France Design Week 2025: a virtual exhibition on the question of useful or futile design

France Design Week, a national showcase for design

Every year, France Design Week is an event that aims to highlight the diversity of design practices and approaches throughout France. Conferences, exhibitions, workshops and meetings punctuate this unifying event, which brings together a wide range of players in the creative and professional fabric of design.

For its 6ᵉ edition, under the theme “Design Utile”, the Écoles Créatives network is joining the national dynamic with a novel project: a virtual exhibition, accessible free of charge online for the duration of the event.

The Écoles Créatives network initiates a virtual exhibition

Spearheaded by two of the network’s flagship schools (ESMA and IFFDEC, both offering courses in graphic design and interior architecture), the project illustrates the ability of the Écoles Créatives to pool talent and expertise. By joining forces, teachers, students, alumni and partners have come up with an original exhibition that questions the role of design in our lives. Entitled “Design utile, design futile?”, the exhibition takes the form of a dedicated website, designed as a journey through three interactive rooms. The initiative gives a voice both to professionals in the sector (alumni and partners) and to students, whose projects bear witness to the vitality and creativity of the next generation.

3 rooms, 3 perspectives

To answer the question “Useful design, futile design?”, the virtual exhibition offers a journey through three rooms, each exploring a specific aspect of design:

In the first room, entitled “Being useful,” several guest speakers share their experience and vision:
Arnaud Laly, artist and graphic designer and graduate of IFFDEC, questions the social function of images and their impact on societal changes.
Hugo Ledan, interior designer, founder of aesth+creative, and graduate of ESMA, reflects on the creation of spaces that go beyond simple functionality, questioning the role of experience in the perception of design.
Florian Philippe, graphic designer and freelance art director, also a graduate of IFFDEC, explores the relationship between visual storytelling and collective engagement.

This provides some answers as to how design goes beyond simple utility and its social and cultural value.

In the second room, “Utile ensemble”, a selection of student projects explore how design can serve shared needs.

• In this room, design becomes a collective adventure, illustrated by a number of examples: a reinvented urban vermicomposter, a modular space designed for everyday use, a campaign to raise awareness of hepatitis B screening, a project revealing the flora hidden in the city of Toulouse, animated coverings for an alternative cultural venue and a collective fresco in homage to the Bauhaus and the fall of the Berlin Wall. These initiatives demonstrate how design can be a tool for social and cultural engagement, encouraging collaboration, shared creativity and impact at the heart of the city,

Finally, the third and last room*, with the evocative name “Useful for you?

• Is usefulness universal or personal? By placing visitors at the centre of the experience, it invites them to see themselves as actors and to ask themselves what makes a creation useful for them: function, ergonomics, emotion, or the ability to provoke critical reflection? This room encourages reflection and acts as a critical mirror, inviting everyone to question their own relationship with design and creation.

*Room 3 will be revealed very soon, so stay tuned.