World Industrial Design Week (WIDW)-WIDO: Form Follows Feeling opened its doors on July 13 at the 12/F Digital Filmmaking Screening Room of De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde's Design and Arts (D+A) Campus, kicking off a five-day celebration of Industrial Design that runs until July 17. This week-long event brings together designers and students under a theme that traced creativity back to its most intuitive root—feeling.
Organized by Benildean Industrial Designers (BIND), WIDW-WIDO takes its name from the Tagalog concept of playing music by ear, which is a fitting metaphor for a week built around the unscripted process behind good design. Beyond the talks held at the Screening Room, the celebration extended on the fifth floor of the D+A Campus, where hands-on workshops invited participants to design.
Let us all play
WIDW-WIDO opened its program on July 13 with a talk from Ms. Bambi Mañosa-Tanjutco, a designer who has spent the last 35 years working in spaces between design, art, culture, and childhood. Her message reminded designers in the room to return to something they’ve been taught to outgrow—the playfulness that often gives birth to the greatest ideas.
For Ms. Mañosa-Tanjutco, play is the work of design. Much of her talk circled back to childhood as a wellspring rather than a phase to grow out of. "A child's art is the purest form of art," she said, tracing her own creative beginnings outside the walls of any design school. "I didn't have Benilde," she shared, "but I had my mother and my father who would take me to these [creative] places."
That inheritance, she suggested, comes with responsibility. "As a designer you have the eyes, you have the means, and the creative minds," she claimed, adding that “in this world of capitalism, make good design accessible."
She closed on a note that framed the rest of the week to come—with four more days of talks and workshops ahead. "In a world of AI, let's remember that humanity is what keeps us alive."
Keeping up with the momentum
The days that followed carried Ms. Mañosa-Tanjutco's opening spirit into the rest of the week, as WIDW-WIDO moved between talks at the 12/F Screening Room and hands-on sessions on the fifth floor of the campus.
On July 14, the program featured the heaviest lineup, pairing two very different design lives. In the afternoon, the room heard from Mr. John Paulo Balutan, a Senior Industrial Designer and Mechanical Design Engineer who had spent over a decade moving between engineering and product design across consumer electronics and automotive work.
Later that same day came Mr. Freddy Anzures, a Filipino-American designer who has spent over a decade at Apple's Human Interface Group, shaping the interface language behind some of iOS's most recognizable moments.
That same day, the Klaypel workshop opened, where participants worked paperclay into sculptural lampshades, each one turning out different depending on whose hands shaped it.
The talks continue on July 15 and 16 with Mr. Adam Pereyra, a jewelry designer reviving Philippine ancestral goldwork through contemporary techniques like granulation and filigree; Ms. Jasmin Fajardo, Art Director at Monday Off World, whose work has shaped campaigns for brands like Vans and Carhartt WIP; and Ms. Meyte Szita Chan, a third-generation Capiz artisan and Benilde alumna pushing the boundaries of material exploration.
Running alongside these talks was the Legado Leather workshop, where beginners were walking through the full arc of the craft, from choosing the right hide to the final stitch on a finished wallet.
On the final day, the week will fold back into itself. Ms. Impy Pilapil, a multimedia artist known for working across stone, glass, steel, and wood, close out the talks alongside Mr. Tony Gonzales, a painter whose own path began decades ago as an apprentice to Mr. Roger San Miguel and Mr. Glenn Bautista.
The Studio Roman workshop will round out the week's hands-on offerings, teaching ceramic handbuilding through coiling—a slow, deliberate technique that, much like the week itself, asks participants to build something gradually, with intention behind every layer.
Don’t forget to feel
Asked in an exclusive interview with The Benildean about what inspired the concept, Stephanie Claparols, an ID124 student from the Industrial Design (BS-ID) program and this year’s project manager, traced it back to a shift in direction from previous years. "It really came from personal reflections," she said. "That really always led us to designing with feeling, that's why we ended up planning on form following feeling."
Dani Tecson, an ID124 BS-ID student and also a project manager, picked up on the same thread, framing it as a return to something more personal. "In the end, we really wanted to connect with our own feelings," she shared, "and how we give form to that in a real-world context."
The most rewarding part of the project, for Claparols, came from an unexpected place. "It was when I started reflecting and journaling," she claimed. "I began questioning all these different curiosities and other points that I wanted to explore." For Tecson, “it was when we were able to see the whole team together," she added, "and realizing how everybody could work together to create a whole vision and unity."
Claparols, for her part, circled back to process over outcome. "I feel like we sometimes get lost in the end result," she said, "that we forget about the process, which is what we wanted to emphasize with this event and future events." She also added a broader hope for what the event could push people toward: "don't be afraid to be curious, and go out and think outside of the box."
When asked what they hoped Benildeans and the public would take away, their answers came without hesitation. "Don't forget to feel," Tecson said. Claparols followed closely behind, emphasizing that we must "always remember the value of presence in doing things."
In many ways, WIDW-WIDO fulfills the promise embedded in its title, because like playing music by ear, the week encourages participants to trust their creative instincts instead of solely relying on instructions. The voices of established practitioners and the collaborative efforts of its student organizers helped underscore the truth—that the human capacity to imagine and feel still remains at the heart of meaningful design.
Cross the space between feeling and form by visiting BIND’s Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok accounts!
