At the Milano Design Film Festival, “Design is a verb” by Leftloft is a research around the project

After twenty years of work, some of the reflections born from Leftloft’s history and its think tank LUFT are merged into the film “Design is a Verb”: a research that engages with the thought of international designers who constitute a reference for the studio.

“Planning has to do with something you do not know because it does not exist yet. It has to do with the future.” After twenty years of work, some of the reflections born from Leftloft’s history and its think tank – LUFT – are merged into a film: research around the project that engages with and arises from the thought of international designers who constitute a reference and a constellation of meaning. What are the boundaries of design and how do they change in change? It can be said that design is the “work of the century,” but how do you become and remain a good designer? And what will the design studios of the future be like? The film gives voice to these questions through a young designer, who is like so many young people who work or have worked in Milan and who have been formed in the studio.

Img.1 Still from Design is a Verb, a film by Leftloft, Italia, 2017
Img.2 Still from Design is a Verb, a film by Leftloft, Italia, 2017
Img.3 Still from Design is a Verb, a film by Leftloft, Italia, 2017
Img.4 Still from Design is a Verb, a film by Leftloft, Italia, 2017
Img.5 Still from Design is a Verb, a film by Leftloft, Italia, 2017
Img.6 Still from Design is a Verb, a film by Leftloft, Italia, 2017
Img.7 Still from Design is a Verb, a film by Leftloft, Italia, 2017

“Design is a Verb” is a film about the project’s concreteness, about it being action above and beyond the final result. Leftloft begins from the consideration that image society attaches importance to design, but not to designers, who are seemingly absent from public debate. We are in the design era, but not in the era of designers. Awareness of the continual change of the world makes us reflect on the boundaries and possible contaminations of design practice in order to make it more useful and effective. The journey – made up of reflections and conversations between Leftloft and eight designers chosen from the panorama of independent design – has highlighted the value of every choice that is made. In fact, planning is to choose.

Each project grows in its context in a manner which is both organic and discontinuous. Only a real immersion combined with a capacity for disconnection can contribute, more than the predefined roles, to building a common and shared design path. The studios of the future would work with clients and not just for them. The groups of designers best able to interpret this mode could leave a mark, and today, like yesterday, is a perfect time to start. With nearly a thousand active projects, Leftloft has begun to imagine its next twenty years in a society that has changed deeply since 1997 and will change more and more rapidly.

  • Design is a Verb
  • Leftloft with Fulvio Lombardi and Marco Longo
  • Eleonora Marangoni
  • Leftloft
  • Marco Longo, Fulvio Lombardi
  • Fulvio Lombardi
  • Simone Mazzoleni
  • Manuel Paradiso
  • Alessandra Elettra Badoino
  • Perla Sardella
  • non-pellegrino