With the theme 'Design That Moves', the State of Design Festival has launched a series of digital platforms and activiy to encourage access to the Festival program while on the go.
Following the success of the 2010 State of Design iPhone App, the Festival will once again launch an App to provide access to the Festival program, access maps, video and enable the content to be shared through social media.
The State of Design Festival's website has been made mobile friendly, allowing a range of phones access to information on the move.
New in 2011, SouthSouthWest and Peptolab have designed an animated calendar for the State of Design Festival. The digital calendar will be an easy to use screensaver that can be downloaded and run on any computer or projector by anyone, anywhere.
The calendar will constantly refresh to provide up to the minute information on Festival events in addition to the Festival twitter feed that is streamed live.
The Sound of Buildings
Launching on July 14, the Sound of Buildings is a multimedia walking tour-spanning 10 of Melbourne's most architecturally significant buildings told through the voices of engineers, architects, project managers, building users and children.
This tour is experienced through an iPhone App which will provide listeners with a deeper level of understanding and context around the selected buildings while highlighting Melbourne's rich architecture and tradition of quality design.
The tour will take in the best of Melbourne's old and new buildings using audio, imagery and a GPS mapping function to navigate the listeners. The tour will include AAMI Park Rectangular Stadium, the Westpac Centre, the Melbourne Theatre Company and Melbourne Recital Centre, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Museum, Royal Exhibition Building, Federation Square, St Paul's Cathedral, Monaco House and Council House 2.
Launched to coincide with the 2011 State of Design Festival and Melbourne Open House, The Sound of Buildings will provide a lasting resource for tourists, students and anyone interested in knowing about the history and stories behind Melbourne's buildings.
State of Design Digital Focused Program
A number of activities and events hosted as part of the State of Design program include new technologies and digital components including:
City Traces: The Festival of Design Movers: Using your GPS enabled smart phone, CityTraces invites you to join our collaborative mapping project to trace the contours of your city according to your travels during the Festival.
The Invisible Landscape: a joint Arup and City of Melbourne initiative that will provide a platform for the public to engage and share its thoughts about this city's landscape and in particular to highlight the value of its trees, or 'green infrastructure.'
Something From Nothing: Take part in the design and development of a video game - come and draw creatures that will be scanned and transcribed into an actual game by experienced developers.
Moving Through Time: A self-guided audio walking tour of four of Melbourne's industrial and mercantile gems and featuring interviews with architects.
Design Television
Design Television (DTV) presented by Design Victoria, is an online, 365 day mixed-media platform presenting examples of successful business and design collaborations, design criticism and an active archive of the 2011 Festival. DTV will host three channels including Write on Design presented by Architecture Media.
Here through a process of mentorships, a team of four established writers will work with a team of eight emerging writers to develop quick response critical reviews of the 2011 State of Design Festival. Reviews will be mixed format, written and vodcast, and will be loaded to the channel no more than 24 hours after the event.