in a response to london’s annual design festival, now in its 9th year, and to the “25 years of cultural deep freeze, the anti-design festival will attempt to unlock creative fires and ideas, exploring spaces hitherto deemed out-of-bounds by a purely commercial criteria.” So says founder Neville Brody, who takes the Anti in Anti-Design seriously. “The Anti Design Festival is anti-everything. The Anti Design Festival is anti-nothing. While the ADF is not against design, there is also a need for change. We are not anti-design as much as we are anti-everything.”
If you have any doubts just check out the event website. The ADF logo includes the London Design Festival’s logo – with a big X through it. The front page also does things with kerning and font size any design teacher would shake their finger at. Of course, that’s the point. ADF is not only a chance to play with design without the imposition of clients, bosses or market restrictions, but it’s a chance for your work to rub shoulders with contributors like Jonathan Barnbrook, Stuart Semple and Stefan Sagmeister. It’s nonprofit (i.e. no prize money); If that’s a problem, ADF probably isn’t for you.
ADF takes place in Shoreditch, London from 18-26 September (the last week of The London Design Festival).
