal influence on the development of contemporary UK graphic design.

He founded the interactive communications company AMX in 1994, which under his creative leadership won awards for creativity, business effectiveness, and technical excellence. In 2003/4 Malcolm joined Immersion Studios in Toronto to develop interfaces for interactive cinema and collaborative learning software.

Prior to AMX Malcolm had founded and co-directed Assorted Images, designing for artists such as Buzzcocks, Duran Duran, Culture Club, Simple Minds, and pioneering digital and interactive work with Peter Gabriel.

Malcolm has judged for Design Week, D&AD, BAFTA, BIMA, as well as LMDI, Roses Design Awards, Proctor & Stevenson Awards, RSA Student Awards, Art Directors Clubs New York, Hong Kong Design Association, ICAD Awards Dublin, and the Construction New Media Awards Cape Town. He is a Royal Designer for Industry (the only RDI in Interactive Media), was nominated for the Prince Philip Designers Prize in 1998, is a Visiting Professor at the University of the Arts London, a former Visiting Professor of Interaction Design at the RCA, holds an Honorary Doctorate in Design from Robert Gordon University Aberdeen, an Honorary Fellow of the RSA, and a member of BAFTA.

Clive Grinyer BA (Hons) FCSD, FRSA is Director of Design at Orange France Telecom. Based in the ExploCentre innovation centre in Paris, he is designing the next generation of mobile phone, PC, TV and internet communication and entertainment products and services.

Clive has worked as a design consultant and in corporate design. As a consultant he worked for IDEO in the San Francisco and London, was European head of product design for Fitch and was a founder of design company Tangerine with Jonathan Ive (now VP of design at Apple).

As Director of Design for Samsung he set up the European design team in London, and was head of design for TAG McLaren Audio, a collaboration of the watch and Formula 1 racing brands. He went on to be Director of Design at the Design Council, where he created design demonstration projects, taking the UK's best designers into UK manufacturing and technology companies.

Clive is a passionate about design and how companies can make best use of it, and is the author of the book Smart Design.

Venue link: CC Club

THIS EVENT IS BY CREDIT CARD PAYMENT ONLY.

This event is funded by the LDA. In order to fulfil funding requirements we will be requesting diversity information from all attendees. Please assist us with this so that we are able to continue providing useful and stimulating events.

Become a 'Friend of NMK' and make substantial savings on event and course bookings! See: Friends of NMK or email: Rebecca Fitzgerald

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Report on the event.

Location

he CC Club - Unit 33, The Trocadero, London, W1D 7DH