Last day of the Design Indaba 6

Sabine Zemelka

With credentials in architectural, interior and product design, now with the formidable responsibility for the design philosophy, strategy, detailing, quality and innovation of the interior of BMW vehicles/working with engineers, model builders, automotive and electronics techies of every description, sourcing suppliers of plastic, metal, fabric and leather components and coordinating a large design department while maintaining standards, interpreting global trends and translating them into the distinctive character of the BMW brand are all in a days work for Sabine/none of which sound as formidable as facing rude and cringeworthy questions from the floor such as why the new 7 series has been voted the ugliest car of the year or why they don't try and make BMW's highjack proof.

David Kester

Chief executive of D&AD - the most coveted awards scheme in our industry (attracting 20,000 entries from around the world) /council member of the Royal College of art and chair of the Art Directors' Club of Europe/ Mr Yellow Pencil himself presented a retrospective romp and affectionate celebration of 40 years of British advertising, design and culture/from the jingles and puns style communications of 1960's swinging London to the opinion shaping campaigns of the 70's, the gritty big epic style commercials of the 80's and the proliferation and convergence of new electronic media of the 1990's, requiring new skills in creative departments around the world/his message we can better shape the future by understanding the past.

Naota Fukasawa

A 36 hour flight from Tokyo did nothing to dull the genius of Naota Fukasawa/a deep understanding of how humans unconsciously respond to their environment is the starting point for his much awarded commercial and experimental product design concepts/an easy embrace of how technology and design can allow you to harmonise within your environment - from personal sky panels synchronised with the phone on your desk (exhibited at New York's MOMA museum in 2001), to the ease of a pull cord CD player (for trend-setting Japanese retailer Muji)/an electronic panel on your office chair leaves your imprint behind when you leave called a chair with a soul left behind/a bar stool that is a digital bathroom scale anticipates the action of careful sitting/the ease of a nail varnish bottle with a hole that you can wear on your finger while doing your nails /from the wit of tea bag marionettes and salt and pepper maracas and a selection of why don't all cellphones and watches look like this to the obviousness of a TV trolley case on wheels that you can turn to face the wall for an unusual lighting effect when not watching/however it was his design for a jacket with a round digital panel on the back and camera in the front which effectively allows you to see right through the person when walking behind them - that really brought he house down! What did you discover about human behaviour today?

Javier Mariscal

Known as the designer who created Kobi - the charming mascot of the 1992 Barcelona Olympic games - nothing could have prepared us for the indescribable mastery, ecstatic passion and joyous celebration of cartoon animation performance art delivered by Spain's answer to Walt Disney on some serious happy pills, suffice to say that we gave him a thunderous standing ovation at the end - Get the video, get a life.

Sir Terence Conran

In the light of the above, you can imagine that Sir Terence was unfortunately lumbered with a pretty nigh impossible act to follow, which was a pity for the top-billed key note speaker of the entire conference/If I'd known I was going to have to follow that, I would never bloody have come offered Sir Terence with a wry smile/still a fifty year career as a serious shaper of a design empire is not to be sneezed at and there were a lot of lessons to be gleaned from this fantastically successful self made man/from art school beginnings and a small furniture-making workshop in the 50's to a powerful influencer of commercial and lifestyle trends and a listed company by the 1970's and beyond - the overall message of the 6th Design Indaba was reinforced/by by his message - design can improve people's lifestyles, change public opinion and shape public tastes/a recent report from the Mayor of London states that the creative industries add £21 billion annually to the turnover the city/the Indaba introduced us to case studies, strategies and techniques that show unequivocally how pure design has improved the profitability of an array of public services and business activities in the UK, Spain, Italy, Japan, the USA, Germany and Holland and India - it can do the same for us.

As the design community in South Africa we are on the threshold of everything - we just need to make it happen. As designers we need to stand up and be counted, to communicate with integrity, courage discipline and intent to our clients and consumers. We are already doing a lot right. Bet you didn't know that 50,000 BMWs were produced in our Johannesburg Rosslyn plant which in 2002 won the BMW Best Plant award for quality. We need to stick Made in South Africa stickers on everything we produce, to market ourselves actively and, like our counterparts in Italy, India and Japan make human needs and human proportions the starting point of any concept. Design is not out there, it is not about lovely fonts or eye-catching layouts - it may often be a deeply personal and intuitive process that cannot be rationalised by research groups - as Sir Terence pointed out People can only buy what they're offered, but design it is also a simple and logical response to the need to improve our lives and that of our fellows. Designers know this. Business across the board in South Africa needs to consult with more designers and hold them accountable for doing what we do best - that is to question, think and find fresh ways of looking, seeing and problem solving on commercial and humanitarian projects.

Createsa is a new government funded training scheme aimed at improving skills development in the creative design industry is a step in the right direction. They need our support in their aims of bringing the design industry together to collaborate and promote design education. Support this initiative by going to www.createsa.org.za and find out how you can start sowing the seeds of a booming SA design culture. One thing we are not short of in this country is creative potential.

As Garth walker aptly put it in closing "I think it's fair to say that the Design Indaba has arrived". Recognised, as one of the three largest events of it's kind in the world and seamlessly organised by Interactive Africa, it has succeeded in attracting an increasingly high standard of the world's foremost design practioners. Nice as it is for attendees to feel like a privileged clique, ideally this event should be marketed to a wider audience of design disciplines - to include product, package, textile, architectural and interior designers as well as business and brand managers. If you didn't get there this time, order the videos and start saving up for next year's registration fees.