Marco Siebertz and a guest in front of the 100 CUPS. Photo: Carsten Fork

Last Sunday the exhibition “100 CUPS” as part of the “new talents 2008 – the junge biennale koeln” closed its doors. Marco Siebertz must have been happy with the result of those 9 days in the Cologne docklands “Rheinauhafen”. Especially on the weekends hundreds of visitors strolled in and got fascinated by the 100 paper cups that strung orderly on the CUPboard.

The designer, who was invited to show his talent on this new interdisciplinary biennale, is interested in objects of everyday life and was always wondering where all those paper cup come from and why it is such a growing trend. Involving the psychologist Darina Barooah, he did an analysis about the social implications of “paper cupping”. He found out that the paper cup e.g. is a strong symbol for our performance society: “The cup is a strong symbol. It says: look here! I got not time to sit and relax in a café. I’m already heading towards my next appointment. I’m important.” Moreover Marco Siebertz thinks that the paper cup will be an ersatz (replacement) for the more and more outlawed cigarette. “There are certain similarities in the attributes: as a cigarette, the Coffee To Go is made of paper, becomes warm, it gives you access to a druglike substance, you can grab hold of it and most important: you can suck it!”

As the design researcher did not want to strain the visitors with too much analytical input, he decided to give the exhibition a visual centre that was meant to attract interest to the visitors – what it did indeed! Siebertz produced 100 variations of paper cups that partly refered to the analytical part, but also where connected to completely different (e.g. political or social) contexts. Those mostly satirical designs opened the chance to the viewer spending more time with an object that is usually a mere transient good: you drink the coffee and throw it away.

Some CUPS: the LoC(k)-UP, War-on-Terror-CUP, Social-CUP, Free CUP and Tele-CUP - Photo: Carsten Fork

There is for example the ”Hurry-(C)UP” – a paper cup with a hole at the lower part that is closed by a removable strip. When you follow the instructions saying “open here” and you remove the strip there’s not much time left to empty the cup without spilling most of your coffee. “This cup is a reference to our accelerated lifestyle”, says the designer. Or there is the “Pay-Attention-CUP” which has ten holes that the user has to concentrated upon keeping them closed with his fingers for not pouring the coffee.”T(w)o-Coffee-Go” however is a more satirical one: two cups with legs that walk together.

A bit sterile, but chique: the freshly inaugurated Rheinauhafen. - Photo: Carsten Fork

The exhibition received a lot of feedback. Many visitors drafted and designed their own ideas on blank paper cups, newspapers reported about it, e.g. the “Kölner Stadtanzeiger“, newspaper of the Cologne region. As also many asked for pictures of the exhibition, ROGER LiVE will continue publishing one cup a day from the exhibition.

A big thank you goes to Carsten Fork for providing the pictures. There is also an audio guide description in German that explains the exhibition.

Dott 07 (Designs of the time 2007) is a year of community projects, events and exhibitions based in North East England that explore what life in a sustainable region could be like – and how design can help us get there. The year culminates in a twelve day festival in Newcastle Gateshead in October 2007, showing the results of projects and enabling all the people involved to share experiences. The Dott 07 Festival is supposed to inspire people and motivate them to participate in or even initiate similar projects themselves.

Lots of the projects presented at the festival are service design projects. Service design is still Continue Reading »

… when complicated and useless looks so much nicer?

TROIKA, producer of innovative promotional gifts, is proud to announce that taping things is no longer the ugliest, most boring and un-chic job on the agenda. The “abrollding” (dinspenser thing) replaces monolithious tape dispensers with pure design-pleasure. Designed by Ding3000, the abrollding has already won numerous design prizes: Designpreis Rheinland-Pfalz 2005, Promotional Gift Award Silber 2006, Good Design Award – Japan 2006, FORM 2006, Prädikat Design Plus 2007. TROIKA assures: Your wave of enthusiasm will not brake!

Well, until you actually try and use this beautiful thingamajig: Continue Reading »

Vom 31. August bis zum 16. September findet zum zweiten Mal das europäische Kunstfestival ILLUSTRATIVE BERLIN statt. Im Zentrum des Festivals steht eine Ausstellung für zeitgenössische Illustration und Grafik, die mit über 200 Arbeiten renommierter Künstler als führende Werkschau dieser Disziplin gilt. Gezeigt werden unter anderem Arbeiten aus den Bereichen Illustration, Grafik-Design, Comic, Buchkunst, Animation und Game Art. Zu den Künstlern der Illustrative gehören weltweit bekannte Illustratoren wie Russell Cobb, David Foldvari oder Olaf Hajek und Zeichner wie Tim Dinter, Jens Harder und Frédéric Coché – auch ROGER-Illustrator Mario Wagner ist vertreten.

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“Cause every reflector does cause actor.”

Easy to miss on the huge Vulkan terrain, a small red brick entrance signposted only with two small lettered mirrors leads into a musty bunker. This is Nicola Richter’s (diploma designer) chosen spot for her installation “The Narcissus makes the Sisyphus”. Continue Reading »

Seit mehr als 20 Jahren vereint SIDI verschiedene kleinere und größere Möbel- und Interior-Designer aus Spanien unter seinem Namen. Dabei stellt SIDI professionelle Infrastruktur bereit, um die Designer national und international auf Messen und Ausstellungen sowie bei Wettbewerben bekannt zu machen. Der einzige außerspanische Sitz, der SIDISPOT, befindet sich in Köln. Neben der ständigen Ausstellung “Best of Spanish interior design” wird zu RHEINDESIGN der arquinfad award vorgestellt. Continue Reading »

True to the motto “have fun – explore the city – with rheindesign!” the corporate designers of RHEINDESIGN developed a, well, very reduced map. You might find that you have no other option than to explore the city while trying to hunt down the locations of the numbered stars in the nameless grid. No street names, no landmarks, not even the cathedral, but at least the Rhine, surrounded by acres.

The map will give you information on how near or far the events are, but remember to pack a “proper” street map if you don’t know your way around. And don’t forget your umbrella!