organised by the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, Croatian Designers Association, in partnership with NEOS and Zvono and funded by the British Council, Croatia.
The workshop
The Extraordinary/Design workshop held in Osijek, Croatia was the third co-design workshop based on the model first trialed in Sarajevo in 2009.
Designers from Croatia, Macedonia and the UK worked with veterans of the second international workshop held in Zagreb in March 2011 which won the Grand Prix at D Day 2011– the annual young designers' festival in Zagreb. The prototypes from both workshops were exhibited in Tokyo and Kyoto in 2011 as part of the Shared Innovation exhibition curated by Julia Cassim. All three workshops were funded by the British Council in Croatia andBosnia.
This workshop was held in Osijek, Croatia with the aim to use inclusive design processes to co-design and prototype new product portfolios for Zvono and Neos – two small social enterprises – the first, working with young adults with learning difficulties and the second working with recovering addicts. The brief for the four teams was not only to design and prototype product portfolios but also to provide design guidelines and create an identity and website for each organisation.
The partners
Two teams of Croatian designers, led by Hazel Macmillan and James Tooze, worked with Neos – a micro-business with a wood and digital printing workshop. Gero Grundmann and Lucy Faulke led the teams that worked with Zvono at their small-scale workshop for people with learning disabilities in Belišće, 30 km from Osijek, concentrating on a range of printed and constructed textiles and stationery.
The results
The four teams came up with product ideas which were exhibited at the Kazamat Gallery in Osijek. These prototypes were the first results of this workshop process and demonstrate collaborative creativity that can enable organisations. Both organisations will continue to develop and market these product ranges under the mentorship of Slap, the Association for Creative Development based in Osijek, who were the local co-organisers with the British Council, Zagreb.
