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Our Evolution

The Design Indaba® gathers the world's brightest talent across the creative industries. We've become a broad church for the graphic design, advertising, film, music, fashion design, industrial design, architecture, craft, visual art, new media, publishing, radio & television and performing arts sectors. This institution which incorporates events, media, education, training and business development, celebrates its tenth year in 2005.

The seeds of the Design Indaba® were sown at a time when South Africa was on the cusp of reinventing itself. Back then, in 1994, business was set to embrace the new order that had emerged from decades of apartheid, disempowerment and isolation. We were inspired by the advent of democracy and wanted to play a role in helping to make South Africa work. At our company, Interactive Africa, we realised that if all of us in South Africa looked to our own competencies, and attempted to grow the industries in which we operated, then South Africa would be a winning country. We telegraphed that the South African economy needed to lessen its dependency on commodities and begin to leverage its products and services globally.

While South Africa had always been a strong producer of commodities, it was particularly weak at adding value - as exemplified in being the the world's leading gold producer, yet a non-starter in jewellery design. The Design Indaba®, as far as we were concerned, would be the perfect opportunity for South African designers to add value to local products and businesses, while providing a common cause for a divided design community.

The idea was to host an event where we could learn from the exploits of the leading designers in the world. We did most of the planning after-hours, as we all had day jobs! And we were scared about losing our pants in an event that many in the creative industry (the old establishment mostly) warned us would be expensive and high-risk. Thankfully, we ignored them!

As regards the manner in which we curate the event, it was important from the beginning to shrug off our previously parochial, insular mindsets, and look at what it takes to be globally competitive. Benchmark against best of class was the mantra. We did not want to see portfolios, but understand the case studies behind the brands and companies that the designers worked for, as well as how they came to produce their work. For example, we asked how Atlanta came to host the 1996 Olympic Games, and what role design and marketing played in its success. Hence we invited the design director of the Atlanta Olympic Games, Brad Copeland. This was also against the backdrop of Cape Town attempting to bid for the 2004 Olympic Games.

The first Design Indaba® conference was held in Cape Town in 1995. We invited leading designers from around the globe to share their experiences with us. By all accounts, it was a runaway success. An independent research company found that delegates' rating of the speakers averaged an astounding 90%. Behind the scenes, we took a handful of the speakers on a whirlwind tour of South Africa, exposing them to everything from slick corporate designs to gritty township work. The result was a full-length feature showcasing a broad spectrum of South African design in Communication Arts' design annual penned by its editor, Patrick Coyne.

Subsequent indabas in 1997, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004, have gone from strength to strength, and we have played host to some of the world's übercreatives!... including David Carson, Neville Brody, Herman Zapf, Paula Scher, Karim Rashid, Ross Lovegrove, Terri Jones, Oliviero Toscani, Vince Frost, Sir Terence Conran, Stefan Sagmeister, Shigeru Ban, Naoto Fukusawa, Javier Mariscal, Ken Cato and more. Design Indaba® has since become an annual event, and it has also become more than a South African event. The focus at the indaba itself has shifted to being more international in terms of speakers, delegates and topics of discussion.

In 2004, the Design Indaba® Expo was inaugurated in association with the Department of Trade & Industry. The expo component of the Design Indaba® provides a commercial platform for the finest South African designers to leverage local goods and services to the global market. It also introduces the most influential international buyers to the finest South African creative product and encourages export. And it impacts the local market. The expo aims to create discerning consumers through exposure to the principles and products of good design, resulting in the demand and production of an innovative, evolving and excellent South African creative product.

But, we added more complexity by inaugurating the Design Indaba® Workshop Series. These highly interactive workshops for young designers and students are held in various venues around the country on a quarterly basis. Their aim is to increase the standard of design education and give it a global perspective. These workshops are funded by the private sector, and are at no cost to the institution or the students. The inaugural seminar took place in Durban in late August 2001. Run by Vince Frost, the one-day workshop required students to create a magazine celebrating Durban as an African city. To date we have hosted eminent designers like Irma Boom (Professor of Design at Yale), Lucille Tenazas (President of American Institute of Graphic Arts), Oscar Pena (Creative Director at Philips), Paula Scher (of Pentagram, New York) and many more at educational institutions countrywide.

