Blueprint Awards 2014 - the winners

Best Design Innovation Project or Product

Winner: Identity Parade, UK by Adam Nathaniel Furman

Blueprint Awards 2014: During the Design Museum’s Designers in Residence programme last year, Adam Nathaniel Furman produced a collection of brightly coloured objects made from a variety of 3D-printed techniques. Reminiscent of the work of the Memphis group and Ettore Sottsass, they are made from materials varying from porcelain and plastic, to nylon and plaster. For the three-month scheme, Furman created a fictional character on his blog, who was obsessed with technology, mass media and pop culture. Each post was a lived scenario, which brought together a wider contemporary issue such as generalised anxiety or Facebook envy with a fabrication technique that could be done using either a computer or his own hands. The character then fused these into a dizzying array of designs — a cabinet of curiosities — each piece responding to the Design Museum’s set theme of identity. At the end of the project, Furman killed off the character, and for the final exhibition, displayed a table — ‘a miniature museum’ as he describes it — on which all the various objects were collected. An adjacent film compressed and conveyed all the influences and themes embedded in the project. Ultimately, the project attempts to free designers from commercial exigencies and instead produce objects that are guided by and embody intensely personal narratives. Furman says: ‘Each design contributed to a collection that tells the story of a search for identity told through the design of objects. A journey, which, thanks to technology, any one of us could embark upon in the near future. The role of collector and designer are now collapsing into one.’

During the Design Museum's Designers in Residence programme last year, Adam Nathaniel Furman produced a collection of brightly coloured objects made from a variety of 3D-printed techniques. Reminiscent of the work of the Memphis group and Ettore Sottsass, they are made from materials varying from porcelain and plastic, to nylon and plaster. For the three-month scheme, Furman created a fictional character on his blog, who was obsessed with technology, mass media and pop culture. Each post was a lived scenario, which brought together a wider contemporary issue such as generalised anxiety or Facebook envy with a fabrication technique that could be done using either a computer or his own hands. The character then fused these into a dizzying array of designs -- a cabinet of curiosities -- each piece responding to the Design Museum's set theme of identity. At the end of the project, Furman killed off the character, and for the final exhibition, displayed a table -- 'a miniature museum' as he describes it -- on which all the various objects were collected. An adjacent film compressed and conveyed all the influences and themes embedded in the project. Ultimately, the project attempts to free designers from commercial exigencies and instead produce objects that are guided by and embody intensely personal narratives. Furman says: 'Each design contributed to a collection that tells the story of a search for identity told through the design of objects. A journey, which, thanks to technology, any one of us could embark upon in the near future. The role of collector and designer are now collapsing into one.'


Judges' Comments:

'This project offers a piece of speculation that looks outside the designer's self interest or lifestyle preoccupations and tries to anticipate some of the issues of rapid, individual, unbound but unnecessary fabrication in a cluttered world,' Russell Brown

Commended:

  • Accordion, Denmark by Julien De Smedt
  • MegaFaces, Sochi Olympics, Russia by Asif Khan/Axis/iart
  • Table Nests, Central St Martins, London, UK by Featherstone Young

Return to main article

5 of 10







Progressive Media International Limited. Registered Office: 40-42 Hatton Garden, London, EC1N 8EB, UK.Copyright 2024, All rights reserved.