Exhibition design for Design & Crafts Council of Ireland

‘Liminal – Irish design at the threshold’ was the flagship exhibition for Irish Design 2015 (ID 2015). This was a major government-backed initiative seeking to increase awareness and understanding of Irish design as well as to promote it internationally.

A selection of Ireland’s most exciting design thinking and practice was presented in ‘Liminal’. Across a variety of disciplines, the exhibiting designers, companies and studios were selected for the innovative approach of their work, its connectivity and ability to transcend disciplinary boundaries to address the issues of today.

We were commissioned to collaborate with exhibition designer, John McLaughlin, to design the visual communications for ‘Liminal’. This allowed us to evolve and develop the ID 2015 identity design by Atelier David Smith. The final outputs included; website, advertising, exhibition signage and a colour coding system to differentiate the exhibition in series of locations (Milan, New York, Eindhoven, Dublin and Kilkenny) as well as a newspaper styled catalogue for each location of the exhibition overseas.

Liminal Milan took place during Milan Design week (April 14 - 19). The exhibition was located in Zona Tortona, drew over 40,000 visitors and marked Ireland's inaugural presence at this leading international event.

One of the key theme's on Liminal was collaboration between designers from different disciplines. Pictured here are Denis Kenny of Ceadogán Rugs and the ceramicist Andrew Ludick. The collaboration began in 2014 when Fiona Gilboy, Creative Director of Ceadogán Rugs, saw the potential to collaborate. Both rug designs came directly from the hand-painted ceramic work of Ludick, whose distinctive and intuitive use of pattern and colour was seen by the Ceadogán team to lend itself perfectly to their textile medium. Picture by Peter Rowan.