Futuristic Event Us by Night

Us by Night is a three days design and creativity festival which was held in 23-25 November 2017 in Antwerp. Walking through the hall while entering the exhibition, I could already feel the futuristic atmosphere. There were some LED Billboards in enormous size that kept showing constantly changed graphic design. There were 3 stages every hour from 17.00 – 23.25 was full of guest speakers who works at top 60 creatives industry around the world. They would share interesting story about their jobs in design. Besides that, the exhibition was also very interesting to me. The exhibition consisted night market, play arcade games on massive screen, tattoo place, and virtual reality experience.

The first panel talk was from Creative Belgium. According to them, design is not about how things look like, design is all about how things work. In this session, they also shared some tips and trick how to get your inspiration and how to be creative. Another interesting story came from Isaiah Toothaker who said that his inspiration to make his tattoo business came from his personal struggle. He wanted to be original on his identity. Therefore, he combined his interest in music, design, and tattoo. His concept to his business is to never follow others, be your-self and dare to push boundaries. His design is more like dark such as devil and extraordinary creature. He combined the dark style with bright colours though. I like his colour mixing style. From his story, I realize that to be exist in creative industries, you need to be original, not only going with the flow, but you have to show your identity and be bold.

The next panel talk that caught my attention was CATK design studio. CATK is an interdisciplinary design studio from Germany, working across the fields of technology, art and music. Based in Berlin, they shared a lot of magnificent visual design combined with music. They were the creator of Issey Miyake Bao-Bao bags advertisement. They work in creative and independent environment embraced by technology. I really love their design and style. It is a perfect mix between simplicity and elegancy. They have been working with lots of big companies, such as, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Nike, Kenzo, Benetton, Red Bull, BMW, New Tendency, Volkswagen, and X-Box.

Nike Lab from London participated in this event as well. Nike is a huge footwear venture who leads in innovation, discipline, and technology of footwear. They created Nike Lab ACG, which is an acronym of All Conditions Gear. Nike Lab ACG delivers a modular apparel system designed for both women and men. In this event, they shared some free projects which is aimed to be emotionally connected with the new audiences. They keep expanding their products, not only in footwear, but also jackets and clothes. Nike Lab enhances their designs by doing experiments in style. In addition, they focus on keeping the balance between inside and outside of design products. The concept of their newest advertisement is beautiful and expressive movements, which is depicted by amazing visualisation in graphic design. According to me, their new projects looks very sophisticated and well-made.

Another interesting story came from WeShouldDoItAll. It is a contemporary design studio that translates clients’ needs into dynamic, visual systems that can be presented at multiple scales. They solve problems of branding, environmental, interactive, or print projects. WSDIA has been nationally and internationally recognized through various awards and publications. This studio has worked with some artist, such as Beyonce, Kanye West, and Rihanna. They are working now with Nike Chicago to release Nike’s technology pack product series. Their strategy is to keep focusing on communities. Communities, however, bring a big impact in society. They build relation with some communities by doing great talk and sharing the moment together. Not everything went right while doing this project. There are many things went wrong, such as deadline, putting everything on schedule, and trouble in planning. WSDIA always learn from failure. They strive to earn credibility from their clients and they do everything for the projects by heart. Those are some reasons to keep their existence.

Marshmellow Laser Feast also exhibited their laser and virtual reality projects. Marshmallow Laser Feast are a London-based design studio which was found in 2011. What makes them difference is they are always looking to create ground-breaking experiences that immerse and amaze in completely unexpected ways. They believe there is the world beyond the limit of our senses and they keep exploring it. After 3 days attending this event. I think this is a quite cool event for students. All the designs and technology are depicted together in beautiful way of visualisation. Since we all know business and technology grow rapidly so students have to follow and be aware of it. These are couple pictures that I took on the event. If you have attended or will attend to some interesting event, do not hesitate to share your story with me. See you on the next post!