ddp design fair

Therewas a buzz of excitement at the DDP Design Fair’s workshop, which was held inJune ahead of the event’s official opening in October. This is because 220teams of designers and 129 teams of makers finalized through the onlinematching platform (ddpdesignfair.or.kr) attended workshops, which were split intwo days, first on June 2 (83 teams participated) and later on June 24 (44teams participated), to find their perfect partner for collaboration with greatenthusiasm. Thisyear’s theme is “Beautiful Life”. It is very simple and clear, but it holds adeep meaning inside. It is a theme for everyone who has come to realize howbeautiful an ordinary life is by experiencing the standards and values of lifethat have changed before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Collaboration teams planto develop new products across categories, such as living (furniture, lighting,lifestyle products, stationery, etc.) and beauty (shoes, fashion, cosmeticpackage, jewelry, etc.) for ordinary but beautiful life moments that happenevery day. Inearly July, more than 180 teams of designers and makers were paired with eachother and are currently developing new products to be presented at the DDPDesign Fair. Collaboration products to be developed after a four-month journeywill be introduced to the public through the DDP Design Fair held at DDP ArtHall 2 from October 19 to 28.

A seminar was held to celebrate the opening of the DDP Design Fair on the special stage of Art Hall 1 for two days from October 22 to October 23. On October 22, the seminar’s first session was held under the theme of “Design Marketing”. The first presenter, Hoonkyu Choi, the managing director of IOne Design, addressed the topic of “Furniture & Objet” and stressed that there should be a lot of unique products (furniture, etc.) that can also become objects. Looper CEO Yongwoo Lee, focused on crowdfunding and addressed the topic of “Besides products, what else do successful crowdfunding projects sell?”. In addition, NoTag CEO Woong Choi addressed the topic of “Design , How to Sell?” and offered his thoughts about how to find new opportunities in overseas markets.On October 23, SuperBin CCO Fori addressed the topic of "SuperBin - Waste culture: Turning waste into money. Making recycling fun.” and suggested to solve the waste problem through design. Sanghee Lee, Director of the Color Design Center of Samhwa Paints addressed the topic of ”SHIFT: 2022-23 Color Trend”, and Coway Senior Researcher Jihyun Lee address the topic of “Home Appliance Trends of 2022 for Wonderful Life”. Lastly, Nayoung Kim, Director of Chong Kun Dang Healthcare Design Department, concluded the seminar by addressing the topic of “Job Search Strategies in 2021: Reading the trends will lead to a successful job search”.This seminar was held both virtually and in person and was full of great content so that young job seekers were able to obtain useful information and wisdom for their career through the Young Designer Job Fair, as well as various topics related to waste, which is one of the most pressing issues in today’s society, and the color and product trends for next year.

