'' I would like to welcome you all to Design Week Lagos 2024!''
This starting line, and yet a powerful word from the founder, Titi Ogufere, was the exact words many design lovers, and players in the sector have been waiting for as they witnessed the opening of this year's edition of Design Week Lagos. It signaled another layer of achievements in creating a strong networking platform over the years since its inception in the year 2017 projecting African creatives. The word resonated with the spirit of many attendees as they responded with invigorating cheers.
Design Week Lagos is an annual event that celebrates innovation and creativity in the field of design. This event brings together designers from arrays of design sub-sectors like Industrial design, Interior design, Furniture design, and many more. The event serves as a platform for networking, collaboration, and inspiration for those working in the design industry. From keynote speakers and panel discussions to hands-on workshops, it is a highly anticipated event in the design community, drawing large crowds and generating significant attention from the media, industry experts, manufacturers, and policymakers in the country. In balancing the level at which the organizers attract their diverse audience, they never failed to complement it with parties and exclusive VIP events for the youth
This year's edition which was activated from 23rd- 27th October 2024 saw the diversity of personalities that were in attendance such as industry icons, and celebrities, hence adding dynamic and vibrant energy to the event.
It also created an atmosphere of excitement and inspiration from renowned designers like, Benedict Radcliffe; an automobile designer for Range rover, Oluwatobi Ajayi; CEO of Nord Motors, Dapo Akintunde, the Nigerian automobile designer, Myles Igwe, a great artist and designer, and many more.
As an inter-disciplinary convention, this approach fosters creativity and cross-pollination of ideas as the event witnessed various experts in both economy and construction sector like, Dr. Ayo Teriba, a great economist of repute, Jamila Faniyi, Kelechi Onyike, and Peter Akpabio, as they all bring to bear their unique perspectives and experiences.
On the other hand, the government pulled so much weight behind this event as it received a huge representation starting from the office of the vice president, who was ably represented by his Special Assistant, Fegho John Umunubo. The Office of Art, Culture, and Tourism was also represented by its principal, the Honourable Minister Hannatu Musa Musawa. The Traditional rulers were also not left out as Her Majesty, Olori Atunwatse III graced the occasion with her presence.
Parts of the words delivered by the Vice President, re-echoed the essence of gatherings like this, as he appreciated many of these great actors in the design world calling them champions of innovation. He further said '' I bring to you the warm greetings of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to whom the theme of this event resonates greatly; the role of design in driving economic revolution.'' The vice president further made salient points of how important the creative industry is, as a result, the government has been keen on its efforts to see better growth in the sector. According to him, parts of the government effort was the creation of the National Design and Innovation Competition with the aim of training over 1 million creatives in Furniture, Interior, and Industrial Design. This was also complemented with the tangible intervention of a 5 billion creative fund which Made by Design documentary on Netflix was a beneficiary.
What preceded what we now know as Design Week Lagos according to Titi Ogbufere, started in the year 2010 with the launch of Idea Awards, to Africa Culture and Design Festival of 2017 which featured several works of Art from traditional to contemporary ones from notable names like Femi Akinsanya, Bisi Silvia, while Titi spearhead a sub-event within the festival called ''Design Pavillion'' which major aim was to showcase great African talents like, Jomo Tariko, Tade Folawiyo so much more.
The Olori Atuwatse cemented these strides with her impeccable speech as she encouraged designers not to be complacent with the present position. According to her '' When we speak of the next frontier, I think African design actually pre-empt that. Africa design is the new frontier. She further said, '' We aren't looking at what has been done alone, we are here to elevate it, push boundaries, offer solutions in African ingenuity and creativity.'' She further challenged these great talents who are in attendance to cause a disruption in the design world with unique designs connecting to our roots as against what we were bequeathed as Africans by colonial masters, as we become authority in redefining our spaces.
After this, the Fireside Chat session was activated. The session which was hosted by Titi Ogufere, saw the two great automobile designers, Benedict Radcliffe and Dapo Akintunde shared insight into their backgrounds, experiences; struggles, and achievements. The simplicity of their approach to every question they were asked shows their practical nature. This really allured the audience, especially upcoming designers having the opportunity to get firsthand insight. This last segment brought to an end Day-one of the event.
