Plotting contemporary Irish communication design
There is a build up of anticipation before seeing the work submitted each year, and every time I’m rewarded. It’s encouraging to see an industry growing and flourishing. There’s more diversity in approach and subject matter covered. Design is becoming more integrated into the fabric of Ireland, not only for business, but for social and political change too.
—John Gavin, 100 Archive Panelist
The 100 Archive is a platform for design in Ireland, founded in 2012 by the communication design community. At the core of their activity is the publication online of 100 notable projects selected through an annual open call. These yearly archive selections contain work from the ever broadening area of communication design (graphic, editorial, type, brand, digital, motion) across a range of applications: from posters for a club night to international corporate rebrands and from identities for small businesses to campaigns for major social movements.
Supported by the Creative Ireland Programme, the 100 Archive undertook to delve into their collection of over 2300 examples of Irish design and comb through the data associated with each piece in order to demonstrate design's impact on life, commerce, culture and society in Ireland. The resulting project, Map Irish Design, launching in early 2020, brings together data analysis, interviews, editorial content, case studies, data visualisation and videos to plot the who, what, when, where and why of Irish design from the past ten years. The project reveals how design in Ireland is not just a representation of our culture but a key part of it, that it helps us to expand our horizons, shapes the everyday and affects and reflects our changing values.
