This World Design Capital Project (#WDC411) is connecting people from all walks of life.

The WDC Project Ukusela eKapa, meaning ‘Drink Cape Town In’ or ‘Slurp Kaapstad’ is a collaboration between ceramic artist Hennie Meyer, architect Janine de Waal and hopefully, you.

Ukusela eKapa will be presenting its final site-specific installation by Strijdom van der Merwe this weekend at The Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town. 

On Sunday the 23 November from 9am until 3:30pm, everyone who participated in squeezing a cup (ikomityi) is invited to come and hand in their keyring to receive a cup squeezed by a stranger.

This project has managed to connect over 10 000 people through design. We think it’s pretty inspiring.

For more information, visit ukuselaekapa.co.za.

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From Wednesday the 15^th until Sunday the 19^th of October, design will be taking over the Cape Town Stadium. The event, which is a flagship project for World Design Capital 2014, is called Makers + Thinkers.

It’s not just about looking at beautiful things either, although to be honest we never tire of looking at beautiful design here at VISI, but what makes it a must is the variety of design-driven learning opportunities that will be available too.

Firstly there’s the Cape Craft and Design Institute’s Make It New Exhibition, which will be opened by Mayor Patricia De Lille at 10.30am on the 15^th. It will be open daily from 10am to 6pm throughout the week. The free exhibition will showcase work by a variety of designers, producers and crafters from all over the Western Cape. It promises to take attendees on a trip through the Cape’s craft and design heritage, all while displaying how the past and geography have influenced the province’s design output.

The WDC team will also be hosting the Design House Exhibition: Transforming Cities, which will showcase international examples of design’s transformative power, as well as showcase the best design practices across a variety of areas, including sustainable housing, community building, urban planning and social cohesion.

One of the key events during the week will be the WDC Design Policy Conference, which runs from the 17^th to the 18^th. Working under the theme “Make a Plan”, its main aim is to develop a policy that guides design for the entire African continent. “As a developing country and continent, our design journey does not have to replicate what has been done by other, more developed countries. We will make a plan with the context, skills and resources that we have,” says WDC 2014 Programme Director Nicky Swartz.

Speakers at the conference will include Gisele Raulik-Murphy, who is widely regarded as the “guru of design policy”, as well as Srini Srinivasan, CEO of award-winning creative design company LUMIUM in India and a member of the WDC 2014 International Advisory Council. Tickets cost R2000.

Alongside the conference, Between 10and5 will be hosting “Show & Tell”, a series of free talks with a line-up of local and international speakers on Friday the 17^th. Click here to sign up.

Visit wdccapetown2014.com to find out more about Makers+Thinkers.

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Cape Town may be World Design Capital this year, but there’s no denying that the local design scene is flourishing in SA as a whole.

As the design industry grows and new players come onto the scene, it becomes evident that there is still a lack of training, which often leads to failed businesses. Enter Business of Design, a two day seminar facilitated by four design industry experts: Trevyn and Julian McGowan of Source, Southern Guild and Guild, and Laurence Brick and Cathy O’Clery, both of whom are creative partners behind 100% Design South Africa.

In addition to Trevyn, Julian, Laurence and Cathy, some of the speakers you can look forward to hearing from include South African Fashion Week founder Lucilla Booyzen, Business and Arts South Africa’s Michelle Constant, clothing label Fabiani’s Arie Fabian, designer Marianne Fassler, Frazer Parfum’s Tammy Frazer and Marie Claire editor Aspasia Karras.

They will cover a range of subjects, from time management and brand strategy, to practical issues like cash flow and accounting systems through to marketing, exports and dealing with international orders.

The Cape Town leg of the seminar is sold out, however, tickets are still available for the Johannesburg seminar, which will be held on the 22^nd and 23^rd of October 2014 at Sage Technology Park.

To register for the seminar, visit businessofdesign.co.za.

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Forming an official part of World Design Capital 2014, Accidental Art (sponsored by Nando’s and directed by Yellowwoods Art) is aimed at bringing art to the public by taking art into public spaces.

The project was launched with artist Xolile Mtakatya’s spectacular mural (made in conjunction with hand painting specialists Colossal Media), an impressive 7m x 9m installation at Nando’s on Long Street. The latest addition is a stunning 20 sqm mosaic designed by talented artist Liza Grobler at Nando’s on Kloof Street. It was created from “half-square” ceramic tiles produced by the Yellowwoods Art Ceramic Studio.

