As I drove through Wexford on Friday night, it quickly became apparent that the town was packed. Culture Night was back again, and people were everywhere! Selskar Square bustled and throbbed with music, and I had to slow to a crawl as the crowd filtered down on to North Main Street and up towards the Bullring. As I made my way up George’s Street, a steady stream of people moved up the hill to the Arts Centre in Cornmarket. People were also walking towards High Street where the National Opera House had a full evening of events planned, including ballet, light opera, and musical theatre.
I was heading up to the Blue Egg Gallery to meet with the rest of Fused, to set up our event. Fused is a voluntary, group of graphic designers based throughout the south-east. We got together a few years ago to raise the profile of design in the region and highlight the value it can bring to businesses and the wider community. In July, we were approached by the 100 Archive to develop an event for Culture Night that would promote their Creative Ireland project, Map Irish Design. They were keen to get the Archive in front of new audiences, demonstrate how it includes work from all over the country and is reflective of the industry’s breadth and variety. We had already collaborated with the 100 Archive for an event in Wexford last year, ‘Good Design is Good Business’ so we were delighted to work with them again.
At first, we had no idea what shape the event would take. The Archive was open to any suggestions, so after a few meetings and one doomed Skype session, we formulated a plan! We proposed to facilitate a design thinking workshop that would demonstrate how designers across all disciplines work through a process of problem-solving. It would be a family-friendly event where we would help people generate and develop some ideas that would benefit the town of Wexford. We envisaged a forum where adults and children would use sketching, drawing, writing and making to expand and present their ideas. We called the event Designing Wexford.
And so into the Blue Egg Gallery we went, a little jewel on John’s Gate Street, run by the wonderful Mary Gallagher. We had approached Mary about using the gallery as a venue, and she was delighted to accommodate us. We kicked off the event with an introduction to Fused, the 100 Archive and Map Irish Design project by Wexford based designer, Padraig Holmes. He outlined the design thinking process and how we intended to integrate it into the evening’s workshop.
We started by posing some open-ended questions to the audience:
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What are some of the best things about Wexford?
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What challenges does the town face?
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Is Wexford missing anything in terms of services, buildings or infrastructure?
To the last question, one little girl shouted out – “The weather!” A brilliant answer! Now if only we could redesign the weather. Ice well and truly broken!
A lively conversation then ensued about Wexford quay front and how for most of the year its an underutilised amenity. The point was made that the Spiegeltent Festival is an excellent example of how the area can be used well with a little creative thinking. The topic seemed to get people energised, so we decided to concentrate on this one issue. We handed out sharpies and post-its and asked everyone to jot down some ideas on how we could make the quay a more engaging space. The kids came up with some great ideas—Helter Skelter, Swimming Pool and my personal favourite, Unicorns! We stuck all the post-its on a large piece of plotter paper and then asked everyone to pick one and develop that through sketching and writing. The kids and adults got to work and came up with some great concepts. People were then invited to give a brief explanation of their ideas.
There are too many to list each one but here’s a small sample of the ideas generated:
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Popup Kiosks/Restaurant with short term rents
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Floating Market
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Coordinated painting of premises like Kinsale
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Wexford Harbour Museum
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‘I Love Wexford’ sign to take photographs like Amsterdam
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Pretty Bins
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Green Space/More Trees + Shrubs
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Play Bridge for kids and adults from quay to jetty
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Crescent Quay Amphitheatre
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Outdoor Durable Musical Instruments
Our goal was to give the audience an idea of how design works and the step by step process designers must go through to find solutions. With the workshop, we endeavoured to do that in a fun and interesting way, and from the feedback, I think we managed to achieve it. And that’s what Culture Night is all about, exposing people to new experiences and having a good time in the process.
Thanks to the Wexford Fused group, Yvonne and James Rath from Pixelpod, Padraig Holmes from Counterpart who helped organise the event and Viz Comm student Billie Jean Doheny for helping out on the night. Thanks to Aideen McCole from the 100 Archive for all her help and guidance and Elaine McDevitt from Map Irish Design for being there on the night with her two lovely daughters. And a big thank you to Mary Gallagher who provided the beautiful Blue Egg Gallery as a venue.
Brian Byrne is a graphic designer and founder of Lands.
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