Design For Life – a design apprecenticeship
The renowned and redoubtable Phillipe Starck has been ‘doing a Donald’ and is appearing in a TV show Design For Life which has 12 young UK designers vying to work in his atelier.
Last night’s (June 2) first episode introduced the young hopefuls and then showed us what they were up against. Mostly they were up against M. Starck, his wife and collaborator, and the evil henchman.
Oh, and the hilarious accents that all three spoke English with, worthy of ‘Ello ‘Ello at its best. Any dignity was destroyed as soon as they opened their mouths. Who thought we were too stupid to read sub-titles?
They could have come across as insightful and sophisticated in their own language, but they sounded like a ‘70’s comedy show.
I am beginning to think that this serious look at a famous designer picking out a new talent to nurture will be going the way of a BB House. All the hopefuls were given 100 euros each and asked to buy two items that would show the positive and negative of their ideas, chosen from a list of design parameters. One poor sucker let the other contestants talk him into paying 90 euros for a ‘Made in China’ bicycle to illustrate his point about cheap transport, instead of just taking the photo of the bike as he first intended. It did not earn him any points with the three wise designers. Cue lots of head-shaking and loud unintelligible accented drama as they tore his idea to shreds. And then they eliminated two of the hopefuls.
I can’t wait for episode 2!
Yours in design,
Richard-actyl
