“MAKE IT DIFFERENT: FIVE DESIGN TRENDS FOR THE FUTURE,” OCT 23-24, LJUBLJANA
David Carlson, founder, David Report & Designboost, Sweden

David Carlson, founder of David Report, has been working with design as a competitive weapon for twenty years. With design as an added value David helps his assigners create attractive brands ready for the challenges of the future. His assigners include Absolut, Level Vodka and Sony Ericsson.
He is also the founder of the furniture brand David Design, the lifestyle shop Carlson Ahnell and the knowledge company Designboost. Now and then he also serves as moderator and writes chronicles and debate articles. He edits and does the graphic design for a nature preservation organisation magazine.
Carlson regularly lectures on trends concerning design, entrepreneurship, communication and brand development.

Today, Carlsson argues, most companies understand that the products of their competitors have the same technology, price, performance and functions. It’s more or less only the brand and the design that separates them. This then makes it crucial to have an open mind towards the future, to understand the market and its need states.
This involves developing aesthetically-engaging and life-enriching products that talk both to our hearts and to our brains – “feel good” products so to speak. It’s a safe way forward for companies that would like to develop a friendly relationship with their clients and, at the same time, earn lasting brand loyalty.
Carlson talks about the importance of being culturally connected, and having and using knowledge in creating humanistic experiences. He sees it’s about storytelling and how to build factors in that attract consumers; to use design as a tool and channel of communication. Most important is the need to differentiate; to find the white spots or the blue ocean or whatever we might want to call it, to do it your own way.
His approach to design as an experience goes through five different design trends for the future, all based on both micro and macro research made for the trend report David Report.

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“HAPPY PEOPLE TELLING STORIES,” OCT 23-24, LJUBLJANA
Jan Egil & Stefan Dahlkvist, Moods of Norway; Norway

Moods of Norway began in Honolulu, Hawaii as an after-party idea between the company’s two designers Simen Staalnacke and Peder Børresen. Simen and Peder wanted to tell stories from Norway and make clothes for different moods, which is why every Moods of Norway item has a small Norwegian detail or twist to it.
Jan Egil grew up in Stryn, Norway and established his first business at 16, a night club in the Norwegian country side. At 36, he is co-founder and financial director of moods of Norway, handling the daily operations of this lifestyle design brand, and responsible for drawing the line between art and commercial products. Egil also works with the design process and to help bring new Moods of Norway concepts/product categories to the world.
With a Bachelor of Communications from Göteborg University in Sweden, Stefan Dahlkvist is the international sales manager for Moods of Norway and is also active in the concept development/design of the brand. At 34, he works closely with the company’s sales agents in Japan, Spain, Benelux, Germany, Scandinavia, Iceland and USA. Together with the company’s design duo, Dahlkvist forms new collections to fit under the moods of Norway concept umbrella, and is also involved with shaping new product categories.

Returning to the country known for polar bears and expensive gasoline, the designer duo drew their lines for the coming collections. The Moods Of Norway brand has its headquarters and showroom in the town of Stryn (population 5750), a place known for glaciers, salmon fishing and one newly-opened escalator.
Little Moods of Norway has been operating on the international fashion dance floor for just six years now, but the philosophy is still the same. Their main goal, besides making their grandmothers happy, is to make happy cloths for happy people around the world.
What role does design play in creating a strong and effective fashion/clothing experience? Behind the brand is an international lifestyle design concept that combines products with a twist of Norwegian history, culture, heritage and tradition. Nature – and the very special Norwegian natural environment – plays a big part in the brand identity and ultimate brand experience.
As a lifestyle clothing/fashion brand, it plays on – celebrates – international travel, a love of colourful play and fun, board sports and music in their clothing, shoes, cosmetics, food, spirits, hotels and more. Moods of Norway creates consumer experiences with hangtags in the linings, with true stories and statistical details, through concepts with (happy) thoughts in mind. To borrow a neighbouring Swedish company’s tag-line, Moods Of Norway is serious fun.

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Growing up Modern

German-born designer Sebastian Gronemeyer grew up surrounded by the works of Arne Jacobsen Poul Kjärholm and Eero Saarinen. He brings, through his company Silence and Grace, two fresh new designs to 100% Design in London this month: The Orchid Chair and The W Chair. MORE…

The London-based, 100% Design event is one of the biggest and most important design events on the world’s design calendar, bringing together manufacturers, name designers and major specifiers from all over the world. 100% Design fuses the worlds o

f architecture and design with innovative, contemporary interior products, creativity and a dynamic mix of new and established talent. MORE…

Bathing Made Simple, Digitally

The design behind the Grohe Ondus is intended to make life simpler, by making it possible – and easy – to make personalised presets for most washing and bathing functions. The automated features are built around a one-touch interface which operates bath and shower performance. Further, the user interface is icon-based simplifying operation and digital programming. MORE…

Kazuyo Sejima, Seijoville, Tokyo

For the Seijo Townhouses in Tokyo, Kazuyo Sejima experiments with a singular model of a special kind of collective housing – for client/buyers ready to pay more than the already demanding prices of real estate in Tokyo today. MORE…

Mutaflex Seating Concept, by Figueras International Seating

The Mutaflex Seating Concept by Barcelona-based Figueras International Seating recently received the Award for Business and Commercial Innovation, in the Culture of Innovation category. The prizes are an initiative of the Granollers City Council in collaboration with a number of entities based in the county of Vallés. MORE…

Maximal Design’s Soul Ash Solace Cremation Coffin & Urn

Cremation demands specific solutions, so Belgium’s Maximal Design has created a cremation coffin with integrated urn in order to appeal to the specific functional needs and emotional circumstances of a cremation funeral. MORE…