This design week has something to offer to everyone who wants to satisfy their inner-artist in the city. Whether you are interested in technology, hands-on creativity, graphic design, or sustainability, there are workshops throughout the city to delight the designer within you.
This design week has something to offer to everyone who wants to satisfy their inner-artist in the city. Whether you are interested in technology, hands-on creativity, graphic design, or sustainability, there are workshops throughout the city to delight the designer within you.
Are you a creator and loves to work with your hands? Tashkeel will be hosting a workshop by London-based resident artist Fay McCaul on CONTEMPORARY TAPESTRY, TASHKEEL’S DESIGNER IN RESIDENCE. As a participant, you will be have the opportunity to experiment with traditional textile processes, in particular foil and sublimation printing, and design your own patterns which will be printed on laser-cut plywood and linked together to make individual geometric artworks. If you want to learn the techniques of painting but are afraid of the prospect, come attend the MAS SPECIAL PAINT WORKSHOP on November 13th by AUD and MAS, and the SHAW CONTRACT WORKSHOP on November 15th by AUD and Shaw Contract. This interactive workshop will improve your knowledge of composition and special techniques for special paints. There will also be a live artistic paint performance by MAS. Artistic paints will be explained and applied by the students. The workshops are free but you need prior registration. Join a unique Design Making session on DIY CONCRETE DESIGN by the jamjar, a community arts and design space in Alserkal Avenue. You will have the opportunity to learn how to work with this distinctive and unusual material and do your own objects in a two sessions workshop, starting Friday to create your design, your mold and pour your mix, and returning Saturday to polish your work, paint, and bring home your very own modern industrial vase, pot, candlelight, cup, or bowl…. the limit is your mind! AUD’s Professor Michael Rice will hold a Raku and Naked Raku workshop, demonstrating the firing techniques and process of the Raku kiln, a Japanese ceramics technique invented in the 16th century for a tea ceremony in Kyoto. Work is taken from the kiln when it is still red-hot, then placed in a combustible material like sawdust or newspaper to starve the pot of oxygen, this creates a glaze with a wonderful variety of colours.
If you are interested in sustainable design, join the workshop for Emerging green designers by Professor Camilo Cerro, Daniel Chavez and Juan Roldan in AUS, designed to foster awareness around sustainability. Participants will complete a prototype of a furniture piece in the allotted time, using only recycled materials like scrap wood and plywood.
Interested in learning how to design eye-catching posters? Learn the art of poster-making in two workshops at Tashkeel, both part of Welformat DXB, a collaboration between Tashkeel, Welformat (a collective of graphic designers from Lucerne), Cairo-based designer Engy Aly and Mobius Design Studio’s Design House with some support of Pro-Helvetia. On 16th November, Sarah Alfarhan, an illustrator + graphic designer based in Dubai, UAE, will be holding a workshop on RISO GIG POSTERSwhere participants will be introduced to Tashkeel's Riso ME 9350 Printer, a digital, eco-friendly printer that uses soy oil based ink, to create an edition of 30 bilingual, A3 gig posters in Arabic and English to promote a selection of musicians. On both 16th and 17th November there will be another workshop STOP AND COLLABORATE! by Mayar el Hayawan, an Egyptian designer based in Basel, Switzerland, where participants will work in groups to design a Weltfromat-sized poster, encouraging collaboration and experimentation. Young graphic designers will be encouraged to discover different practices and methodologies, when faced with the challenge of designing a poster in a short period of time.
Looking for something more technical? Techarc will be conducting an intimate workshop only for 10-12 participants with a design background on digital fabrication and virtual reality, providing guidance to attendees on how best to experiment and enhance their skills set using virtual reality to simulate any environment, material, product, or artwork.
If life without coffee makes you depresso, begin your Saturday with a KARAM COFFEE EXPERIENCEin Al Quoz. Guests will gather in the Karam Experience Room and be offered traditional welcome drinks, after which a small brief about Karam Foods Industries by the marketing team and a brief about the coffee journey by Ms. Juliet and the Baristas will be presented. Then, learn the difference between hot air roasting and the conventional drum roasting in their lab, followed by a demonstration of how the larger scale production works. After a brief cupping session, there will be a quick quiz and high scorers will even be presented with the freshly roasted coffee!
There are workshops for the little ones, too. AL JALILA CULTURAL CENTRE FOR CHILDREN will run a wide range of workshops for children of all ages at their location in Umm Suqeim 3, including pottery, painting and mono screen printing. There will also be a workshop for children at Rise Dubai Creek Harbour, Global Children’s Designathon, where 25-30 students aged 7-12 from 5 to 6 different schools from across the UAE will work in parallel and design solutions for a better world with children from eighteen cities around the globe. They will discuss and ideate around the water issues, imagine sustainable solutions, build prototypes and present them to each other via a live connection.