Back from a busy weekend at the V&A village fete where Digit hosted their stall ‘Beat the Banker’. Luckily we dodged the downpours and eventually the sun came out for a summer’s evening on the friday and a scorching saturday. Never seen so many people desperate to chuck a sponge at a bankers face. Big thanks to Richie for being in the stocks both days. More pictures here.

It’s that time of year again and thankfully the V&A have invited us back for what is looking like THE LAST VILLAGE FETE. For those of you who don’t know the village fete is an annual event at the V&A co-ordinated by Scarlet Projects and hosted in the V&A museum’s garden. Design companies, students and artists unite in creating a mix of stalls loosely themed on the traditional English village fete There’s always a tombola, a dj called Barry and loads of fun stalls where you can buy custom made stuff, make something of your own or play a game and possibly win some prizes. It’s been running for 10 years now so this one is probably going to be the last …. or so we are told.

Anyway this year the theme is centred around the ‘current ‘crunch’ mood’ and this week we started work on our stall ‘Beat the Banker’. The plan with this is to create a giant steady hand game in the shape of a share prices graph. Participants will then have to carefully manouvere their metal handed umbrellas from one side to the other without touching the electronically charged copper pipe.  Time is important and a leaderboard will be on hand to show the fastest contestants of the day. Getting on to the leader board wins you a prize.. a handful of (chocolate) money. Maybe the photos will make more sense…. (see below). I’ll stick more up as development progresses. The village fete takes place next friday (24th) evening and saturday (25th) daytime so if your around west london and fancy checking it out then come down and have a go.

Visited the New Designers show last night at the Business Design Centre.  Some great work on show especially from Dundee University’s Product Design course.  Check out below.

Displacement Engine – Jasmine Cox

“A Displacement Engine is a compass that always points home, but allows the user to toggle the route and drift off-course, a new way of exploring your environment. A way of getting you out of a dull disappointing and repetitive routine.”

Doorbell – Mike Skene

“Made up of 13 hand tuned aluminium chimes housed in a sycamore frame, the Doorbells contemporary design and appealing sound is a welcome change to the standard functions of a doorbell.”

More projects to come….

Visited the RCA over the weekend to check out the grad shows from Design Interactions and Design Products. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh the Design Interactions course drove me nuts. I read what little explaination there was and was still left confused. Why do they have to make it so complicated…. ? surely the whole point of interaction is that it’s easy to interact with. The Product and Furniture design improved my visit with projects that didn’t leave you squinting at the small print. I particularly liked Merel Karhof’s wind powered knitting machine and Il-Gu Cha’s radio for the blind and whiteboard clock that wipes the clock face clean as time passes. See pics below.