What we learnt in Cape Town

• At 7am on registration day, no-one has a sense of humour
• Pikka Chew, no wait Pecha Kucha
• The sun only rises at 6am
• It OK to interrupt the highway with 3 robots and take it though suburbia – no one minds!
• Quintus was more attractive to the general population of Cape Town than I was
• Most designers wear glasses
• More than I cared to know about where bits of a pig land up
• Gail likes bearded Brazilian decorators
• Driving 80kmph on the highway is considered speeding
• Designers have too many iphones
• And macs
• Livia holds a grudge for a long time
• You can hand paint your own volla
• Capetonians bitch passively on twitter, Gautengers just bitch out loud all the time
• Students are not really there to see the speakers
• Smash and Grab film is not standard issue
• People will buy faeces if it has a Martha Stewart label on it
• Cape Town has wireless now :)

The very last of last days

On the very last day of Design Indaba Cape Town gave to me;

• · One trendy lady (click)
• · A fashion conscious ninja (click)
• · A wool crazed Dutchman (click)
• · The ex-con glitterati (click) Quintus's opinion
  
• · One epileptic
• · A social housing guru (click)
• · 6 future farmers

And some sushi that I ate for free.

What an eventful last day indeed! The day was kicked off with Li Edelkoort, one of the speakers I looked forward to the most, she is a super duper consumer trend forecaster. The question is, what came first, Li or the trend?! :)

Her trends in a nut-shell, were family based, family is coming together, not the idea of a nuclear family, all manner of family, nuclear, same sex, adopted, fostered, groups, extended families etc. This in turn influences the indiwidual (as she says it) and the indiwidual is no longer more important than the group. People are looking for connections, life has to mean more than work, and relationships are very important (great ... even Li is making fun of me for being single) in our social matrix at the moment, which of course means consumers are feeling this impact. And of course, yellow is the new pink!

Han Feng was up next, a super duper dynamic little Chinese lady, she is truly inspirational in that she is the epitome of “fake it till you make it”, launching her career in fashion by paying fellow Chinese immigrants to the states $1 per scarf that they made, then selling them off to departments stores, you got to love it, or at the very least admire it.

Christien Meindertsma was next in the line up, she is wool be-f**k – literally! She started off with the philosophy of one sheep = one cardigan, which is lovely, if not just a wee bit un-feasible. Ending her talk with her book PIG05049 which is a book that details what happens to EVERY (she is very thorough) SINGLE bit and piece of the pig. Let’s just say, as it turns out, I am an unbelievably dodgy vegetarian, and if the other vegetarians knew I would be asked to leave the vegetarian inner circles of trust.

Martha Martha Martha, where do I start?! I was so looking forward to Martha, you see fundamentally, I am a huge fan. In my itty bitty feminist world, any woman who can be worth billions, run a successful business and do it all in heels deserves respect – R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

This is why, I spent all week eyeing every blond of appropriate age in the venue. I was over exited and I suspect in hind sight, expecting too much, hence when the patron saint of house wives started off on a downward slope and well, just kept sliding, I was horrified, mortified even. She spent the best part of an hour, explaining the Martha Empire, which is considerable, and then moved onto her “most exiting” newest addition, glitter, I am not even joking, Martha came to the Design Indaba, not only to discuss glitter, but to show us how one can buy Martha glitter by number packs, or even download off Martha.com software that will allow you to glitter by number your favourite pics. She redeemed herself slightly by selling (literally) her paint range to us, it’s based off of a chicken, I kid you not, a chicken and the colourful eggs it lays.

Just as I am about to wash my hands of Martha completely, I remind myself ...

Martha has;

• · 2 000 000 twitter followers (which by the way, according to Martha is both cheap and free)
• · 300 000 people clicked her web site to view photos of her closet (the irony has not escaped me)
• · Martha brand enamel paint which costs $85 per gallon
• · A net worth of about $638 million in 2007
• · Probably got a prison tattoo and was jail bait :)

Gail has? ... Exactly!

You may not like the old duck, but you got to respect her achievements!

Alejandro Aravena is a social housing guru from Chilli. Social Housing is one of my passions, I took it as an elective during my honours year – and loved it! It is a very complex issue as it deals with more than just housing, it about pride, community, ownership, achievement and values, just to skim to top of the iceberg. His ideas, while innovative, were not unique, but he managed to present them so beautifully and passionately that he had the audience hanging off his every word. He got the only (that I saw) standing ovation of the conference. Well deserved!

