Dundee Design Festival 2019

Exploring Liveable/Loveable cities for 2019, we developed a festival that took place in the underused retail spaces inside the Keiller Centre in Dundee City Centre. The focus was on an accessible and 'always on' festival where people could turn up, get hands on and explore design and the design process through a series of playful experiments.

Exterior of the Keiller Centre shopping centre on a grey day.

Interior corridor of shopping centre with empty windows and shutters down.

The Location

The Keiller Centre built in the 1970s on the site of an old jam and confectionary factory in the heart of Dundee City Centre.

Interior corridor of shoping centre with empty windows.

Deep pink room with luminous yellow sign with text that reads 'open soon'.

Variable Font

Created with designer Tommy Perman and drawing influence from the old confectionary wrappers, this typeface can change shape and style using sliders and was central to the whole festival concept.

Exterior Design

Exterior of the Keiller Centre in the sunshine with freshly painted white exterior, luminous green shapes and black branding for the Dundee Design Festival 2019.

Entrance to the Keiller Centre with luminous yellow backing and black branding for the 2019 Dundee Design Festival.

Entrance to the Keiller Centre with luminous pink backing and black branding for the 2019 Dundee Design Festival.

Entrance to the Keiller Centre with luminous green backing and black branding for the 2019 Dundee Design Festival.

Posters
& Promotion

Typographic posters for the Dundee Design Festival 2019 in situ on the street.

Pink and green flyers to advertise 2019 Dundee Design Festival each with a graphical treatment of letters that spell out Dundee and Design.

Festival Spaces

Vibrant space with a 1970s shopping centre. Lettering blocks line the walls with printing tables in the space.

Printing space filled with people participating.

3 men side by side in aprons inking up and printing with lettering blocks.

Woman holds up her design created using the printing blocks.

Woman with trolley bag walks past huge 'hello' in giant letters in a shopping centre corridor.

Approaching Air sign above the door of a minimallist shop space. A man and a woman stand inside in lab coats.

Small vials of scent are spread across a table with a man in the foreground adjusting one of them.

Man and woman stand side by side softly lit in the scent lab space. Various equipment and vials fill the scene.

Colourful library space within 1970s shopping centre.

Bright and vibrant coffee bar within 1970s shopping centre.

Neon sign that reads Limited Time only in a glass fronted display window.

Woman works on hand decorating ceramics view is through a shop window.

Man in dark blue lab coat is shown at workstation refelcted in a mirror.

Woamn with bright red hair holds a bucket hat on her head while modeling a graphic t-shirt. Set on the backdrop of typographics pasted up posters with a shopping centre.

Smiling eldery couple stand in front of a wall of typographic posters.

City Brand
Simulator

A custom control panel was built to allow visitors to create their own hypothetical city brand for Dundee with infinite combinations using the variable font.

The underside of a console with wires and controllers.

Interactive console with buttons and sliders to allow the manipulation of typography shown on a projector.

4 people stand around a console where they are affecting the projected typography in the background.

We Live in
the Future

Four interconnected stories set in the not too distant future looking at how life might change and question what we take for granted. Written by Valerie Mullen.