The Hunt Musuem

I was in Limerick for a day or two and had time to see the Hunt Museum. I'd heard about it at lectures on Design History in NCAD.
The objects were varied, interesting, beautiful, educational.
The labels were dated and provided limited information.
I feel it could do with a make-over, a curatorial shuffle. I'm not clear what the layout was - chronological?
It was bizarre that we were told something like "blue stairs up, red stairs down" by the lady at reception when we bought our tickets whereas the circulation around the building was very clear.
There was a silver exhibition downstairs in the basement. It was laid out according to genre eg flatware, trophies, ceremonial, jewellery etc (I can't remember the topics precisely). And each section had laminated information sheets with limited information on each item:

3.5 Ladle, Mr X the Silversmith, 1850s.

Or something similar. I liked the numbering system. It took organisation. I thought it was a pity that the laminated sheets were located under the general info board for each topic. I kept seeing a nice object, grabbing the info sheet, moving on, seeing something else, having to grab the info sheet again. Silly me, I suppose. It might also have been nice to have other info on pieces for which it was available, some little story or something, on an additional laminated piece or... I'm not sure but it had potential.
The shop was incredibly disappointing. African jewellery and cabinets full of silver things, not much of which seemed particularly innovative, original or even Irish-made. There was a limited number of postcards, and they weren't of the best objects.
The restaurant was fab. Gorgeous goats cheese salad and meringue.

an administrator re-discovers her design background

A few weeks ago at work I had a lovely day designing forms at work. I'm working as an administrator at the moment. I've been so busy though that I didn't manage to post anything about it. The forms are very basic. It gave me an insight into the way I design, though. I like things to be functional, user-friendly and consistent with a sound structural basis.

AAI Lecture

Only getting around to writing about this now. Randomly turned up at an Architectural Association of Ireland lecture in Trinity college on Thursday 11th. Eero Koivisto, a swedish architect gave a talk. He was amusing, had a good sense of humour.
He talked about many of his projects: converting a water tower to a house in Notting Hill, a design shop etc building in Japan, designs for the Italian company Cappellini: sofa with moving middle, and saucepan; an art exhibition space in Marfa, Texas (which is this town in middle America with thriving art community if I remember correctly), amongst others.
The auditorium was packed. It's fab how interested architects are in listening to each other and keeping up-to-date and it's not your civil-service do-a-course-during-work-hours - actually it probably is, cos it's not unusual for architects to still be at work well after the lecture finished at about 9!
Eero's parting words were what he views as vital for any practising architect or indeed designer:

• Curiosity
• Self-criticism
• Passion

http://www.claesson-koivisto-rune.se/

Donegal Design Directorate

I was up in Letterkenny with a friend at the weekend. She's a member of the Donegal Design Directorate - an initiative of the County Enterprise Board, it seems. Could be great, if they get more people on board. They organise events, trips to the Milan furniture exhib, down to Dublin for Design week and film showings etc. They're planning their own exhibition next March which I have pencilled into my diary already!
www.donegaldesigndirectorate.com

Corporate Express Website, Conservatories & Car Showrooms

The corporate express stationery website is fantastic (www.corporateexpress.ie). You can flick through the catalogue, page by page and zoom in and (if you're a member) see the price. It loads really quickly. It's great!

I was thinking about conservatories the other day. Visited Farmleigh house recently - it has a beautiful conservatory. With greenery and lovely wrought iron furniture. I was lucky enough to have afternoon tea there once; most enjoyable! And it got me to thinking how that contrasted with the modern idea of a "conservatory" that people tack onto their houses, to put bamboo furniture in them. I don't think the idea of a conservatory these days is for plants, which is what I imagine was the main purpose in houses contemporary to Farmleigh. A conservatory these days, as far as I can see, is a dumping ground, a place for drying clothes and a little used additional sitting room.

My third thought in this post is about building types. In college we learnt that the Stadium is one of the building types of our times. Though lesser in size, it came to me that another building type of our times is the Car Showroom. Large glass building often with a mezzanine office often built off a busy road. Kind of a modern conservatory only with air-conditioning

HWCH

The Hard Working Class Heroes Festival took place in the Pod complex in Dublin last weekend. It's a 3-day affair to give unsigned bands a chance to perform in front of a wide audience, ideally consisting of people from the industry too. There were 6 rooms - in order of size: Working Man's Club, Lennon Lounge, Odeon, Pod, Crawdaddy, Tripod. The Odeon was for chilled out, sitting on comfy seats type music.

In terms of design:

• the logo is pretty poor methinks. Indecipherable. No sense to the colour scheme.
• the brochure and info was fine although the map was unhelpful. A rip-off from architect's drawings without considering how they would be useful to patrons.
• The layout of the rooms, the one-way system, the signage was well thought-out. (Apart from access to the Odeon being via the street and therefore not being able to bring drinks.)

Here's my scribbles on the bands I saw over the three nights. I did up my own timetable again so I could see where the overlaps in the schedule were.

Bands I enjoyed: Tribal District, Not Men But Giants, Le Bien. The attendance at most gigs was disappointing.

I met a friend who is in one of the bands and he had been busy throughout the day at mentoring sessions with PR people and others which he found very beneficial.Design, music, creativity - I suppose it's a valid posting for this blog! And I did try and involve the idea of "designing a festival". Another example that I was at was the Dun Laoghaire Festival of World Cultures. It's interesting the info that is handed out to the public, the way the thing is laid out etc. I think it's related to Design!