Nearly two years in the making, and the first Bulgarian Design Biennial is ready to hit the stage. In this case, the place of exhibition is Shipka 6, the Sofia institution that is the closest thing to an intellectual gathering place (or watering hole) in the country.

From October 8 to 29 2008, the public will have the opportunity to visit the halls of Shipka 6, taking in the creative genius of Bulgaria's young and old minds in the world of design. Along with that, investors and project-searchers will explore the offerings. At least, that is the goal.

At a news conference on October 6 at Bulgarian news agency BTA, biennale organiser Boryana Zafirova said that it had been a hard road to travel, the realisation of the event, one finding little support and interest from those outside the world of design.

Even when talking about those who make concepts tangible there was little interest, she said. The support and interest that is taken in production of original ideas in most of the rest of the modern world is lacking here.

As part of the Bulgarian Design Biennial, three days (October 9 to 11) will be dedicated to public lectures given by international names in the world of design. Highlights include the talk on automobile design, given by Sofia's Technical University professor Sasho Draganov, where will be discussed the project Universe, a German-Bulgarian concept car with Chinese funding (October 9, 3pm); a lecture by Emilio Gil of the Spanish architecture studio 24 x 365 on applied graphic design in Spain (October 10, 12.40pm); a talk by Stefan Seresliev of New Bulgarian University entitled New Challenges Facing Graphic Designers in the Beginning of the 21st Century (October 10, 4.10pm); on Contemporary Exhibited Design and Communication Decisions of Design Exhibitions by Philipp Teufel from the German Fachhochschule Düsseldorf/University of Applied Sciences (October 11, 11am); and on Cityscape Design in the Context of Architectural-Historic Overlay, by Orlin Manolov and Pavel Yanchev of Zoom Studio (October 11, 4.10pm).

All lectures are held at the National Academy of Arts' Academia Gallery on 1 Shipka Street in Sofia, are free-of-charge and are open to all interested. Interpretation is assured.

In addition to the organised discussions, there will also be a presentation of a book on Bulgarian creators, called Viжual Cut Бulgariя, a creative work in itself, of Andrean Nechev. Nechev is a design student at Fachhochschule Düsseldorf.

At the news conference, he described it as a way to “communicate Bulgarian design outside Bulgaria”, saying that it is the first book to be published on modern communication design in the country after the fall of communism.

(And yes, he did say “communism”, not “before the changes”, or “after democracy came”... Congratulations, Andrean, on taking a stand to name the past.)

The book presentation takes place on October 11 at 8pm, as part of the night-long Night of Design at Shipka 6, where the general public can come and talk with the designers participating in the biennale while listening to live music and viewing the presentation of Bulgarian graphic, product and architectural design magazines.

It is hoped that all this will start to turn Sofia into a centre for design. Under the former regime, National Academy of Arts professor Dimitar Dobrevski said, Bulgaria was a well-respected location for design conception and realisation, with organised production that was known and made products for use around the world. Since 1989, however, things quickly went downhill, and that hill has proved more of a mountain to keep stumbling down.

And the current state of Bulgarian design – architecture is the most blatant example – does nothing to encourage a positive image of the country's capabilities.

“Who pays chooses the music,” Zafirova said. “Foreigners, and Bulgarians who have lived abroad, come here and see what the cityscapes look like and they are horrified.”

Participating this year in the Bulgarian Design Biennial are students, professors, studios and individuals, presenting furniture, cars, interiors, posters, conceptual projects, socially orientated projects and typography.

Zafirova said that there were only about 10 individuals in the country involved in typography, and that to create one new type font, it takes about two years. The importance of having a Bulgarian-Cyrillic – which differs from Russian-Cyrillic – was not only for Bulgaria itself to have its own fonts, but also for Bulgaria to present itself as its own country to Europe.

Prizes will be awarded – mostly certificates, with the international jury selecting the tops in various categories – at both the October 8 official opening and the October 29 official closing. Money to organise the biennial alone was too tight to hand out financial recognition.

For more information, visit design-biennial.com