The 2021 DDP Design Fair attracted a lot of attention for its products with experimental approaches based on sophisticated designs, fresh ideas and innovative technologies and materials such as a one-person lounge chair tailored to each user’s body with 3D printing technology, a home office lighting piece made from pipe materials that can be transformed into various forms, a wall-mounted lamp or a floor lamp, and an incense holder that delivers the value of emptying the mind and feeling focused, especially at a time when many people want time to relax and refresh themselves.On October 21, the 2021 DDP Best Design Award was held on the special stage of the DDP Art Hall 1 and awarded the seven finalists. The products were put to a vote by citizens and reviewed by professionals. Mayor Sehoon Oh attended the award ceremony and presented the “Seoul Mayor’s Award.”Among 162 products of 162 teams developed through collaboration over five months under the theme of “Wonderful Life,” the seven finalists of the 2021 DDP Best Design Award were selected in three stages: curator review in the first stage, public voting in the second stage and expert review in the third stage. Each team of the three categories (furniture, lighting, lifestyle and living) received the “Seoul Mayor's Award”, the grand prize, while four teams received the “Seoul Design Foundation CEO Award”, the excellence prize. Among 162 design products of the 2021 DDP Design Fair, 106 teams were selected through the product review based on the real size in the first stage. For the selected teams, 2 million won was provided for the prototype development so that they can focus more on the product quality. After that, the top 50 teams were selected by adding up online public votes in the second stage, and the seven finalists (Furniture: 3 teams, Lighting: 2 teams, Lifestyle & Living: 2 teams) were selected through the expert review in the third stage.The main evaluation items are marketability, suitability for exhibition and creativity. In the third stage, well-known distributors, multi-brand store merchandisers and buyers in Korea participated as judges to evaluate the product’s marketability and feasibility of mass production. Online public votes were also tallied up together to reflect consumer preferences. Jihoon Ha, the Furniture Curator of the 2021 DDP Design Fair and professor of Kaywon University of Art & Design, said, “There were many products using new technologies and eco-friendly materials, and the versatility of products grabbed the attention of many people.”The seven finalists will receive various benefits including 6 million won for the cost of mass production, the opportunity to sell their products online and offline via the DDP Design Store, advertising on monthly design magazines and major daily newspapers and the opportunity for an online exhibition on the crowdfunding platform. The winning teams will also be provided with comprehensive marketing support as “up-and-coming designers of the year”.The winners of the “Seoul Mayor's Award” — the grand prize — are three products: a one-person chair called “The Butterfly” (Studio Plastic x Jh Studio); a home office lighting piece called “Light Now No.1” that can be transformed into various forms (Makemake x Hwangduck Engineering); and an incense holder called “Bincense” (DSLSM x likethix).○ The Butterfly (Furniture) : It is a one-person chair made based on 3D technology. Studio Plastic designers Sido Kim and Taeyeon Lee developed a chair tailored to each user’s body, which is suitable for the era of hyper-personalization. They are planning to add more color options.○ Light Now No.1 (Lighting) : It has received the “Seoul Mayor's Award in the lighting category for two consecutive years since last year. It is a product that uses the characteristics of pipe materials and can be transformed into various combinations including stand, wall-mounted or floor type. Makemake designer Bonggeon Shin said that collaborating with a great maker through the DDP Design Fair was such a valuable experience.○ Bincense (Lifestyle & Living) : It is an incense holder that burns an incense stick and a product for your office that delivers the value of emptiness and concentration. DSLSM designer Sungmook Lim said he developed this product to help people empty their mind of complex thoughts and focus on one important thing while burning an incense stick, especially at a time when people spend more time at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic.The “Seoul Design Foundation CEO Award” was given to four products: a series of modular furniture pieces that can be expanded along the curved space or wall endlessly according to the user’s environment (TTTT x Give&Take); a piece of furniture for single-person households that reflects Korea’s traditional beauty (Raan Bang x OUTRO); a set of flower pots with holes on the top inspired by Sunuimi Ceramics’ signature openwork technique and the plum blossoms of Dancheong (Studio Mindeulae x Sunuimi Ceramics); and a piece of 3D-printed lighting that can control the shape and amount of light desired by the user with the light source placed in the center of the polyhedron (intenxiv x Seojeon Lighting).Please check out our official website (http://ddpdesignfair-ex.or.kr) and our Instagram page for further information about the winners of <2021 DDP Best Design Award>. 

The DDP Design Fair, a project that facilitates small businesses to get access to design resources, is being held for the third time this year. For small businesses, design is considered something good, stylish, not lagging behind the trend and necessary for business, however, but most of them are not well versed in design. Meanwhile, designers have a lot of difficulties in translating brilliant ideas into action and mass-producing them into excellent products. The DDP Design Fair is a project where makers and designers — the grassroots of Korea’s industrial ecosystem — meet and collaborate to actively demonstrate their abilities. The collaboration between designers and small businesses leads to mass production and ultimately new products and design brands. The theme of the fair this year is “WOW! Wonderful Life!”. It is welcoming visitors with unique works not seen anywhere else. Unlike other design fairs that focus on finding markets for existing products, the DDP Design Fair is the only professional industry fair that provides support from the product development stage.After passing through the tunnel of the DDP Art Hall 1 and passing by the panel that offers an overview of the 2021 DDP Design Fair, visitors will first meet the Collaboration Zone which features the works between designers and makers. The exhibition hall is a circular space, which creates a seamless spatial connection. It also includes a rest zone that seems to be brought directly from the nature. It is installed right behind the Collaboration Zone so that visitors can rest their tired legs. The Launching Zone, the Trend Zone, and the market are located behind the Rest Zone.

