Seymourpowell Foresight team report on Milan’s Salone del Mobile ‘05Tessa Mansfield and Paula Zuccotti of Seymourpowell’s Foresight team (who translate design trends into international client product strategy), were commissioned by four leading global lifestyle and design magazines this year to report on key trends from the Milan Furniture Fair. As ever, the fair provided a broad platform for new talent and conceptual ideas, which will go on to inspire design creativity far beyond the constricts of the furniture business. Tessa and Paula’s reports were published in Grand Designs and New Design in the UK, as well as in leading Chinese fashion and lifestyle magazine VISION and in Australia and New Zealand’s exciting new lifestyle and design publication LINO, identifying the new and notable themes that will have a wider impact on the commercial design industry in the year to follow.
Richard Seymour is appointed Creative Director of Dove for UnileverFmcg giant Unilever has appointed Seymourpowell director and founding partner Richard Seymour as the Creative Director of Design for the Dove brand, with global responsibility for all packaging design and graphics strategies for the Dove suite of products. Dove is now the world’s number one cosmetics brand, retailing to more than 80 countries and generating sales of more than £1.7bn. This unusual move marks the first time that Unilever has made a global appointment of a dedicated external design consultant to oversee the design issues and strategies relating to a single brand. The move extends Richard Seymour’s existing role at Unilever as the Consultant Design Director for the company’s UK personal care division Lever Fabergé.
Seymourpowell director David Fisher invited to speak in TaiwanSeymourpowell director David Fisher, who specializes in consumer electronics projects (such as the M-Cube speakers for Mission), has been invited to join a number of well-known international designers on the judging panel of this year’s Taiwan International Design Competition, to be held in Kaohsiung in October 2005 at the Taiwan Design Center. The competition, which is known, according to its organizers, for ‘its exuberant creativity’, last year attracted 1076 entries from 36 different countries and is likely to exceed that this time around. David will also be giving a speech to an audience of Taiwanese design professionals in Taipei during his visit.
Richard Seymour gives speech on Optimistic Futurism for the Design Indaba conference in South AfricaRichard Seymour was one of the key speakers this year at South Africa’s Design Indaba ’05, which aims, according to founder Ravi Naidoo, to ‘attract the thought leaders of the world to inspire our local creatives.’ Richard’s speech on ‘Optimistic Futurism’ pleaded the case for designers to create new and profoundly optimistic products and worlds, rather than simply ‘newness’ for its own sake. The UK’s Design Week Editor Lynda Relph-Knight, who re-printed the speech in her magazine, commented: ‘Product designers as diverse as the German master Dieter Rams and the UK’s Richard Seymour spoke about sustainability in their field, with Seymour opening the hearts and minds of the audience to social ills, such as homelessness’.
Dick Powell takes over as President of the D&AD for 2005Seymourpowell director and founding partner Dick Powell has been appointed the 2005 President of leading British creative body D&AD (‘Design & Art Direction’), whose famous ‘yellow pencils’, given out at the D&AD’s annual award ceremonies, are one of the world’s leading accolades for creatives in the design and advertising industries. Dick’s duties over the course of the year will include overseeing the judging and ceremony for the 2005 Awards, helping to develop the recent annual ‘D&AD Congress’ initiative and furthering the organisation’s many educational initiatives within both industry sectors.
Aqualisa Axis wins major UK consumer magazine design prize at the Homes & Gardens AwardsAqualisa’s revolutionary ‘Axis Digital’ shower (designed by Seymourpowell as the latest example of a highly successful 15 year client-designer relationship) triumphed at this year’s Homes & Gardens Classic Design Awards, held on 10th March 2005 at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. ‘Axis Digital’ was the recipient of the Readers’ Award, securing its success from over 10,000 votes cast by readers of Homes & Gardens magazine and via an interactive ‘voting wall’ at The Victoria & Albert Museum. The diverse shortlist for the award included the Matador Chair, designed by Sir Terence Conran, the Living Kitchen Range, designed by Nigella Lawson and Sebastian Conran and Sainsbury’s.Allium Tableware. Homes & Gardens Editor Deborah Barker commented ‘This year’s phenomenal number of votes indicates we are not alone in our search for products that combine outstanding design, quality and practicality.”
Seymourpowell director Nick Talbot invited to speak in KoreaSeymourpowell director Nick Talbot, head of the company’s transport division, has been invited to speak at the Gwangju Design Biennale 2005 in Korea in October 2005, where the ENV hydrogen fuel cell motorbike project, which he directed, will also be on show to an audience of businesspeople, designers and students of design. Nick’s speech will look at the possible futures of transport design, putting the ENV bike into context alongside other future scenarios The prestigious Gwangu event and exhibition is a leading international forum centering on design innovation and runs through to the end of the month.
Seymourpowell celebrates its twentieth anniversary2004 saw Seymourpowell celebrate its twentieth year in business with a celebratory party at London’s Design Museum - with which the consultancy has always had close ties and where Richard Seymour is currently a board member. A presentation for the assembled staff, Seymourpowell graduates, journalists, clients and friends took the audience on a whistle-stop tour through the company’s transformation from an initial meeting of minds between a dedicated product designer (Dick Powell) and an advertising creative, graphics, film production and book designer (Richard Seymour) to the creation of what is now one of Europe’s leading product design agencies, run by a close-knit team of six directors and over 40 staff, with a multi-award-winning portfolio of projects and a client CV comprised of many of the world’s best known brands.
