So the deed is done, the destination is deserted and the design has disappeared.  Until next year that is.  Closing the doors on the Old Fire Station with over 4,500 visitors at that venue alone, this year’s Bristol Design Festival was by far the biggest, and most certainly the best.  As I am sure that a detailed recap of the festival will be published soon, this is just a simple post to say some thank yous.

To all of the sponsors and the supporters who made the festival possible… To all of the volunteers who at times braved the cold and the rain trying to direct unwitting pedestrians into the venues… To the exhibitors who allowed Bristol, nay the world to see just what a creative city we live in and what a diverse range of design we can create… And to the public, who came in their thousands to look, like and love what they saw.  Thank you.

Finally, the BDF will be back next year, and it is your festival.  Tell us what it is you would like to see.  Tell us what you liked best this year.  Ideas, competitions, venues, exhibits… we want to hear your thoughts.  We will be back, we will be bigger, and fingers crossed, we will be even better.

[As with John Bradford, I too must give full disclosure.  A member of the 1K club, I also now work on the Bloodhound Project and am fully biased to how great the project is.]

The West of England Design Forum have always tried to get a wide and diverse range of designer’s to give talks at the city’s Watershed venue, but it is rare that they manage to get product designers and even more rare that they get one working on such a pioneering project.

Mike Turner, one of the lead designers on the Bloodhound SuperSonic Car Project gave a fascinating and thought provoking presentation on Wednesday night on why it is that he does what it is that he does.

His career, to put it simply, is full of interesting projects.  Starting in 1997 with Adtranz designing rail vehicles, he moved his way through the Renfew Group and JCB until he became senior industrial designer working on the JCB Dieselmax World Record Vehicle.  Now running his own company (Mike Turner Design Ltd) he came to the Bloodhound through links made with Dieselmax.  ‘I got bored, so moved on’ seemed to be a concurrent theme throughout his career.

What was interesting was hearing how much of a balancing act his sort of design really is.  Designing the A-Surface bodyshell of the Bloodhound SSC (the surface that interacts with the air) involves continuous liaising between the lead engineer (John Piper) and the chief aerodynamicist (Ron Ayres).  Mike works with the CAD software Alias, trying to make the profile of the car as sleek and as ’slippery’ as possible whilst still accommodating the package that needs to be carried within.

One of the more surprising points that he raised came down to the time that he actually spends on the project.  As each new configuration of the car body needs to go through CFD testing, it could be a case of several weeks between design iterations.  The results would come back from the analysis, twenty to thirty changes would be listed, Mike would redesign the model and off it would go for another round.

What was clear though from his talk was that this project held its own unique constraints.  This is design at its absolute limits.  Very few rules are known.  What is more though, this is a one off project.  This means that there are no manufacturing constraints; each part is bespoke.  Neither I nor the organisers of the event had seen so many questions raised by the audience.  It is a captivating project; one that inspires and begs you to find out more.  Mike Turner only gave a taste of the challenges and complications that building the fastest car on earth holds, but nonetheless it was worth it, just to see where design can take you – to the borders of what is possible.

- Hywel

It is always a real challenge to try and quantify the success of an exhibition launch.  Do you rank its performance on the amount of visitors? The press coverage? The alcohol consumption? Last night the Bristol Design Festival held its launch party at the Old Fire Station, complete with competitions, prizes, speeches, wine, nibbles, music, and everyone seemingly enjoying themselves.  To summarise the launch though, let’s look at a few numbers…

500 – The number of visitors who basked in the warm glow of the spotlights as the third annual Bristol Design Festival kicked off.  The actual number is still being tallied, but at the point of writing this we reached over the 500 mark.

59 – The number of Grafikea Competition Entries on display.  A massive jump again in both volume and quality of the entries.  Some of them are quite simply unbelievable.

10 – The number of pimped Trunki’s that were on display.  As both Trunki and the BDF are celebrating their third year, Trunki is auctioning off the customised pieces in aid of the Festival.

12 – The number of crates of free wine that that aided the merriment and friendly chatter.  The interaction between designers and the public along with the general buzz of the venue was something that is hard to capture in words.

60 – The number of exhibitors in the Old Fire Station alone.  This year the Festival is able to boast over 500 exhibitors in 30 venues across Bristol.

3 – The number of large bags of munchies that were devoured, giving the public another reason to kick back and enjoy themselves in the hub of Bristol creativity.

6 – The number of bags of ice that were used to keep the wine cool.  A small detail, but as all good designers know, it is the small detail that really matters.

250 – The prize fund handed over to the winner of the Grafikea competition.  The competition was fierce this year but made all the more fun by the massive novelty cheque that Neil Ferguson had managed to acquire.

12 – The number of prizes and awards given out during the party.  This included 6 Grafikea, 3 3D Design and 3 2D Design prizes.  All worthy winners, but there are also plenty of worthy mentions.  To see what ones you like though, come and visit!

1 – In the end all of these numbers add up to a single event.  The launch party, whatever you use to quantify it, was a success.  It had a fantastic atmosphere, wonderful people and as with previous years was the perfect showcase of just what Bristol Creatives can do.

This is not the end though for the Festival.  The BDF will be running all the way through until the 11th June.  If you were unfortunate and missed the Launch party, do not worry.  You haven’t missed the event!