From Glasgow to Shanghai

Glasgow has one of the oldest traditions of design education in the world. It is home to the famous Glasgow School of Art designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in 1896 and has the largest architecture and design community in the UK outside London.

The city was Cultural Capital of Europe in 1990 which gave a further boost and increased flourish to the design community. And in 1999 we got our own Architecture and Design Centre , The Lighthouse, another Mackintosh building which had originally served as the offices for the Glasgow Herald. The building was re-animated by local architects Page and Park. It is one of Europe’s largest Architecture, Design Centres and has become one of Scotland’s premier venues, attracting more than 250,000 visitors in its first year.

But not only is Glasgow a magnet for international aficionados of design, the creative community is increasingly outward looking and many of the city’s leading consultancies now undertake regular high profile international commissions. Graven Images is one such consultancy. We’re an international, cross disciplinary design consultancy which has operated from its Glasgow base for over seventeen years and last year we started to make fascinating inroads into China.

One exciting commission was the creation of ‘Britain at the Leading Edge Showcase’, the UK government’s biggest Chinese event of the year, featuring the work of more than fifty of the UK’s most innovative companies from six industry sectors. Visitors to the Shanghai-based exhibition, opened by Trade and Industry Minister Patricia Hewett, were given a guided tour by ‘Maddy’, a Chinese-speaking avatar created by Digital Animations Group, also based in Glasgow.

We were also asked to design a 200 square metre stand at the All China Hi-Tech in Shenzhen which would be clearly branded as British and would be visible and distinctive in a noisy and competitive environment.

Our solution was to conceive the stand as a promotional vehicle, a ‘prequel’ to the major ‘Britain at the Leading Edge Showcase’ described above.

We created a gloss white floor onto which were carefully placed a series of simple objects; a curved box containing a projected video, free standing totems containing UK sector information, and glass cases containing monitors. Each of the monitors showed the same ‘Maddy’ who acted as a tour guide to the exhibition. All of the text and the video were in Chinese. We were delighted when the stand was given ‘Best Organised’ and ‘Best Designed’ awards for the Fair.

We hope to be returning to China soon and building on our relationships there, and indeed having more opportunities to draw inspiration from a culture and a country so different from our own.