On August 25, the screening committee for the 2021 DDP Design Fair was held on the 4th floor of the Seoul Design Foundation to select 106 teams for the exhibition that features collaborative products. It gives small and medium-sized manufacturers a competitive edge in design and provides business opportunities to designers by matching designers with makers. Since last March, the DDP Design Fair has received applications from small and medium-sized manufacturers and designers through its online matching platform. 161 designers (teams) and 132 makers (teams) applied for this year’s fair, and a total of 162 full-scale prototypes were submitted (Furniture: 47 teams, Lifestyle & Living: 88 teams, Lighting: 27 teams). Then, 106 teams were selected by experts in each field (Lifestyle & Living: 46 Teams, Furniture: 38 Teams, Lighting: 22 Teams). Among the many products of designers that cater to the trends of single-person households, companion animals, telecommuting and sustainability in accordance with the changing lifestyle, innovative ideas such as an upcycled product made out of plastic waste stood out from the rest.The DDP Design Fair is a fair that represents Seoul and aims to revitalize the growth of small and medium-sized companies by matching small manufacturing businesses of central Seoul with young designers, fostering the design industry and operating Asia's leading design business launching platform. For the 2021 DDP Design Fair, 84 types of collaborative products were developed, and 150 types of new products will be discovered and exhibited, which has increased by 110 percent compared to the previous year. The selected teams developed new design products that combine the technology of a small manufacturer with the idea of a designer. Each team received support through mentoring with experts in each field, legal advice on contracts, and professional training over the past 5 months.The screening committee for the 2021 DDP Design Fair performed a quantitative evaluation of the chief director and curators for the entire collaborations between makers and designers participating in product development. The evaluation items include marketability, creativity, suitability for exhibition and pre-evaluation. When the DDP Design Fair is held in October, the selected 130 teams will have the opportunity of receiving grants for product development and participating in online and offline exhibitions of the DDP Design Fair. In addition, for the “DDP Best Design Award”, all of the scores given by curators and professionals and online public votes will be tallied up together to determine the seven finalists. Three teams will receive the “Seoul Mayor's Award” while four teams will receive the “Seoul Design Foundation CEO Award”. The awarded teams will receive benefits to sell their products in the DDP Design Store, grants for mass production and support for crowdfunding training courses and platform services.