We had to miss the ZA puppets unfortunately, as we were running late, and Mornay put the fear of God into us with traffic horror stories. Afeared of missing our plane we hit the highway, crawled to the airport, booked in and had sushi to say good bye to Cape Town.

BYE CAPE TOWN!!

xxxgail

We made this

we really made this - saw these guys (they did this to themselves by themselves, there was NO art directing involved) at the ORTambo and conned Quintus into taking a pic - our very own motivational poster

then half way

On the second day of the Design Indaba Cape Town gave to me;

• A hungover writer (click)
• 6 Brilliant Students (click click click click click click)
• One home-made toaster (click)
• 2 un-related projects (click click)
• 3 Movie makers (click click click)
• 3 Music makers (no click)
• One Indian god-father (click)
• One brilliant German (click)
• One nervous Frenchman (click)

And a wierdo wearing greeeeeen (click)


the not singing explanation ...


My best best for the day was Stefan Bucher, and word at the convention center is he was an all round winner, ladies wanted him, men wanted to be him - its a win win really. I think, really, yes his work is brilliant, but so was his presentation. He had us eating out of his hand. In comparison the scared Frenchman and Mr Boontje didn't stand a snow ball's hope in hell really, and their work - brilliant. And people say your work speaks for itself - kak - its all about the presentation.


I loved Piyush Pandey's Vodafone ads, I thought they were brilliant! 


My quotes for the day ;


"Over education leads to ugliness, premature aging and beard growth" Crushed and Sorted
"Your brain is an unruly pit-bull and it will eat your furniture - at best" Bucher
"You made it though another day and everybody lives" Bucher
"Its not like I am dipped in a vat of goodness every morning" Bucher
"Civilians don't get it" Bucher


Now for some pics ....


This is how we arrived as annotated by the Q

So many freaks so little space - WHO TOOK THESE???!!!!

Woolies has a GIANT post-it by number in the lobby area, basically the blocks have numbers, the numbers have colours and there are piles and piles of post-its to stick on the blocks, Quintus of course took the challenge like a man and figured out what it said before the post-its were up, now he sits and supervises me as i stick post-its onto the wall. As one does.

Attention seeking? really? AS IF You would all be very bored (boring) and lonely without me :)

They also have GIANT post-its for you to write on, this is mine

This is Quintus'

This is my tea time work (not really i did blue, but the marker does not look so good on the blue post-its, so I hi-jacked the pink ones :)

xxxgail

and in the beginning ...

I was so very exited for day one, i composed a song ... sing it to the 12 days of Christmas music.


On the first day of Design Indaba, Cape Town gave to me;

• An un-important logo (click click)
• A super star designer (click)
• A design samurai (click)
• Time keeping Euro-trash (click)
• The only designer in the village (click)
• Sappi's ideas that don't matter (click)
• Pompus street art experts (click)
• A par-cooked graffiti artist (click)
• One hot Brazilian (click)
• An extremely bright boy (click)
• And a type-face fundi (click)

Some tea and a lunch for free. 

In a nutshell ... I was very exited for Faith, turns out her work does, and should always, speak for itself, she should not be let out in public unless its with a can of spray paint. The Wooster Collective did a fair job at annoying me, they seem to feel the need to explain everything, TWICE. 

Mokena Makeka is brilliant, he is my new design super hero, he is a practicing concept king! High five awesome man!

Marcelo is the Brazilian answer to Ty Pennington, and just as hot. He can extreme make over me, i mean my house, any time! Harry Pearce was very last, and we were running an hour late, but in his defense, he was totally brilliant, I am thinking of marrying him and have him take my last name - Harry Barry :)

PS Q has pics

xxxgail

The eagle has landed

I have arrived! 


Turns out its a good thing I didn't like One Time as we flew Mango :) Yet I remain the 'organised' one - hmmmm ...


The flight left my head popping, we managed to be seated in the very last of last of last rows on the plane, in fact with a good view of the loo, Q was convinced our pilot had a dinner date and needed to back in JHB ASAP. If he were a dentist he would forget to give you anesthetic! 


My rental car is black and I have GP number plates, step aside kids, here comes mamma!


xxxgail

high-ho-high-ho its off to Cape Town we go

Your quintessential guide to the gale force whirl-wind of the deign indaba world is about to board the plane to Cape Town.


One Time here we come, though I prefer to think I will be flying two time, once there and once back, but ok, One Time here we come!


Be sure and keep up with our super duper blog! 


xxxgail