Then everything changed.
Think back to earlier this year, and how different things were. The last trade event I attended was Collect at Somerset House in mid-February. I met clients for meetings over coffee, did a site visit, toured the show, bumped into a number of people and posted on my Instagram feed. It felt like a normal if busy day.
At the time my mind was occupied with how to help make the next phase of the London Design Fair a success under the sole management of Diversified Media. I’d also just hosted the first event in what I hoped would be an irregular series meet-ups for design promoters called Design Dialogue. It was held in a packed function room in The Crown Tavern, Clerkenwell Green.
Then everything changed.
Those few days of activity seem almost alien now: Collect is virtual in February, The London Design Fair is postponed until at least 2022, and The Crown is closed to its usual pre-Christmas drinkers and it’s been a long time since I bumped into anyone!
The lockdowns, event cancellations and new ways of delivering design content has been very challenging, with a devastating effect on the events industry as a whole. However, it has provided a pause, time to think and potentially gives rise to exciting routes for doing things better.
Currently, there is an opportunity for the narrative of design promotion in the UK to be re-written, updated and led by new events and initiatives: The days of London’s ‘biggest and best’ commoditized design events competing with each other in a race to the bottom has passed. Everything needs reinventing; this should start now with frank conversations about what the design sector really wants and needs.
A re-drawing of the design calendar to ensure a complementary set of events and platforms to support the sector with commercial promotion, cultural revival and an effective spotlight for emerging talent could provide design with a framework for recovery and a distinctive programme that London and the UK are going to need to attract talent and investment.
I’ve felt this change has been needed for some time; it was the reason I set up Design Dialogue at the end of 2019 – to bring organisers together to discuss possibilities and challenge the prevailing way of doing things. The meetings went digital after that first pub gathering, with ten Zoom events held since March featuring nearly 50 contributors from across the design promotion spectrum; PRs, writers, event organisers and campaigners.
The discussions – all of which are on-line – have consistently delivered positive expressions of how the sector can and should work together. Bringing the series together has been a highlight of my year, and they made a difference to a lot of people who attended during our enforced separation. The question now is how to translate the talk into action and plan for the change the sector needs.
As I said in the introduction to the last meeting of the year, my sense is that 2021 will be a year of two-halves: We won’t be able to come together in big numbers for the first six months, so let’s use that time to develop that framework, build consensus and a better way for design to find its voice again.
If we miss it there is every chance nothing will have really changed.