From October 23 through October 31, the city of Eindhoven will host the Dutch Design Week (DDW), the largest design event in the Netherlands. DDW presents a sophisticated blend of fresh talent, successful designers and established bureaus. For the ninth edition of DDW, two co-curators have been attracted, who have made an inspiring and well-balanced selection from a wide range of design disciplines. The programme of DDW 2010 is packed with unique highlights.

Programme
During DDW, the public can visit numerous exhibition, award shows, workshops, openings, product launches, seminars and parties. Among this year’s highlights are the exhibition Oiva Toikka by Iittala , the exhibition about ‘the X factor in design’ by Onomatopoeia, the social design project Design Circus Woensel-West and the opening of the new location of designer Piet Hein Eek. In this new building at Strijp-R, also solo presentations are held by renowned designers like Studio Job, Tom Dixon and Floris Hovers. Alongside established names, DDW again offers a wide selection of young talent. There is, for instance, a joint presentation of graduation projects of art schools such as AKV St.Joost and the Jan des Bouvrie Academy (Saxion Next), and the professional journal Items presents a selection of last year’s best graduation projects. There are also public presentations, such as AtelierNL and Dutch Invertuals and, as usual, many individual presentations of fresh (top) talents among whom Lenneke Wispelwey, Lucas Maassen and Kirsten Spuijbroek.

Annual events and major crowd-pullers include the prize-giving ceremony of the Dutch Design Awards, Graduation Galleries of Design Academy Eindhoven, the presentation of Industrial Design at the Eindhoven University of Technology, the exhibition in the Designhuis (OLed), the exhibition Glass is More (with Jaap Drupsteen and others), exclusive pop-up restaurant Eat Drink Design and of course the Klokgebouw at Strijp-S, where lots of exhibitions are held. The content of the evening programming is gradually becoming known, and this year the range of events includes the Rietveldshow by C’mon & Kypski in the Effenaar.

Dutch Design Week presents unparalleled ideas, individualistic works and insightful designer solutions. Over 1,500 designers display their work ranging from industrial design, spatial design, graphic design, textiles, sustainable design and design management & trends. Design in all its aspects and disciplines will be addressed: from process to product and from conceptual design to industrial design. Roland Bird and Marijn van der Poll have been appointed as co-curators for DDW 2010. Born in England, Roland Bird has lived in Eindhoven for twenty years now. In the early ‘90s, he worked together with Roger Swales and Graham Hinde at Philips Design on the project Vision of the Future. In 1999, they started the design bureau GRO Design. During his studies at the Design Academy Eindhoven, Marijn van der Poll (1973) made a name for himself with his 'Do Hit' chair and then started his own design studio. His work as a conceptual product designer is very diverse, ranging from a unique car to mass-produced office furniture.