The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has changed everyday life for the time being. The government has enforced lockdown measures, and all but key workers have to work from home. A lot of design businesses have been working remotely for a couple of weeks now. And while a lot of work can be done from home, the design industry also relies on face-to-face “sparks” and live events.
To fill this absence, institutions and agencies have set up a range of platforms to support designers who suddenly find themselves working from home – offering inspiration, opportunities to fine tune their skills and new communities at a time of isolation.
“As these unprecedented times require us to work in unprecedented ways, we’re here to help you,” says Arts Council England about its new digital network. The Digital Culture Network which will “collate free resources, webinars and support organisations”. Perhaps most importantly, its ‘tech champions’ will be on hand to provide one-to-one support in areas such as maintain audience engagement, generating income through online retail and “maximising your website offer”.
Documentarian Gary Hustwit announced that he’d be streaming one of his films for free every week during the COVID-19 crisis. The American filmmaker’s first free documentary, Helvetica, tracks the proliferation of the typeface into our urban environments, world of advertising and more. It features input from Michael Bierut, Stefan Sagmeister and Paula Scher. Hustwit’s other films include a documentary about Dieter Rams and Objectified, which revolves around “our complex relationship with manufactured objects”. The films are available to stream here.
On iPlayer, you can also catch a six-part series that takes viewers behind the scenes at the V&A (and read our interview with one of the show’s producers here). And if you have a Netflix subscription, you can watch both series of Abstract: the Art of Design – featuring the likes of Olafur Eliasson and Ruth Carter – and catch our interview with the show’s co-creator here.
The National Art Library, housed in the V&A, is closed for the foreseeable future. But it has made collated a list of art and design courses that are (freely) available. There’s a wide breath of research available, from archives on British and Irish furniture to Graphikportal, a site that holds dozens of print rooms across Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
You can access the collection here.
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