Together with the writer and craftsman Zandra Ahl, FutureLab visited IDC’s (the International Display Corporation) event in German Hattingen last week. We asked Zandra Ahl to write a short summary from her point of view, for FutureDesignDays News.   

The event was an overall experience where both small and big details summed up to the message: It’s necessary for different professions to start to collaborate to be able to present interesting concepts. In short – stop screaming and start listening. Seminars were arranged, parties were hold and previews on the latest from the display market were arranged, in order to reach out to new networks, customers and insights. Everything covered in a layer of cigarette smoke and a pungent summer heat. From the seminar stage, Johan Johansson from FutureLab invited us all in to his grandpa’s hardware store and ended his speech in an argumentation about why design as a process helps companies to succeed in their communication. Karim Rashid aimed towards a journey to a new humanized world of technology and “causalism”. As a designer he proclaimed that we shouldn’t need to use style as an agent to prove our value in the new world. But at IDC’s display expo, we met undressed, underfed tailor’s dummies, who showed their old-fashioned sexy underwear with closed eyes, while the big, fat tailor dummy smiled towards us with a motherly smile just to point out that the future is not here yet. There is still a bit left until we’re all neutral, and the pre-fabricated womanliness has to wear the old world’s garb. To reach were the event intended, to a future with integrated design, it would be a good idea to try to widen the base to whom we are listening to.  There were only men on the seminar stage.