Signals

Eindhoven – After a year of virtual showcases, Design Academy Eindhoven returns to the city to present its 2022 graduation show during Dutch Design Week. Renowned for its forward-thinking students, the school’s work examines critical matters such as environmental crises, accelerating technology, and new understandings of identity and belonging.

While the designers aim to ignite debate on a range of key topics, such as ecological democracy and extreme consumerism, they also illustrate tangible solutions through the physical executions of their projects. Take Holtland by Annelien Gispen, an educational board game designed to make people aware of the ways forests develop and the importance of nature and biodiversity. In the Monopoly-style game, players compete not to own the most properties on the board but to instead grow the largest, oldest and most biodiverse forest. By embedding education in a leisure activity, Gispen hopes to encourage shifts in attitudes and behaviour towards green life, particularly among the younger generation.

Elsewhere, Josefine Andersen is interrogating the world of mass-produced goods. Mono do (a) wear is a series of sustainably produced domestic objects that can also be worn as clothing, including a coat that can be worn by a person as an insulator and accessory, but can also be used to dress a cabinet. Through the creation of these hybrid products, Andersen invites people to develop more meaningful and purposeful relationships with their belongings, thus encouraging more controlled purchasing habits.

The work from Design Academy Eindhoven spans a range of design disciplines including social design, contextual design, geo-design and information design. You can browse the full portfolio of projects here.

Global – The creator economy is booming, according to a new study funded by Adobe, which shows that more people than ever are monetising their content. The Future of Creativity study was based on a survey of 9,000 non-professional creators in nine countries, including the US, the UK, Japan and Brazil. While the creator economy has been steadily rising in recent years, the research indicates an increase in individuals making a living from their hobbies and content-creation.

Content-creation is the ultimate side hustle, and people are increasingly turning to it as an additional revenue stream. Overall, the study found 48% earn money from their online side pursuits, with the highest number of creators in Brazil, where 59% are monetising their content and 48% say content-creation makes up more than half of their monthly income.

The research also reveals that many creators are optimistic about the new career opportunities that the arrival of the metaverse will bring, as the expansion of virtual realms opens up new and as yet unexplored avenues for content-creation.