First impressions
Walking along the Quays in Newcastle Gateshead we were very impressed by the scenery, the architecture of the buildings and numerous (incredibly high) bridges. But we did not fail to notice the enormous red banners of Dott 07 Festival right behind the Millennium Bridge. Approaching the bridge, we passed lots of people with Dott 07 lanyards and cards around their necks. We had read that if we got our cards stamped in each zone, we would get a free Dott 07 manual. We wanted one! We were eager to get to the other side of the river and finally enter the festival. Crossing Millennium Bridge, we saw a crowd outside the entrance watching an entertainer. When we passed the crowd, we were kindly welcomed and handed the lanyards.
The festival grounds are comprised of two longish tents right between the impressive BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and The Sage. The outside is covered by the red banners we could see from a distance. The entrance is carpeted with artificial lawn, the boarded floors in both tents are carpeted, but still, it’s quite lowd when you walk through the exhibition. The exhibition design is simply made of europallets forming half open stalls with posters pinned to them. There are a few lounge areas, where you can sit and talk about the projects, there are lots of crew members all wearing red T-shirts and eager to stamp your cards, ask you to join in and willing to answer your questions. The individual zones – Welcomes, Food, Health, Schools, Movement and Energy – all have a different colour and thus are clearly divided.
We had expected the festival to be a bit bigger and, as it was the first day of the festival, we were disappointed that there wasn’t any kind of opening event. The audience was mainly made up of groups of school children and college students and a few middle aged women, who seemed to have stopped by the festival only by chance. But that might be the aim: to attract not only designers, but also the public to promote service design where it is performed and to work on the public understanding of this new design disciplin.