plural blog

If you haven’t been to the Chicago Cultural Center lately, you should check out the Deceptive Design exhibit located on the first floor. I had a free minute a few weeks ago and happened upon the show where I encountered a few choice pieces. For the most part, the show is okay, but in particular, the red hologram lamp is beautiful. (I couldn’t find a good image of it, maybe cause it didn’t really exist, but you’ll have to go there to “see” it.)

“The Chicago Chapter of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) with the Chicago Furniture Designers Association (CFDA), have collaborated for the first time to launch an exhibition entitled Deceptive Design: Experiments in Furniture, running at the Chicago Cultural Center from October 10th, 2008 until January 4th, 2009. The exhibition features prototype furniture, furnishings and functional objects that challenge convention with innovative concepts and compelling forms.

The focus of this exhibition is to push the envelope of our common conceptions of furniture and furnishings and explore new roles for design to take on. Each of the works selected for this exhibition will employ a means of deception (visual, mechanical, material, functional, etc) and show that furniture and functional objects can be more than just comfortable or useful.

Perhaps equally deceptive is the design process. Design is still a mystery to those who aren’t practitioners themselves. As designers, we find ourselves constantly explaining our role, often defending its place or importance, and yet we often exacerbate this by keeping our sketches or ideas private, only revealing our work in the form of finalized renderings or polished prototypes. Deceptive Design also seeks to unveil the creative process by showing images from the design process alongside each finished piece.”

-via Deceptive Design