I received my invitation for the Icograda World Design Congress 2009, happening in Beijing next week. The bi-annual event brings together many organisations, including designers, educators and other creative professionals to discuss the future of communication design.
It’s the first time the event has been held in China and the theme for this year is Xin – 信. The word Xin in Chinese originally meant ‘message’ or ‘letter’, which is one of the most primitive forms of communication. However, the Chinese character Xin also forms the basis of many new multi-dimensional words.
- Xin-xi (Information) – human communication
- Xin-nian (Vision) – designing a better world
- Xin-ren (Trust) – understanding and collaboration
- Xin-yong (Credibility) – reliability and responsibility
- Xin-xin (Faith) – believing in hope
A week long programme of events will explore a number of issues facing design and communication in today’s challenging environment. There are four key topics: access; balance; communicate; and define, which will try to address these issues in parallel sessions during a three-day international conference.
- Access – design democracy and accessibility
- Balance – unity, harmony
- Communicate – information and cross-cultural communication
- Define – design of the future and for the future
My office, Landor Beijing has been involved with the organisers in producing the opening titles for the event. Our creative director Andy and design director Weiting have been working pretty hard on this for some time, so it’s nice to see it all coming together. I got to see a sneak peek a few weeks back and it was looking pretty good.
Icograda (the International Council of Graphic Design Associations) was established in 1963 to promote the role of the communication in society and give a voice to designers worldwide. This year’s event will give voice to the design community in China and hopefully send out a new ‘Xin’, that Beijing is now on the global design map.
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