Latterly, we launched the Design Indaba® Trust (DIT), a section 21 not-for-profit company that aims to extend design exposure and training to young people outside of the established graphic design fraternity. We believe that the greatest barrier to entering the industry for many is simply a lack of knowledge about it. It is crucial to expose young people to the possibilities of transforming their natural talents into viable careers in the world of design. We have awarded bursaries to previously disadvantaged youth, to enable them to further their studies.

Also in January 2001, we launched the Construction New Media Awards (CNMA). Work entered into the CNMA is judged across five disciplines, irrespective of subject matter or target market: web sites, intranets, .exe files, CD-ROM's and online advertising. The CNMA were established to become South Africa's most coveted award within the medium. Credibility was enhanced by placing internationally renowned professionals such as Neville Brody, Tom Roope and Thomas Mueller on its judging panel, something made possible through the CNMA's association with the Design Indaba®. This year, the event went global, with entries from students and professionals around the world.

And lastly, you have probably seen our award winning Design Indaba® Magazine. We launched the quarterly Design Indaba® Magazine in January 2001 to inspire the international creative arts fraternity as well as the marketing industry with African-generated creative perspectives. The picture postcard view of South Africa is well known internationally, but little exists to contribute fresh views to the world's collective imagination. Published quarterly, the magazine is distributed internationally. Design Indaba® Magazine shows you the Africa you don't see on CNN or the Discovery Channel. The Design Indaba® Magazine is the only African magazine to win the Best Design for New Magazine Award at the Folio Show in New York, and its won a Pica Award in South Africa for the last 4 years in a row for best business to business magazine. And most recently Design Indaba® Magazine won gold again for the best art/design magazine at the Folio Show in New York.

As the Design Indaba® institution has grown, it has taken a leadership position in South Africa and has driven advocacy programmes to promote the creative industries amongst business, government, academia and civil society. It has recently compiled a document called Creative Industries: the sleeper in the SA economy that was briefed to cabinet ministers and the Office of the Presidency, from which a governmental task team will plot a way forward in creating a coherent, cohesive national strategy for the creative industries. From the website www.designindaba.com, it compiles research and a bibliography of the latest reportage on the creative industries. Also, Design Indaba® has been well represented on the conference circuit locally and internationally, speaking at events like the World Creative Forum, Ad Focus and Saint Etienne Expo. In the last 4 months, the Design Indaba® message has been personally delivered on 4 continents!

Design Indaba® 1 Speakers:
Patrick Coyne, Herman Zapf, David Redhead, Jonathan Baskin, Sophie Soveno, Brad Copeland, Jeff Rankin, Roy Clucas, Joe Kieser.

Design Indaba® 2 Speakers:
Neville Brody, Julie Lasky, Brad Copeland, Peter Vundla, Nathan Reddy, Kees Schilperoort, Ian Sutherland, Dennis Bronner, David Jack, Garth Walker, Sue Oliver, Theart Korsen, Richard Ford, Richard Baker, Amrik Kalsi, Kevin Swanepoel.

Design Indaba® 3 Speakers:
Ken Cato, David Carson, Tom Hobbs, Jen Dugan, Lewis Blackwell, Terry Jones, Walter Herbst, Lynda Relph-Knight, Graham Leigh, Roy Clucas, Carlos de Figuerdeo, Noel Cottrell, Pepe Marais, Su Birch, Dale Tomlinson, Garth Walker, James Daniels, Gavin Rooke, Nathan Reddy, Joanne Thomas.

Design Indaba® 4 Speakers:
Paula Scher, Nicolas Roope, Lewis Blackwell, Tom Roope, Vince Frost, Thomas Mueller, Chaz Maviyane-Davies, Nathan Reddy, Joanne Thomas, Jeremy Sampson, Jenny Ehlers, Johann A Schwartz-Strauss, Daniel E Gruenewald, Clint Bryce, Brian Searle-Tripp, Garth Walker, Joanina Pastoll.

