“Artists and designers are innovators and pioneers. And, with the application of new materials and ground-breaking technologies, they can help to bring us closer to attaining a sustainable world.”

With this statement, the DOEN | Materiaalprijs awards two prizes. A sum of €15,000 for a final product and an incentive prize of €5,000 for an idea that has not yet been put into production. A nice extra is that selected works will be showcased during this year’s Dutch Design Week. Submissions are welcome from all designers, visual artists, fashion designers and architects living and working in the Netherlands.

See www.doen-materiaalprijs.nl for more information and submissions, closing date for entries is 10 September 2010

“Feel free to mention us as your client, we are proud to be a part of it.” – “We just received the package. Looks great!” – “We never heard of a service like this before, great you are doing this.” (client response)

Few months ago, designer Tim Oelker and materials consultant Aart van Bezooyen started a new service for manufacturers, agencies and designers. Since then Material Short Stories enjoys a great response from both clients and press.

What others say about us? See all press clippings here.

“The Tooth”, “Soft Alex”, “The Ring of Fire”, “Spaghetti Western”, “Giacometti”, “Golden Pez” and more! Some 300 participants from all over the world created beautiful sculptures made of chewing gum at the Materials Utopia exhibition.

Aart van Bezooyen sends out a big thank you to all participants for their hands on creativity during a four-day workshop at this year’s Berlin International Design Festival (from 9-13 June) and to Panatom Gallery for making this exhibition possible, both offline and online!

See the art of chewing gum at: www.materials-utopia.com

Utopia refers to a place which is not there yet, a good place. Panatom Gallery with Aart van Bezooyen invites you to join an exhibition for a better tomorrow during this year’s International Design Festival Berlin.

Materials play a central role during a four-day (10-13 June) installation where visitors are challenged to transform super sustainable substance into personal works of art.  Save the date and join the kick-off at the opening party!

Read more: www.tinyurl.com/visit-materials-utopia

Invitation BNO Noord (Don’t forget your senses)

Materials Lecture

The Association of Dutch Designers (BNO) invites Material Stories to lecture on the role and importance of materials in product experience.

“Product experience is getting more important than ever. Think of buying new clothes – quality is something you can feel in a second! A big part of this product experience is defined by the materials of which these products are made. The selection of materials is therefore very important for the (desired) product experience.”

During an inspiring night, Aart van Bezooyen will lecture and demonstrate a set of sensory materials and objects. Seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and tasting – feel very welcome to this evening for all your senses!

- Date: Wednesday, 27. May 2010
- Location: The Palace (Groningen)
- More information: Please see the invitation here (in Dutch)

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About the BNO

The Association of Dutch Designers (BNO) brings together over 2,500 individual designers, as well as 200 design agencies and design departments within companies. That makes us the most important representative organization for the design industry in the Netherlands.
Link: www.bno.nl

About The Palace

The Palace is a cultural living and working complex. An incubator, where artists, designers, entrepreneurs and culture enthusiasts can meet and inspire, which live and work together. The place where new ideas and initiatives are developed with various activities to a broad audience.

Link: www.hetpaleisgroningen.nl

Did you know that our materials newsletter (Get Inspired) already enjoys over a thousand readers? Reason enough add some social networking to a community with a shared interest for materials in design.

Find us on Facebook – to meet materials fans and enjoy frequent news and updates!

January kicks off with Material Xperience 2010, one of the most important materials events in the Netherlands. I will be lecturing on Thursday January 27th about the future of materials. Curious? Get your free entry tickets here.

To get you started, please see my top 3 selection (below) of upcoming materials events. Enjoy and get yourself inspired!

27-29 January 2010 (Rotterdam)
Material Xperience 2010
Material Xperience is the event with material innovations for architects, interior architects and other creative professionals.
Link: www.materialexperience.nl

13-15 April (Paris)
JEC Composites Show 2010
The biggest composites exhibition in Europe!
Link: www.jeccomposites.com

19-23 April (Hannover)
Material Trends 2010
The material TRENDS exhibition 2010 is a special show presenting innovative materials, products and processes (including iF Design’s award winners) during the Hanover Fair.
Link: www.hannovermesse.de/materialtrends_e

Aging. Objects becoming more beautiful over time; Jasper Morrison about Super Normal and Naoto Fukasawa about “Shutaku”. Eternally Yours and giving products a longer lifetime; Destroying Saving letterforms with patina; Universal Design and age as economic factor; Look inside Material Short Stories; New materials competitions and “Repairing is the new recycling!”

Download the Get Inspired #03 – AGING newsletter now!

Material Matters is hosting three materials lectures during this year’s Dutch Design Week. Together with Els Zijlstra (Materia) and Karin van Beurden (Saxion University), Aart will be lecturing about visions of the future of materials in design.

Saturday October 24, the lectures are English spoken, topics are “Biomimicy” and “Materials Utopia” . To reserve your seat, please send an e-mail to info@materialmatters.nl

Material Matters is an Eindhoven based materials platform for designers, architects, product developers. In collaboration with Materia, Material Matters presents a collection of 350 inspiring materials during the Dutch Design Week 2009.

You can download the invitation (pdf) here, or directly see the Dutch Design Week program.

Impressions from team 529 this year’s MOPO Staffellauf

What are five exhausted people doing at a materials website? Well, at this year’s MOPO staffellauf fanatics from Laurich & Kollegen, PARK, and Material Stories joined their forces to do a 5 x 5000 meter relay run for the charity organization Viva con Agua de Sankt Pauli.

Viva con Agua de Sankt Pauli is a charity organisation located in St. Pauli campaigning for clean drinking water worldwide. “Materials Aart” strongly supports their motto “Water is Life!” - claiming for more awareness for the elementary role of water in the daily lives of people from all over the world where drinking water is not to be taken for granted.

Earlier, Material Stories supported Viva con Agua de Sankt Pauli by raising money during the Material & Identity exhibition. With this sportive contribution and blog post Aart hopes to create more awareness and online donations for this charity organization.

P.s. Curious about our score? Check our score here: MOPO Staffellauf results 2009 (pdf)