So we attended the annual Shenzhen
Industrial Design Fair and I have to say it was a bigger success than we first
thought it would be. We met some interesting
new prospective clients that I am hoping will turn in to real projects in
markets outside of what we have normally worked in. This should keep the team happy and
interested working on new problems.
I got interviewed for the show’s internal
media and for local television which was fun.
We saw an interesting way to get people to
your stand by having a naked girl being body painted which is very novel in a
family exhibition!!!!
I got to meet the head of the IF Design
awards, and the President of ICSID who are both very funny men.
We met some of the local competition and
found that Shenzhen has a real growing design community which I hope we can now
grow to be part of. It seems the
approach is very different from what I am used as all the local design agencies
seemed to know each and even worked together.
Not the competitive nature I am used to in the UK. It seems even the staff move between
companies back and forward, but I guess that is a problem with a small
industry.
So they all know who we are now so let’s
see what these new friendships lead as the design industry is here to stay in Shenzhen
and its only going to get bigger.
The only let down was one of the companies
had re-designed the Apple watch…………….to look like the Apple Watch and another’s
company logo looks remarkably like American
Airlines logo which is maybe a bit of an oversight on the organiser’s to not
get them removed as possibly not ideal in a show about Design and
Innovation.
