Design Leaders and Creative Luminaries of the World Converge at BODW, 2018

Concurrently
Hong Kong Design Centre Honours Global Designer and Projects with 2018 DFA
Awards

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HONG KONG, CHINA - Media
OutReach - 22 November 2018 - Organised
by Hong Kong Design Centre (HKDC), co-organised by the Hong Kong Trade
Development Council (HKTDC) and sponsored by Create Hong Kong, Business of
Design Week (BODW), Asia’s leading annual design event, will be held in Hong
Kong from 3-8 December 2018. The week-long event will feature more than 20
events, including the BODW Summit, BODW City Programmes and a series of
concurrent events, all with the aim of providing a platform for business and
creative leaders to exchange ideas, network, and explore new business
opportunities.

 

Concurrently,
HKDC will honour the 2018 recipients of the DFA Awards. The Awards are widely
known in the industry as one of the most important and prestigious honours
stemming from the region. The Awards encompass five-major programmes, with
three pillars that recognise individual contributions to the advancement and
development of design, as well as two programmes that celebrate impactful and
outstanding design from the Asian perspective and support and cultivate local
up-and-coming designers and design graduates.

 

Business of Design Week 2018

This
year’s BODW summit will take on the
theme of ‘Think ? Collaborate ? Create’
and be presented in collaboration with partner city, Melbourne, cited as the
world’s most liveable city by the Economist Intelligence Unit for seven
consecutive years (2011-2017). The event features more than 70 speakers from
over 15 countries and regions to present the latest industry insights and to
promote the advancement of the creative industries.

 

“BODW
represents a core component of the Hong Kong Design Centre’s public mission to
promote a good design culture and cultivate design thinking for all,” said
Dr. Edmund Lee, Executive Director of HKDC. “We are thrilled to
see this event grow from strength to strength since its inception in 2002 to
become one of the most important events on the global design calendar.”

 

An anchor
event of the week, the BODW Summit presents a stellar lineup of international
speakers to share the latest industry insights and to promote the wide and
strategic use of design for cities, the economy, culture and living. In
addition, new sessions focusing on Digital & Design, the Greater Bay Area
& Design and more, will be introduced this year.

 

BODW Summit’s
Plenary sessions feature a lineup of design experts including Martha Thorne, scholar and executive
director of Pritzker Architecture Prize (US); Prof. Rob Adams AM, director of city design & projects of City
of Melbourne (Melbourne); and Ben van
Berkel, founder / principal architect of international design network
UNStudio (The Netherlands), and the designer of the Lyric Theatre of the
West
Kowloon Cultural District; Ron Arad,
acclaimed industrial designer, artist, and architect (UK); Charles Renfro, distinguished architect and partner of Diller
Scofidio + Renfro (US), and Toyo Ito,
multi-award winning Japanese architect (Japan).

 

The ‘Brand Asia Forum’ and ‘Communication & Design’ tracks will
explore the future of brands and how the shifts in lifestyle are transforming
businesses and changing the way we connect and communicate. Influential leaders
and visionary creative minds include
Erik Spiekermann, iconic type and information designer as well as an expert
in letterpress printing (Germany); Antonio
Colombo, president of Cinelli &
Columbus (Gruppo Company) (Italy); Tony
Chambers, creative consultant and founder of studio of TC & Friends,
and former Editor-in-Chief of Wallpaper* (UK); Suzanne Santos, chief customer officer of Aesop (Melbourne). Other
participating brands include naked Group (Mainland of China) and BEYORG (Hong
Kong).

 

In the ‘Product & Technology’ track and
the newly introduced ‘Digital &
Design’ session, BODW will explore how technology and its applications are
changing our everyday experiences with speakers such as Sonny Tilders, animatronics designer, creative director & CEO
of Creature Technology Co. (Melbourne); Ken
Wong, game designer, creative director and founder of crafts games studio
Mountains who won the Award at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers’ Conference (Melbourne);
Leah Heiss, Melbourne-based designer
combining design research and technology to benefit the health industry, who
has won a Premier’s Design Award for her design of the world’s first modular hearing
aid product — Facett (Melbourne); Rex
Sham, co-founder & chief science officer of Insight Robotics; Michael Stoddart, Director, Creative
Cloud, Asia Pacific of Adobe; and a panel of speakers and disruptors coming from
across the fintech, healthtech, retail and hospitality sectors.

 

Newly
introduced in 2018, the ‘Greater Bay
Area & Design’ track provides knowledge into the business opportunities
created under the Greater Bay economic policy spearheaded by the mainland
Chinese government. Speakers include Jia
Wei, founder and chairman of LKK Design Company (Mainland of China); Mann Lao, founder and creative director
of Chiii Design (Macau);
Elaine Yan Ling Ng,
founder of THE FABRICK LAB (Hong Kong); and Hong Ko, partner of KL & K Design (Hong Kong / Mainland of
China)

 

The ‘Creative Mindset’ session will
feature speakers including Patrick le
Quément, co-founder and president of the Advisory Board, The Sustainable
Design School (France) and Sebastian
Conran, CEO of Sebastian Conran Associates and Consequential Robotics (UK). In response to Melbourne’s globally
recognised status as the world’s most liveable city from 2011 to 2017, a
special seminar on ‘Liveability, Sports
& Design’ will feature prominent speakers from the city of Melbourne,
Hong Kong and beyond. Jill Garner,
Victorian Government Architect; Brian
Morris, CEO of Melbourne & Olympic Parks Trust; and Alastair Richardson, director of Cox
Architecture, will bring valuable insights on how forward-thinking sports venue
design and strategic redevelopment of existing sports facilities can increase
the liveability of a city and benefit its economy. Margaret Brooke, co-founder of Heritage Hong Kong Foundation and
Very Hong Kong Foundation, will also share her insights into the liveability
and wellbeing industry from a Hong Kong perspective.

