Last weekend we attended the ADC Festival 2019 in Hamburg, where this year again an extensive program consisting of lectures, exhibition, award ceremony, and after-party took place. We are very happy that the Slanted Magazine Tokyo (silver) and the Slanted Magazine Dubai (bronze) were awarded in the category Editorial among such extraordinary other works and that we were able to receive two of the coveted nails. To celebrate the day we give you 30% discount on the winning magazines Tokyo and Dubai in our shop. Just put it in your shopping cart and use the discount code ADC2019 (valid until 05/31/2019)!

A little review: General consensus of the speakers was a high on creativity as an important medium for the masses. Be it Jonathan Meese, who proclaimed art as a form of government in total anarchy, or Prof. Roland Lambrette, who called communication the most important binding medium between us humans, the quality of design as an effective power of communication and the designers as co-producers, whose fees should never be seen as money of silence. More important is the “what”, not the “how”. Out of the safety of the opium of beautiful appearance. We should take responsibility for our content, because we are responsible to the people we reach. Prof. Dr.-Ing. h.c. also showed this impressively. Volkwin Marg, who as an architect for stadiums is an expert in staging for the masses. He showed a film that vociferously linked the images of crowds of people with flocks of birds in order to then draw a bow to ascending aircraft fleets. A stadium – birds – airplanes. The film itself was also staged with the intention of emotionally capturing us viewers.

The actual motto of the ADC this year was “Creative Intelligence—How Ideas Are Created.” And so, in addition to the effects of creative activity, there was also talk about how one’s own creative work can be promoted. As a lecturer at the School of Biological & Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, Dr. Caroline di Bernardi Luft showed the scientific perspective on creativity and explained why flashes of inspiration come out of nowhere and why we often find the ideas in procrastination that we have been searching for so long in stress. In a nutshell: Our brain learns to work according to certain patterns. When the area that applies these same learned rituals rests (for example in the evening) our mind can work more freely, unaffected by experiences and learned ways of thinking. Another question was to what extent AI and technology can replace creative work. Fortunately it was agreed that creativity still requires the human being. A computer can paint: The painting Edmond de Belamy, which was created by an AI, was auctioned off to a stranger for more than 400,000 US dollars at the auction house Christies in New York. The algorithm that made this possible for the computer was nevertheless created by the people around Pierre Fautrel from the Obvious collective.

The exhibition at the Museum für Arbeit in Hamburg is also worth a visit. In addition to the works of the professionals, the works of the juniors show the quality of young design in Germany—this gives hope that many golden nails can be distributed in the future as well. After a silver and gold confetti award show, in which the works and nails of course also helped to impress the audience, the night began. The musician Ren and the DJ team Dragos&Ash provided the right sound for the finale of a successful congress at Kampnagel. The well-thought-out curating of the many lectures created a framework that favored the exchange among each other.

We are looking forward to the ADC Festival 2020!
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