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This weekend, Berlin celebrated its yearly design event (formerly known as DESIGNMAI) now organized by the DMY organization who created a platform for creative things, talks, workshops and parties one of Europe's most creative cities.

A central exhibition at the Arena anchors a five-day DMY 2008 festival with over 150 designers showcasing their latest works. Some 36 ALLSTARS exhibitions are spread out all over town making sure that an inspiring tour along the city of Berlin is included.

What happened (and is still happening) this year? -- See more pics after the jump!

At the central exhibition, over 150 designers are gathered to showcase their works in a 7000 square meter exhibition hall called the so called "Arena", underlining the competitive context of design. With this much exhibitions, we wrapped up some of our most typical findings (or design trends?)

Does "Form Follow Process?" We noticed that a lot of designers are not shaping products anymore! In other words, the freedom of form defined by the making process, not by the designer's creative hand. For instance, Breaded Escalope uses the way of the river to mold their colorful stools, CUMMIS' unique lighting sculptures are grow out of a flexible silicone filled balloons, and the PLOPP chairs by Oskar Zieta are realized by 'simply' blowing up sheet metal.

It was inspiring to see how light itself is being designed more and more. A one meter illuminated shoe won't fit anyone's feet but makes a wonderful piece of art/advertising for Tiger using a new 'rapid prototyping' method, and a combination of several light sources. The massive walk-in light block enables on demand visuals at a mouse click, and the DJ's cool beats are supported by even cooler light blocks.

Finally, we enjoyed the friendly forms of a kind of a kind of second nature within the exhibition hall. Or should we say "synthetic nature" with trees made out of plastic bottles, metal shelve systems that look like Paramecia, or honeycomb lightings made out of plastic drinking straws.

Apart from the organic shapes inside the exhibition hall, we enjoyed how some took the chance to create more awareness for the (free) beauty that nature has to offer.

Far from the rough streets of Kreuzberg we follow a smooth walkway into the stylish Stilwerk where we find a lot of good design and smiling faces at the Swiss Design award night. Curator Heidi Wegener tells us how the award is hosted only once per two years to extract the best of the best of all applications (that is some 300 applications which is not bad for a condensed country like Switzerland).

Apart from the local heroes such as Hannes Wettstein or the Bouroullec brothers, it's worth checking out the works of newcomers such as Marc Calame's concrete puzzle, or the wogg42 chair which features upholstery as a kind of clothing.

For those still curious about Berlin's design week, check out the DMY 2008 website - there are still some exhibitions to be seen such as "Turkish Delight", the "Bombay Sapphire Gallery" or the mentioned "Swiss Design Prize" at the Stilwerk.

To be honest, once you're in Berlin, there is nowhere to run from creative happenings anyway...