State of Design Festival 2011

State of Design Festival increases the awareness of the value of design and showcases how design generates innovation, promotes sustainability and adds value to business and society. Festival programs demonstrate and broadly communicate how the Victorian and Australian design profession can improve living conditions, create sustainable development opportunities, and generate new and innovative products and services; in turn, providing economic benefit for the state of Victoria.

By communicating to Victorian, Australian and international audiences, the Festival promotes a deeper understanding of design capability and value. The Festival is accessed through a highly focused program of workshops, forums, exhibitions and events. A chief concern of the Festival is to assist designers in making their “offer” more appealing to businesses and to encourage those businesses engaged with design to communicate the benefits to their peers who are not engaged.

State of Design Festival responds to the Victorian Government’s innovation statement (VIS) which aims to meet the challenges of international competition, an aging population and climate change to ensure a healthy, sustainable, and productive future for all Victorians. Australian Exhibitions & Conferences will deliver the Festival in 2011.

In 2011 the State of Design Festival explores design in, on and around projects that are transformative, mobile and networked. Workshops and forums examine the nomadic, the cyclical and the role of design systems. We are keen to understand how we can use design to create more active cities and we present events in transitional zones: platforms, revitalised spaces, foyers and stairs. These are 'spaces that take us places'. We also examine how design affects us mentally and physically. We ask, ‘how does design influence our experience of objects and environments, how does design influence how we feel’? For the 2011 Festival, motion and emotio