#milanuncut

Milan 2011: Dezeen is supporting #milanuncut: an experimental, collaborative journalism project that aims to lift the lid on the design world to coincide with next week’s Milan furniture fair.

#milanuncut wants designers, journalists, manufacturers to engage in an honest discussion about the industry and answer questions such as: Do designers get a raw deal from brands? Are royalty deals unfair? Is the design world a slave to the media? Who makes all the real money? Are there better ways for designers to do business? Has design lost its idealism?

#milanuncut began last week as a hashtag on Twitter; journalists including Kieran Long, Max Fraser, Justin McGuirk, Julie Taraska and Dezeen’s Marcus Fairs started debating the kind of issues around design that rarely get spoken about; soon others including designers Yves Behar and Sebastian Bergne and many more joined in.

Since then London designers Zerofee have created a logo (actually two logos: a negative above and a positive below) that people can use when discussing #milanuncut online, print out and use as posters or stickers etc.

Dezeen is not the organiser of #milanuncut but we’re happy to act as a channel to disseminate people’s thoughts and questions.

Everyone can contribute to #milanuncut and follow the debate by:

* Using and following the #milanuncut Twitter hashtag

* Using the comments form at the bottom of this story

* Keeping an eye on our #milanuncut category, where we’ll post updates and links

* Posting material on your own blogs, social media etc

* Email us stuff you want us to publish. Use #milanuncut in the subject line; we can’t promise to publish everything sent in though

* Doing anything else you can think of!

We hope that after Milan, there’ll be plenty of fresh material that everyone can use in their follow-up articles, reviews and post-Milan conversations.