The VIENNA DESIGN WEEK Laboratory is a free and open space where interdisciplinary and process-oriented works on the border between graphic and product design are created during the course of the the entire festival, from 28 September to 7 October, all day and open to the public.

The Theme of 2012: Pretty Ugly

Both users and the brains behind design solutions are increasingly dissatisfied when confronted by a uniform lifestyle and superficial prettiness. Designers frequently see themselves forced in the role of mere stylists and encounter what is “beautiful” with scepticism; they react with criticism, subversion and antitheses. With the working title of “Pretty Ugly” (borrowed from the book by TwoPoints.Net), this year’s Laboratory aims to take the strategies applied here as its key theme – for instance, designers might take inspiration from everyday culture and trash, smuggle in lost and found objects that are seemingly broken, unfinished or badly made or make use of flaws and errors as productive disturbances. It seems certain that design under these auspices generates not only points of friction but also gains in human dimension.