Glancing Backwards to Look Forwards Pt.6

From distorted realities, through a revived DIY punk spirit, on to ramshackle post-industrial roughness and as far as the downright bizarre – our collection of posts that look forward to trends we hope to shape creativity in 2013 (by looking back at our favourite posts from 2012) have all had one thing largely in common: we’re brazenly desecrating the grave of minimalism and order. Dieter Rams would most certainly not approve. There’s still a time and a place for starkness and functional design of course, but in 2013 we want to be surprised, challenged, amused and engaged by the creativity we experience – and indeed experience itself is increasingly a major factor in the success of a project.

In the final part of our Glancing Backwards to Look Forwards roundups, we’re looking at a movement that often stopped us in our tracks in 2012 – the rise of personality in design. Had the cookie-cutter iDevice copycats sucked the remaining life out of clean lines, sleek curves and shiny, shiny materials? Had one too many an egotistical big-name designer attributed one too many a pompous ‘theory’ to their largely uninspired works? Whatever it was, we were craving a little dose of fun with our creativity in 2012, and it’s a trend were hoping to see continue into 2013 and beyond.

Designers like Tessa Koot, Studio AMUNA and Joshua Ben Longo produced works that delivered wonder, amusement and warmth by delivering personality as well as stylish aesthetics; Sheffield-based Psalt put the fun back into product design with their brilliant fish bowl design, and Madrid-based Carlos Mate showed us the dark side of emotive design with his brilliant Flowers of Evil collection.

Yuko Shimizu’s enduring bundle of cute, Hello Kitty, infiltrated the street art world, and even air travel; whilst Yuki Uebo’s Anonymous Singing booth and the Centipede Cinema (that popped up in the Portugese town of Guimarães) brought bizarre brilliance to the table. One of our favourite features from 2012’s London Design Week was Vera Chapter Two, an endearing collection of products inspired by a series fictional stories that were based upon a collection of found Polaroids of a chubby young girl – poignant, beautiful and daring.

In a world where products, projects and portfolios are scanned hurriedly and hastily – emotive work that instantly engages is sure to muster more of a response than just another hunk of shiny glass and aluminium. We’re not proclaiming to be trend-forecasters (god forbid), but if 2013 were to have a healthy dose of cute – we certainly wouldn’t object.

Read all of our Glancing Backwards to Look Forwards posts