14th November 22
Sixth Form students headed across the North Sea in Half Term to visit Dutch Design Week. We caught up with Y13 student Joe to find out about the trip.
What was the purpose of the Eindhoven trip?
We went to go and see all the exhibitions because the whole city was just covered with design stuff with exhibitions everywhere. There is lots of stuff by new graduates from their design courses and established designers host open studios.
What did you get out of it?
It was interesting to see the cutting edge of design. You can see what the majority of people are thinking, what’s popular, what’s trending with the new up and coming designers. I noticed there were a lot of ceramics and recycled stuff.
How does this trip help your studies?
It’s useful because you see so much and you get to pick and choose what is relevant to your own project, and what you want to take inspiration from. My project has definitely moved forward because of it.
What are you working on?
I’m going to be making some kind of organic light which has patterns in it which play with motion. Purely by coincidence there were two things in an amazing shop we visited which had each perfectly executed one of the ideas I want to incorporate in my work, so it really came together for me which was great and the trip was really useful.
Design Technology teacher Adam Findley was one of the teachers who accompanied the students and he saw the positive impact the trip had:
“The trip is a great chance for our students to start to think critically about other designers work – they can look at work by so many different people and studios and they can start to think about what they like and don’t like. Even if something is created by a world renowned designer, you don’t have to like it – and you can use those choices to influence your own work. It was a great trip with a lovely bunch of students who all got a lot out of it – I can’t wait to see how it influences their work going forward.”
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