On the flipside, one must also acknowledge the diverse audience representing different works of life. Many managers of the creative industry representing their respective entities took it as an educational journey while students from different tertiary institutions see it as a platform for interacting with the real world.
Going forward, Day-two of the Design Week Lagos kicked started with opening speech from Jacqueline Aki, the managing partner at James Cubit Interiors. Her speech was in consonance with the new birth of ideas already established in Day-one as she re- emphasized the essence of platform like the Design Week of bringing about level playing ground for both trainees and professionals in design sector to thrive while she subtly introduced the next session; Design Week Talks. According to her, "we take this vision to the next step. Design Week Talks is key platform to bridge the gap between young designers and ability to scale their concepts and creation in our industry particularly in product and industrial design." She further imprint these areas in our subconsciousness of having the potential of driving the country's economic growth leading to a big time industrialization.
In no time, the panel session follows suit as the like of Arc. James Udoh, the Honourable Minister, Hannatu Musa Musawa, Dr. Ayo Teriba, and Olusegun Zaccheus was called to the podium to discuss and dissect the topic "Designing Economic Growth; Policy Strategies for Industrial and Creative Economies."
The creative sector plays a significant role in the economic growth of countries around the world, and Nigeria is no exception. With its vast population and diverse cultural heritage, Nigeria offers a wealth of opportunities for the sector to make a tangible impact on the economy through its respective sub-sectors. The creative minds in Nigeria have been driving innovation and growth in various industries, but to what significant rate? If you too are curious to know like me, please kindly be my guest. According to the forecast made by experts in some corners of the sector, the craft industry is yet to attract 13.2 billion of its potential due to a lack of investment and substantial policies referencing its performances before now as it only contributed 1.2% to Nigeria's GDP in 2022 while benchmarking it with the rest of other African countries.
The session however started with the first question directed to the minister which was responded to with a thorough answer as she espouses several policies already enacted and those policies which would make a great impact in the sector. One of such is the Intellectual Property{IP} policy which was never there before. According to her, for the ministry to meet its target, there must be stakeholder meetings with all these sub-sectors. She however left the audience with a good and positive perception of the government.
However, from the economic standpoint, Dr. Ayo Teriba gave an intelligent response that is going to get stuck in the memory of many attendees for a long time. According to him, it takes a tripartite collaboration of the government, the professionals themselves and platforms like Design Week Lagos in order to make tangible progress. He said '' The very first step for design to have maximum impact in the economy, the design community need to be openminded as the world is transforming. He further said ''The rate at which patents are being converted to trademarks is in ten folds over the past decades.'' According to him ''Patents started growing annually from 2.5 million to 3.5 million, but trademarks have risen from 5-25milion a year.'' This information itself provided indepth knowledge to what makes a design meaningful in the advent of the transformation taking place in the world. With the intimidating growth of services that are being rendered controlling every economy of the world, he advise these designers to see beyond their scope in order to make contribution to the economy.
Olusegun Zaccheus further corroborated points that were made by Dr. Ayo Teriba from a more practical angle as he said'' A lot of time, we focus on creating element of design rather than scalable solution element of design.'' This literally underscores the point earlier made that designers need to wake up and domesticate their viable products for the benefit of the Nigerian economy. He further said that in case where raw materials used for product design are all imported, and yet cannot stand the level of competition in the country, and not to talk of solving some major problems in the country.
Day 2 of Design Week came to an end, not after another panel session came to bear and which was titled ''Fostering Collaboration within the Built Environment.'' it saw experts mostly architects and interior designers as they slugged it out reeling out guidelines and specifications and also their experiences on the job with other professionals like the designers and engineers on their past and current projects. In stating their challenges, one that is worthy of note, was the response from a great expert, Osaru Alile as she said that both the architects and engineers handling construction jobs oftentimes do not like carrying along the interior designers right from the beginning when the job started which sometimes leads to increasing the project cost for the client, and may not help holistically bring the idea of the client into reality at the end. According to her, that unity of purpose of creating aesthetics and one that's functional must be there from the start.
Author: Olatunji Olasehan
Olatunji Olasehan, is an educationist by profession but is currently a Merchant recruiter & Affiliate manager at HOG- Home. Office. Garden online marketplace. He just regained his long-time love for writing as he expresses himself in the mood of Art that depicts his nature in a stylish manner towards appreciating his evolving environment.