Designed in order to draw attention to creativity and the way in which we use the urban environment, this project encourages passers-by to think, reflect and communicate with the art, the artists and the urban spaces in which we live and work. 

Both will be on show well into 2015, supporting not only the expression of creative thought, but injecting new life into the public realm by beautifying and improving the urban environment too.

nandos.co.za/art-projects
yellowwoodsart.co.za

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Home to Design Indaba, the South African National Art Gallery and soon to be home to Africa’s first Museum of Contemporary Art, Cape Town is well known across the country as a creative hub. A view further reinforced by the city’s current designation as World Design Capital 2014.

Once a year, the city hosts Creative Week Cape Town, an initiative driven by the Cape Town Partnership, “a non-profit organisation that brings people together around common goals for Cape Town’s transformation.”

The week, which runs from the 13^th to the 21^st of September 2014, is organised around a central theme: Start Where You Are. “It’s a simple statement that encourages people to make a change within their surroundings, without waiting for instruction or the ‘right’ time. To simply start where you are, use what you have, and make what you can, holds the ultimate transformative power within our communities and ourselves. We aim to celebrate everyday creativity and champion the role the creative sector has in affecting change within our city,” says Cape Town Partnership CEO, Bulelwa Makalima-Ngewana.

The programme is made up of a diverse calendar of events, including exhibitions, films, dialogues, parties, and other gatherings. It also runs alongside the South African advertising industry’s Loeries Awards week in Cape Town. There’ll certainly be no shortage of opportunities for inspired shoulder rubbing and event hopping throughout the week.

The great news is that the programme is still open for submissions and will be open until Friday the 12^th of September. It’s not just about the more obvious creative efforts like artists and photographers either; agents, charities, clubs, and educators are all encouraged to submit events. Should you want to register your event, just visit the Creative Week website, and submit your event or project into one of their six categories: Learn, Play, Move, See, Do and Hear.

They’ll also be running an Instagram competition. All you need to do is submit pics that best represent creativity in the Mother City. Just use #creativeweek and say where the pic was taken.

Creative Week Cape Town

13– 21 September

creativeweekct.co.za

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There’s a selection of striking resistance posters on show at the Open Design Festival that not only celebrates the essence of the festival, Design is for Change, but also marks our 20 years of democracy.

What makes it even more special is that it’s exhibited in the place where Nelson Mandela made his first public speech after his release from prison in 1990 – Cape Town’s City Hall.

This collection of handmade posters tells the story of hundreds of brave South Africans who risked prosecution during the apartheid years when they took to design to help bring about change.

Selected from the University of the Western Cape’s (UWC) Community Arts Project Archive, these images were created by everyday South African citizens, all secretly part of various anti-apartheid organisations, in collaboration with artists aligned with their cause.

Titled Interruptions: Posters from the Community Arts Project Archive and curated by Emile Maurice on behalf of the Centre for Humanities Research at UWC, the posters were mostly displayed in townships and at political rallies and meetings, enlivening outdoor areas and depicting historical moments such as June 16 and Sharpeville, as well as fallen anti-apartheid heroes like Solomon Mahlangu and Ashley Kriel. Often they were enjoyed purely for their colourful visual appeal, on walls in homes.

The exhibition aims to get people talking about the relationship between politics and art-making, and so create awareness and participation in post-apartheid South Africa.

Here’s everything you need to know about Open Design Cape Town, running until 23 August 2014.

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The Power Of Colour & Texture exhibition is an official World Design Capital 2014 project created by the Cécile & Boyd Foundation, forming part of this year’s 11-day Open Design Cape Town event (Read More).

The foundation took an old container and upcycled it into a transformative space where disadvantaged children can be creative, feel inspired by their surroundings and play with colour, patterns and textures.

With a combination of repurposed furniture (including ordinary plastic chairs that have been covered in clever and colourful felt), Pedersen + Lennard tables and a strong focus on natural elements, the space couldn’t be more inviting.

If you’d like to see and experience the container during the course of Cape Town’s Open Design festival, you’ll find it on the pavement outside City Hall until 23 August 2014.

For more information, visit opendesignct.com or cecileandboyds.com/foundation.

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What would you like to achieve with Take a Seat?

