Woolworths launches second edition of Design Resource Guide

Together with the Western Cape Education Department, Sappi and Design Indaba, Woolworths has played a vital role in developing learning and teaching support materials and offering support in the form of workshops to teachers, through its 'Making the Difference Through Design' educational programme since the implementation of Design as a subject in the FET Curriculum in 2006.

Like the first guide, the aim of the second volume is to enrich the educational process by providing high school teachers with real life case studies from practising designers to help encourage and inspire the high school learners who are the designers of tomorrow.

Says Pieter Twine, who heads up the Woolworths Educational Programmes, "While the first volume has a very South African flavour, this time we wanted to provide a global perspective with case studies from some of best design practices in the world and some South African design projects that have received international recognition. In addition to giving insights into the design project itself, we also asked our contributors to provide insight into the commercial aspect of their projects and the challenges they faced in bringing them to fruition.

"The commercial aspect of design is an important one in South Africa and we believe that successful designers, as young creative entrepreneurs, can make a significant difference by creating jobs for many people in the longer term."

This second volume will be sent to nearly 400 schools in the Western Cape, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal and covers all four design disciplines, which form part of the curriculum:

• Visual Communication Design
  
• Surface Design/Two Dimensional Craft Design
  
• Product Design/Three Dimensional Craft Design
  
• Environmental Design

International contributions

• Massimo Vignelli & Beatriz Cifuentes-Caballero's new corporate ID for Woolworths
  
• Vince Frost's creations for Australia's pavilion at the 11th International Venice Architectural Biennale
  
• Michael Bierut with Pentagram's solution for reinvigorating New York's school libraries
  
• An uplifting story from Francis Kéré, a young architect from Burkino Faso, about the design and construction of a village school
  
• Kiran Bir Sethi with the success story of Design for Change from India
  
• the remarkable design for a clock at Heathrow Airport by Troika
  
• Marc Shillum with the design of an interactive corporate ID

Local designers

• Peet Pienaar and Hannerie Visser of the Toffee Pop Culture Festival
  
• The Handspring Puppet Company - the group who created the puppets for the award-winning stage production of 'War Horse' - with the story of a 'Tall Horse'
  
• Graffiti artist, Faith47, who took the words of the Freedom Charter to South African streets
  
• Filmmaker Roger Horrocks, whose documentary about swimming with crocodiles in the Okavango Delta has been shown all over the world
  
• Animation production company, Shy the Sun, with imaginative 3D animated ads created for M-Net
  
• INK, with its design of a beaded vine light

"Over the past six years, thousands of young people have benefited from the Making the Difference Through Design Programme. It has helped some to develop their talent and others to discover theirs. Even those who have not gone on to pursue careers in design have gained an appreciation of design and creative thinking that will serve them no matter what career they follow," concludes Twine.