Since last July, the Young Designer Job Fair was held as part of the 2021 DDP Design Fair, offering tips and advice for creating a portfolio and practical information for prospective design college graduates, job seekers and prospective entrepreneurs. On August 23, about 50 young designers who had attended three mentoring sessions were able to experience a job interview under all the same conditions as a real interview through an in-person mock interview mostly focused on their portfolio. We met four young designers who participated in a mock interview on that day and heard their thoughts about the mentoring and training program so far. Hyeeun Jang (Anyang University, Dept. of Digital Media Design, Senior)After graduating from visual media high school, I chose digital media design as my major in university since I wanted to study more about this field. Besides digital media design, I started to get more interested in visual design, brand design and editorial design, so I'm thinking about combining video work and UI/UX design for my portfolio while I'm working on branding these days. It’s a time-consuming job. Even though the quality is great, it feels too commercial. I thought being commercial would be seen as an advantage but I was surprised when the mentors recommended that I should add works that tend to be a little more experimental, something more of a college student vibe in the portfolio. They wanted something that was not commercial and a little more creative. I have removed such works from my portfolio, but I think I need to put some of the works back in my portfolio. Since I had a group interview today, I was able to listen and compare what other candidates said during the interview so I learned a lot, and it was a good reality check for me. We had five candidates in the group interview. All candidates took turns to present their portfolio and got feedback about their portfolio from the interviewers. It is a rare chance to see other people's portfolios, right? So it was a great opportunity for me to look at other candidates’ portfolios, and the mentors provided realistic feedback about my portfolio by comparing it with other candidates’ portfolios. It was a valuable experience. It was something I cannot experience anywhere else.Yejin Yook (Kookmin University Graduate School, Dept. of Communication Design)I applied for this program since I was feeling worried about getting a job and started to think about how I can improve my current portfolio and take it to the next level. What I liked the most was that I was motivated by the portfolios of other participants and it made me look back on myself seeing my position in the job market. What was most memorable to me was that one the mentors shared her materials with the participants so that they could study on their own even after the mentoring program was officially over. I want to become a designer who has pride and affection for what I do, and I hope I can have a great ability and taste to find good values and make them my own.Inha Hwang & Eunbyul Jeong (Sangmyung University, Dept. of Interior Design, Senior)Inha Hwang : Managers of each company’s design department came as mentors to review our portfolios and give feedback for improvements. I made a portfolio, showed it to them and also showed the revised version to them. After going through this process three times, I attended an in-person mock interview today. It was conducted like an actual interview, and the interviewers were from various companies. All the interviewees presented their portfolio and introduced themselves, and the interviewers offered feedback on what could be improved and asked questions to each one of us. Each interviewer pointed out different things and gave the details on what I could improve on. The mentors also shared real world experience in their field.Eunbyul Jeong : At school, there are not enough opportunities to hear about what kind of work designers actually do or the real world of the industry so I had a great experience participating in this job fair. I also received a lot of help so I really want to recommend this program to someone who is a year or two years below me at school. I am majoring in interior design so Inha and I both got similar advice from the mentors. They told me to be confident about marketing myself as a designer. It was a rare opportunity for me and was incredibly helpful to get professional feedback on the direction of my career.Photo 1. Mentee Hyeeun JangPhoto 2. Mentee Yejin YookPhoto 3. (Left) Mentee Eunbyul Jeong (Right) Inha Hwang

Studio PAL and Studio Sons Ceramic are presenting three items including a tray and an incense holder with a motif of ocean at the 2021 DDP Design Fair. The concept of this collaboration was suggested by Studio PAL, and Studio Sons Ceramic CEO Yonggwan Son responded to the ideas presented by the designers to create a product that embodies the sentiments of the designers and the maker at the same time. Studio Sons Ceramic respected the original design as much as possible from the moment Studio PAL first conceived the idea and offered his opinion on what more could be done in order to translate the design into ceramic. Studio PAL collaborated with Studio Sons Ceramic for the first time based on the feedback it received from Studio Sons Ceramic but Studio PAL said the process was really fun and exciting. Studio Sons Ceramic tried to follow Studio PAL’s new perspective by placing the side tray on top of the tray and fitting incense holders into each tray like modules. The pieces of the product can be used separately or in combination. It is a décor item that can be used as an incense holder that releases fragrant smoke or as an object that decorates your space.

This collaborative product is aimed at single-person households, and its concept is to combine furniture with lighting that can be used in various ways. In general, lighting is placed on top of furniture. Instead, they created a piece of furniture that also functions as lighting to avoid all the hassle in a small space. Designer Hyunjeong Kim was the one who reached out to Kolamp for this collaboration but Kolamp CEO Soohyun Park was surprised when the designer contacted her because she started thinking about working with Hyunjeong Kim after seeing her portfolio, which was very impressive. When they had their first meeting after they were paired as team, the two burst into laughter. They put their notebooks on the table, and they turned out to be the exact same brand and color. Even the color of their pens was the same. They started to think they were meant to be a team. They liked each other from the time they first saw each other. Designer Hyunjeong Kim and CEO Soohyun Park agree that the finished product, which is both practical and designed with style, turned out pretty well. The two design and make products inspired by their daily lives. Designer Hyunjeong Kim has extensive experience in furniture design but this was her first time making lighting. She learned a lot through this opportunity and hopes to continue working in the lighting field as well. CEO Soohyun Park said that Kolamp is a home lighting brand with a long history but it has been collaborating with artists in various fields since this year began. She said that she got a lot of inspiration especially from the designers she had met at the DDP Design Fair and would like to continue unveiling interesting pieces of work to the public from the artist's point of view.