Brendan Dawes
Bio
Brendan Dawes is a designer and artist exploring the interaction of objects, people, technology and art using an eclectic mix of digital and analog materials.
Ever since his first experiences with the humble ZX81 back in the early eighties, Brendan has continued to explore the interplay of people, code, design and art through his work on brendandawes.com where he publishes ideas, toys and projects created from an eclectic mix of digital and analog objects.
His work is featured in the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York and is a Visiting Teaching Fellow at the Manchester School of Art.
'Fillings for rectangles' is how he often describes his work. Over the years those rectangles have come in various shapes and sizes including websites, iPhone apps, posters, books, electronic circuits and pieces of plastic. Whilst his output takes on many forms, running through all his work are consistent themes of playfulness, curiosity and experimentation.
He believes passionately in putting new objects into the world that disrupt the status quo and ask questions about accepted practices; such as his Doodlebuzz news interface - a celebration of chance encounters and serendipity - featured in the Talk to Me exhibition at MoMA in New York and earlier won a D&AD award for interface design.
Session
Everything Starts Out Ugly
Over the years Brendan has come to realise that the first stages of an idea, that first thing born from that sketch made out of optimism and hope is usually always ugly.
And that's OK. It's part of the process of getting to something you can call beautiful.
In this session Brendan shows you some ugly stuff. Early stage prototypes, stupid little experiments, and things that he nearly abandoned.
He'll show how these things can grow and begin to meet the expectations you originally had; how putting this often ugly stuff out into the world, unfinished and far from perfect, can lead to beautiful work that people will pay for.
