Students and industry innovators take inspiration from the first ever D3
 
Highlights included:
•   Cut&Paste live 15 minute head-to-head design battles throughout the day
•   Apple demonstrate new features of Leopard OSX designed for digital creativity
•   Portfolio clinic a-buzz with fresh new talent receiving industry feedback
 
London Design Festival’s inaugural day-long digital programme from Carrenza – Digital Design Day (D3) – was a great success. Industry professionals, design students and members of the public came down to the free Digital Design Day at the Southbank Centre. They enjoyed a varied and interactive day exploring and celebrating all aspects of digital design – with showcases and seminars from luminaries and genuine innovators across the digital design, CAD, CGI, 3D, sound and visualisation industries. 
 
Apple’s Alan Rosenfeld and Byron Wijayawardena undertook the mammoth task of demonstrating the possibilities of Creativity on the Mac, in the Queen Elizabeth Hall. The pair demonstrated how ‘Joined-up-thinking’ is made possible using existing features of the Leopard OSX, as well as the basics of a whole host of professional software packages. Their detailed tour of Apple’s apps for digital creativity was content rich and engaging.
 
The Cut & Paste area, sponsored by Autodesk, buzzed all day long thanks to the cult popularity of this Global digital design tournament, which pits designer against designer in 15 minute design battles. Students queued to try out the range of intuitive Wacom tablet hardware, and competed in their own 15 minute battles.
 
Dynamolondon’s iDesign conference fostered stimulating debate from thought leaders like Simon Waterfall, President of D&AD and Creative Director at Poke, and acclaimed Futurologist Timo Veikkola. Over lunch, attendees had the opportunity to experience 3D sonic immersion from Martyn Ware of Ilustrious Company, formerly of The Human League and Heaven17, who now forms part of 3D sound consultancy Future of Sound.
 
The afternoon portfolio clinic from New Media Knowledge and dynamolondon saw design students across all disciplines sitting down for one-to-one creative review sessions with agency heads from the likes of AIG, Conchango, Glue, Moving Brands, Smoothe and TribalDDB. The students recieved very useful feedback and direction, and the invaluable opportunity to meet and greet peers and future competition!
 
Dan Sutherland, MD of Carrenza, said ‘London has long been a hotbed for digital design creativity, but this growing community has, until now, had nowhere to really to come together. The thinking behind Digital Design Day was to create a new event, as part of the London Design Festival, which recognises and celebrates London’s position as a leading digital hub, and provides an open platform to bring people from all aspects of the digital design community together.
 
The response to D3 has been great. This year’s event tested the water, and it proved that the demand from the design community is definitely there. Next year we expect the event to grow and it’s possible that it will take place over several days. I can’t give anything away but there are several very exciting companies that have already said they would love to be involved.’
 
As the evening drew on, the party dresses came out and industry luminaries headed over to the plush surroundings of the Royal Festival Hall for the 3rd Annual Y Design Awards.
 
For more images, check out the Carrenza Flickr
Stay up to date with next year’s event, by following Carrenza on Twitter