DESIGN ME A CITY!

April 17-22, Belgrade was the creative hub of the world! We saw a new face and spirit of Belgrade, owing to this one event which accelerated the rhythm of the city and turned it into a true modern metropolis!

For the first time, not only in Belgrade, but in this part of Europe as well, the most famous international designers, theoreticians, branding and advertising experts gathered around. The ambitious project of organizing the first Belgrade Design Week was carried out by several independent Belgrade creative teams, headed by Jovan Jelovac of the TransEast studio, and Nina Babic, the executive producer of the festival. Re:design, Samba, Click and the Mikser organization created concepts for segments of the festival conference program of the (“Market2“,“Brand2“,“Fashion2“ and “Design2). The international expert circles already hold this program to be among the best in the world. From now on, the third week of April in Belgrade will be time of gathering of the creative people and organizations from all over the world, which promote invention, reveal new concept, establish new professional relations and friendships, and above all – have a real good time.
 

This first two days of the festival, entitled the “Market²“ gathered the major creative names of our advertising: the local advertising, branding and design agencies, as well as independent expert, agencies´ owners, creative directors, free-lancing art directors and designers; general managers of the biggest media houses, media producers, the leading experts in tourism, historians and publishing authors; engineers of the already established and the new domestic brands.
 
The“Brand²“program presented to Belgrade some 20 of the most important international experts in this area, growing in importance. Brand leaders, both the owners and the creators of the global brands, disclosed their priceless experiences to the Belgrade audience.

Guests and participants in the “Design²“ program were the top design stars of today, who never before appeared in a press conference together: Ben Evans, the Director of the London Design festival; Luigi Colani and Gaetano Pesce, design legends; the famous international critic and theoretician of design
and architecture Deyan Sudjic; the icons of the contemporary industrial design Karim Rashid, Konstantin Grcic and Ross Lovegrove, Maxim Velchovski, the aspiring hope of the international design scene; as well as the names that make us proud in the world: designer Sasa Lakiç, brand expert Jelena Mijanoviç and architect Srdjan Jovanoviç Weiss.

With the design week Belgrade qualified among the small number of cities in the world hosting this type of manifestation. In London, the first design week was held in September 2003; New York had its first design week in June 2005, Hong Kong is only just getting ready to have its design week. In the region between Milan and Moscow there is no similar manifestation, which opens the door for the Belgrade Design Week to become not only the main design event in the countries of former Yugoslavia, but also the most important event of this kind in this part of Europe. Belgrade is at the same time the easternmost and the southernmost design festival in Europe, the westernmost festival in the Balkans and the only design festival in countries of former YU.

Parallel to the main program of the Belgrade Design Week, there were accompanying events modeled after similar successful festivals in the world. Coordinator of the accompanying program Tatjana Ristic made sure that the exhibitions, workshops, magazine promotions, books, opening nights of new galleries, cocktail parties and get-togethers additionally raised the adrenaline level of the city in which the social life by default picks up the pace around this time of the year. Design students´ exhibitions at the Cube art gallery (´Kocka´) and the Student Cultural Centre gallery (SKC), the display of Helle Jongerius works at the showroom House, as well as fashion exhibition “(R)evolution of the Beg” at the Museum of Ethnography. The events that most contributed to the metropolitan spirit of Belgrade are the “Check-in” exhibition of the young Maxim Velchovski, the homage to the legends of the design “Superstars@Superspace” and the exhibition of the Serbian industrial designers “Ghost project” at the new gallery space of the Beton Hala at the Belgrade Sava Docks. The only possible title for capital that refrained from sleeping for a whole week was “Beograd²”.

Special highlight to the success of the festival is the fact that we managed to bring several international top designers with origins in this region back to Serbia. Konstantin Grcic, Deyan Sudjic and Sasa Lakic are names very much familiar to the international public. Thanks to the Belgrade Design Week, these international stars visited Belgrade after a 20-year break, and confessed to us that in it they found a surprisingly dynamic cultural scene, positive energy, supremely educated and competent young people and, finally, warmth and friendships which will pull them back to the homeland of their parents more often from now on.