Design Indaba® 5 Speakers:
Andries Odendaal, Nadav Kander, Lewis Blackwell, Tom Roope, Hans Bernhard, Luba Lukova, James Victore, Joshua Davis, Michael Stallenberg, Lucy Orta, Josh On, John Pace, Li Edelkoort, Teresa Roviras, Erik Spiekermann, Michael Mack, Muzi Kuzwayo, Marti Guixe, Shigeru Ban, Graham Leigh, Lucille Tenazas, Mark Farrow, Ross Chowles, Andrew Shoben, Lawrie Golding, Garth Walker.

Design Indaba® 6 Speakers:
Sir Terence Conran, Alan Fletcher, Stefan Sagmeister, Garth Walker, Irma Boom, Jonathan Barnbrook, Richard Rodriguez, Javier Mariscal, Simon Sankarayya, Peter Engrob, Stefano Giovannoni, Neville Brody, Fabio Ongarato, Ozwald Boateng, Tholoane Qhobela, David Kester, Malcolm Garrett, Naoto Fukasawa, David Doubilet, Sujata Keshavan, Sabine Zemelka.

Design Indaba® 7 Speakers:
Graham Warsop, Fernando Gutierrez, Ross Lovegrove, Tom Roope, Andries Odendaal, Kenya Hara, Alexander Gelman, Elsie Nanji, David Carson, Mary Lewis, Shigeo Fukuda, Happy Ntshingila, Bob Sabiston, Rasshied Din, Richard Hart, Veejay Archary, Peet Pienaar, Jaco Janse Van Rensburg, Kassie Naidoo, Gavin Rajah, Nkhensani Manganyi, Cecile Froehling, Dan Pearson, Andrew Makin, Janina Masojada, Luyanda Mpahlwa, Peter Saville, Tyler Brl, Ilse Crawford, John Heskett, Shubhankar Ray, Vince Frost, Karim Rashid.

Design Indaba® 8 Speakers:
Fernando and Humberto Campana, Nathan Reddy, Massimo Morozzi, Alison Jackson, Issay Kitagawa, Pierre Terblanche, Brian Steinhobel, Daljit Singh, Simon Waterfall, Michael Bierut, Dieter Rams, Martin Lambie-Nairn, Anthon Beeke, Petra Blaisse, Li Edelkoort, Martin Raymond, Richard Seymour, Chip Kidd, Mike Schalit, Luke Pearson, Constantin Boym, Shin Matsunaga, Jan Kaplicky, Thomas Heatherwick, Ron Arad, Nkhensani Manganyi, Jackie Burger, Paula & Paulo Feferbaum, Beverley Price, Geraldine Fenn, Andrew Makin & Janina Masojada, Silvio Rech & Lesley Carstens, Lorenz Bäumer, Carlos Miele, Richard Rodriguez, GianCarlo Montebello, Sean O'Toole, Stefania Johnson, Lynda Relph-Knight

Design Indaba® 9 Speakers:
Adam Levin, Hon. Albie Sachs, Amanda Laird Cherry, Andrew Makin, Janina Masojada, Chris Blackwell, Chris de Beer, Crispian Plunkett, Don Albert, Gaby de Abreu, Gary Harwood, Thebe Ikalafeng, Henning Rasmuss, Imraan Ho-Yee, Iris Eichenberg, John Hunt, Hartmut Esslinger, Nicholas Blechman, Christoph Niemann, Paul Sahre, Ayse Birsel, Bibi Seck, Shigeru Uchida, David Adjaye, Wally Olins, Inga Sempé, Matali Crasset, Peter Frankfurt, Ji Lee, Tom Dixon, Ross Chowles, Taku Satoh, Paul Priestman, Ze Frank, Satyendra Pakhalé, Denis Santachiara, Yves Béhar, Shaun Leane, Valerie Steele, Mark Dytham, Johan Louw, Karen Welman, Koto Bolofo, Lara Bohinc, Li Edelkoort, Martin Kruger, matali crasset, Prof. Sandra Klopper, Sean O'Toole, Shaun Leane, Mr. & Mrs. Mangaliso