The giant Karoo chair is part art installation and part functional fun. We want to create a conversation-starter and prompt the public to view Cape Town as a hub of creativity and design opportunities. Celebrating local innovation has the potential to eradicate the popularity of Asian imports, and increase the support for our country’s furniture industry.

Our other WDC2014-accredited project is Our People’s Factory, which provides our employees with a platform to demonstrate their furniture-making skills, and also educates and inspires the community. This in turn creates jobs, and promotes local design and the rebuilding of the woodwork industry. These demonstrations will occur throughout the year.

Why did you choose the Karoo chair?

We were the first to reimagine the traditional Sandveld riempie chair into the simplified Karoo version, so widely copied today. It was first manufactured for our Simply Pierre range, launched in March 2011 and is made using traditional joinery methods. It is a fine example of local furniture design and craftsmanship. The contemporary yellow-ribbon seat is our show of support for the WDC2014 initiative.

For more information, visit pierrecronje.co.za

You can view Pierre Cronje’s oversized chair at the Clock Tower at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town until 15 August 2014. The chair is likely to be moved to the Cape Town International Airport in September, so make sure you check it out while it’s still in the city. Take a pic next to the chair and tweet us at @VISI_Mag. We’d love to see you there! 

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‘Live Design. Transform Life’ is a key phrase that’s at the forefront of Cape Town’s tenure as World Design Capital 2014. Behind it lies the recognition that for a country such as ours, design cannot merely be an elitist exercise that focuses on luxury goods. Open Design Cape Town, an annual cross-disciplinary design festival held in the Mother City, takes its cue from that concept. Design is for Change is their theme for 2014.

“Design is not just for designers. The aim of Open Design Cape Town is to open up design to everyone and to show how it touches every part of life. We have deliberately formulated the programme to appeal to everyone, from early learners to seasoned professionals. Through Open Design we want people to change the way they think about and experience design,” says Open Design’s co-founder and creative director, Y. Tsai.

The festival, which runs for 11 days starting on 13 August 2014, will use the Cape Town City Hall as its base. However, events will be held at various venues around the city, including private design studios, galleries, design schools and community centres. The full programme is a mix of ticketed and free events.

Events to look forward to include Talk 100, a series of interesting and inspirational talks during lunch times and evenings, featuring both local and international speakers, like Italy’s Professor Ezio Manzini who is considered one of the most important thinkers in sustainable design today; David Trubridge, New Zealand’s best-known furniture and lighting designer, and South Africa’s 16-year-old-web and iStyla app developer Jacques Blom. All of those talks are open and free for anyone to attend.

There’ll also be several tours of areas around Cape Town, including pre-booked architectural tours of historical buildings. There’s also a lifestyle tour through the ever-changing Woodstock and a public art tour through the city.

However, the festival is not all about talks and tours, especially considering that the programme features over 90 events. There are several exhibitions across the city, including one which will be held at City Hall to celebrate 20 years of democracy, by showcasing ‘70s and ‘80s resistance posters from the Community Arts Projects Archive. Also at the City Hall, attendees should be on the lookout for the interactive Playroom, which is geared towards learners, young and old, so they learn about and experience design, both as a career and part of everyday life. Highlights include demonstrations of 3D printing and Augmented Reality technology.

Perhaps most importantly, the festival as a whole presents an opportunity to bring design into the centre of the country’s developmental needs, as expressed by SABS Design Institute’s Gavin Mageni: “Opening the minds of young people through innovative design education can lead to development and economic growth. Without advancing it we might find ourselves confined to the barracks of mediocrity and poverty.”

Open Design runs from 13 to 23 August 2014. Visit opendesignct.com to view the full programme. Follow Open Design on Twitter at @opendesignct.

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Sera Holland’s latest creations are bright, bold and instinctive. With its on-trend geometric patterns and a fearless use of colour, Handmade By Me’s latest collection definitely caught our attention.

The range is inspired by Cape Town as World Design Capital 2014, as well as fashion, art, prints, and living in Africa. With napkins, lampshades, cushion covers, purses, totes, tea towels and scarves forming just a part of the new range, you’ll easily be able to mix and match. From comical lighting bolts and tribal-inspired designs to square shapes and bird feet, you’re bound to find something to suit your space.

P.S. Did you know we’re running a competition until 16 September 2014 where you can WIN a Handmade By Me hamper worth R1 180? Enter now!

For more information about the new range, visit handmadebymeblog.com. To start shopping, go to shop.handmadebyme.co.za.

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