 

This
year’s Masterclass will feature Carol Ross Barney, FAIA, renowned
architect, urbanist, educator, and design principal of Ross Barney Architects
(US). She will discuss the making of liveable cities and how to design for
social good.

 

BODW
City Programme

 

Launched this year as a
new extension of BODW, the BODW City Programme is an annual creative community
activation programme featuring exciting happenings such as art installations,
exhibitions, creative tours, and education and community programmes. It will debut
in Wan Chai and other districts in Hong Kong with the vision to engage both business
and the public. The BODW City Programme aims to foster stronger collaborations
between local designers, businesses and brands to celebrate good design and
innovation, and strengthen Hong Kong as a creative hub in Asia. The annual
programme will take place from November 2018 to January 2019.

 

For the
latest information about ticketing and this year’s programme, please visit bodw.com.

 

DFA Awards 2018

Awardees
of the 5 major programmes of the 2018 Design for Asia Awards were announced by
the HKDC earlier this year. This year DFA Design for Asia Awards and DFA Hong
Kong Young Design Talent Awards recognised 203 Local and International Awardees
for the Best of Design Excellence in Asia. In addition the individual winners
for the three prestigious awards were also announced.

DFA
Design for Asia Awards received overwhelming response this year, with over 1,000
entries from 18 economies submitting design projects for consideration, the
highest number to date. The judging panel selected 187 design projects, all of
which launched available in Asian markets, and that demonstrate how design has
contributed to social, cultural and economic progress, covering four major
design disciplines including apparel & accessory, communication,
environmental and product & industrial designs. A total of 10 Grand Awards,
3 Grand Awards for Culture, Sustainability, and Technology, 10 Grand Awards for
Special Mention, and 164 winners from the Category Award are conferred,
altogether demonstrating the power of design solutions to enhance and improve
the quality of life in Asian regions and as well for the global populations.
Among the winners, design projects from Japan and Hong Kong stand at the top of
leaderboard, each with 55 winning projects, followed by Mainland China with 40
winning projects.

 

DFA Hong
Kong Young Design Talent Award fosters the development emerging design
practitioners or graduates of 35 years old or under from Hong Kong. In 2018, 13
out of 16 winners will be awarded up to HK$ 5 million in total in grants for
overseas attachments to incubate visions and provide opportunities for
cross-cultural exchange projects. The programme seeks to cultivate the next
generation of home-grown design to broaden exposure to the global design
landscape. Through overseas work experiences or educational initiatives, the
next generation can continue to fuel the creative economy, with the vision to
further build Hong Kong’s competitive offerings.

 

The
2018 recipients of the DFA Lifetime
Achievement Award (DFA LAA), DFA
Design Leadership Award (DFA DLA), and DFA
World’s Outstanding Chinese Designer (DFA WOCD), the highest and most
prestigious design honours of DFA Awards in the year were also annouced. The
DFA LAA is conferred to Sir Terence Conran, one of the world’s best-known
designers, retailers and restaurateurs. Concurrently, this year’s DFA DLA will
honour Dr. Andrew Dent of Material ConneXion, a leading global expert in
sustainable and advanced material research and development. The DFA WOCD will
go to Mr. Lyndon Neri and Ms. Rossana  Hu, architects and co-founders of Neri&Hu
Design and Research Office.

 

NOTES TO THE EDITOR

More information, please visit www.dfaawards.com.

 

About Hong Kong
Design Centre

Hong Kong Design
Centre (HKDC) was founded in 2001 as a strategic partner of the HKSAR
Government in establishing Hong Kong as centre of design excellence in Asia. HKDC
continues its public mission to promote wider and strategic use of design and
design thinking to create business value and improve societal well-being. Our
initiatives are anchored by five major work directions: CONNECT, CELEBRATE,
NURTURE, ADVANCE and ENGAGE.

 

HKDC’s flagship
programmes include Business of Design Week (since 2002) — Asia’s leading annual
conference and event on Design, Innovation and Brands; DFA Awards (since 2003)
— a widely recognised design awards that celebrates outstanding designs with
Asian perspectives; Design Incubation Programme (since 2012) and Fashion
Incubation Programme (since 2016) — 2-year incubation programmes to nurture
future design and fashion entrepreneurs; FASHION ASIA HONGKONG (since 2016) — a
fashion initiative combining conversations, interactions and cultural exchanges
to energise the city’s image, and position it as an Asian hub for fashion trade
and business development; Knowledge of Design Week (since 2006) — an annual
thematic design knowledge sharing platform that explores how design can solve
complex challenges of our society.