Miss Cant, Artist in residence at Norwich School, had the pleasure of attending V&A’s design festival last week; she shares with us her experience…

The weekend of the 13th of September saw the V&A open its doors to The London Design Festival. Pieces of contemporary design sat alongside the museums, 4 million strong collection.

Award winning Zaha Hadid Architects created Crest for the festival and is situated in the John Madejski garden. The wave-like form hugs the shape of the pool and the surface quality mirrors the patterns made from the moving water.

Moving inside to the Raphael gallery, Designers Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby have worked with BMW to create Double Space for BMW. The ceiling has been replace with mirrored panels that move gently transforming the view and feel of the room. With every movement the viewer is invited to renegotiate the space and the Raphael paintings that share the room.

The Design Festival also saw the resident ceramist studio doors opened to the public. Nao Matsunaga has been in residence at the V&A for the last six months in which he has explored the Wild Beasts that appear throughout the V&A’s collection from Japanese Prints, to ceramics to paintings. The ceramics Matsunaga has produced are often combined with painted woodcarving and the way in which it is displayed is of great importance.

The festival also included a lecture series. New North Press discussed their letterpress company and their exciting newly developed 3D printed letterpress font. The video for this can be found at: http://www.new-north-press.co.uk. The font was produced in collaboration with A2 design and is said to be the first 3D printed letterpress of its kind.

By Miss Cant