The second 360 Design Budapest exhibition hosted almost 180 Central European contemporary creation

The free 360 Design Budapest awaited the broad audience interested in design for one week in the Hungarian capital at the beginning of October. Full-house curator’s and exclusive guided tours, numerous unique design creations, exciting installations, an accentuated focus on sustainability, and successful roundtable discussions diversified the event held by the Hungarian Fashion & Design Agency for the second time. Hungarian product designers presented the cultural richness of Central-Europe’s design industry and their contemporary creations together with Czech, Polish and Slovakian talents.

The Hungarian Fashion & Design Agency (HFDA) was founded in 2018 to support every actor in the fashion and design industry in an efficient and structured way, following predetermined strategic pillars. To realise their goals, they organise events each year, such as the region’s major fashion event, the Budapest Central European Fashion Week, or the 360 Design Budapest exhibition, which has received international awards.

The Agency held the 360 Design Budapest exhibition for the second time this year. Those interested could view the creations of 28 Hungarian, among which six talented entrants and ten regional design brands from up close in the first week of October in Bálna Budapest. This year the exhibition and Art Market Budapest and the Budapest Design Week mutually supported each other as strategic partner events. Its success was seen in the number of visitors as well, since almost 3500 people viewed the Czech, Polish, Hungarian, and Slovakian contemporary creations presented online.

“When realising the exhibition, we wanted to increase Central-European product designers’ popularity, and help them enter the international market. I believe I can state that we have met his objective, as the designers are already reporting outstanding results. Furniture manufacturer and trading companies, Michelin-starred restaurants and various store chains have contacted some of them for collaboration – Zsófia Bata-Jakab, Hungarian Fashion & Design Agency’s CEO said, adding: “The ”Meet the designer”  event and the design DIALOG roundtable discussions realised in the framework of the exhibition were very successful as well. You can listen to the talks on HFDA’s YouTube and Spotify channels.”

When realising the exhibition, among the most important aspects were the use of sustainable solutions and attitude formation. This was found in the exhibition’s concept as well since they used building elements of a house – lumbers, concrete blocks, bricks – were used for placing the design objects and furnishing the exhibition space, which will soon take on a new function. Water’s illusion or the whale built on the ceiling also represented this: while the former was made with reusable material, the latter was put together from plastic packages no longer used. This year’s exciting novelty was that visitors could sign up for exclusive guided tours held by renowned representatives of different fields of art, resulting in a total art framework. 360 Design Budapest’s exhibition space added to the sales incentivising role of the event since visitors of the offline exhibition could get further information using the QR codes placed next to the objects. In contrast, online visitors can discover the designers’ websites by clicking on the icon next to the objects.

The creations of the first 360 Design Budapest were of great interest in the online space, so there was no question that the event would be “figital” this year as well. Similarly to last year, those interested could not only view the design objects at the venue, but they could see them from a brand new perspective entering a virtual world. They could complete these design tours using the VR glasses placed at the exhibition, and they can still walk through the exhibition at the event’s website online, where a 360-degree spherical panorama and the virtual exhibition space display 360 Design Budapest’s creations. The exhibition’s success continues in the online space since, so far, more than 1600 people have viewed the exhibition in this form, and the number continues to grow. Thanks to this opportunity, people from all around the world can discover Hungarian and regional designers and the almost 180 unique design objects created by them since the exhibition is available for everyone at 360 Design Budapest’s website.