Our Zeitgeist tagged with “Events”
Our goal for the Practivism event is to host an enlightening, rhetoric-free evening of wisdom and discussion as our sustainability experts share their experiences and insights, attempt to demystify green speak and provide attendees with practical answers and strategies they can apply in their lives and design practices. But as we discussed the event logistics, such as printing invites, posters, flying the speakers from New York and California, etc, it was a harsh reminder of the impact we have on the environment even when putting on relatively small industry events such as these.
We're making every effort possible to make effective choices to promote and host our event within realistic parameters, such as reducing our print requirements and ensuring we use production techniques with the smallest environmental input. We even considered remote web video technologies and web streaming as an alternative to needed the speakers to be on-site. Hopefully as we move forward we can make innovations to how events and conferences are organized an produced.
GDC's Designer Speaker Series event
Practivism: Practical methods for radical sustainability in design will be held on November 13th at Science World in Vancouver. Speakers include,
Innovation and Sustainabilty Expert Marc Alt,
Green Graphic Design author Brian Dougherty and
Design Can Change Founder Eric Karjaluoto. Information and tickets are available at
www.practivism.ca.
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During the research and planning phase of an upcoming GDC event—Practivism: Practical methods for radical sustainability in design—I came across Alyssa Walker’s article Conventional Wisdom: Eight Ways to Save Design Conferences. I [...]
Posted by: Mark Busse on Friday, September 26th, 2008
Categories: Associations, Design, Events, Learning, Sustainability, Vancouver | No Comments »
We just received an intriguing promo from the Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver) for their current exhibit titled, Clip/Stamp/Fold 6 The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196X-197X. The exhibition is based around the explosion of o [...]
Posted by: Ben Garfinkel on Thursday, September 11th, 2008
Categories: Architecture, Design, Events | No Comments »
While I'll leave the note-taking to the super blogger Lauren, here is the agenda of the presentations:
8.30 Opening Remarks
PSFK founder Piers Fawkes welcomes the audience and introduces the agenda.
8.45 Trends-Should you care?
Ed Cotton (BSSP) explains why trends and inspiration matter - and how you can judge and use them.
9.15 San Francisco Snapshot
What makes the Bay Area tick? Colin Nagy (Attention) leads a discussion with passionate locals discuss what aspects of local culture inspire them the most. Panel includes Amit Gupta (Photojojo), Jeremy Townsend (Ghetto Gourmet), Kevin Allison (Financial Times) and Liz Dunn (funnyordie.com)
10.00 Shape The World
Chris Riley (Apple) explains how three Bay Area residents have shaped his world.
10.50 New Art
Since opening her online and offline art galleries, Jen Bekman (20×200) has witnessed (and encouraged) and new movement of artists, themes and styles. Bekman talks about the trends she sees in art and artists’ use of technology to connect with art-lovers and buyers.
11.20 Make It With Us
Ezra Cooperstein (Current TV) and Andrew Hoppin (NASA) describe how to shake up large bureaucratic industries (e.g.: aerospace and broadcast media) by turning customers into creators and collaborators.
12.00 Making Inspiration Matter
Gathering trends and ideas may be important but how do you take inspiration and create change? Gareth Kay (Modernista) leads a discussion with Eric Corey Freed (Organic Architect), Frank Striefler (Media Arts Lab) and Josh Morenstein (fuseprojects).
1.40 Thoughtful Change
Jean-Marie Shields (Starbucks) explains that the future will embrace brands that connect with consumers by converting ideas into Thoughtful Change.
2.10 Aligning Interests
When cynical people admit they’re idealistic you might be on to something; Publisher and Founding Editor Max Schorr shares his inspirations and learnings from the beginning of GOOD Magazine.
2.40 Look & Feel
Creative designer and inventor of Red, the award winning In Flight Entertainment system for Virgin America, speaks about innovation in the cabin worldwide.
3.40 Using It
How can companies and organizations leverage social media to enhance consumer dialog, evolve product offering and improve sales. Bootstrapping expert George Parker will lead a discussion with leading marketing innovators Adrian Ho (Zeus Jones), Mark Lewis (DDB), Lynn Casey (Team Noesis) and Rohit Bhargava (Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence).
4.20 When Words Are Not Enough
Using experience design to enhance communications: George Murphy (Modo-Group) and John Pollard (Microsoft) describe how environments and technology helped consumers connect with the brand.
4.50 Behave
Josh Handy & Nate Pence talk about how they design the method way, and how design and creative both mirror and shape the organization.
[post_title] => PSFK Conference: more than just trends
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Today I am in San Francisco at the PSFK Conference, billed as a day of trends, inspiration and creativity. So far I am enjoying the content and discussions so much that I am going to avoid trying to frantically keep up with notes, Twitter a [...]
Posted by: Mark Busse on Thursday, July 17th, 2008
Categories: Events, Inspiration, Learning, Trends | No Comments »
Industrial Brand was honoured to design and produce promotional materials for Surrey Art Gallery‘s newly launched Glocal Project. Glocal is a recent project co-developed by our friend and collaborator Jer Thorp (blprnt.com), who will [...]
Posted by: Mark Busse on Friday, June 27th, 2008
Categories: Art, Events, Industrial Brand, Vancouver, Websites | No Comments »
Getting a coffee this morning I was confronted by a compelling stack of promotional material for something called The Cheaper Show. Like most, I’m swayed by a bargain, so was curious. Turns out, the flyer is for a group show/sale by n [...]
Posted by: Ben Garfinkel on Friday, June 20th, 2008
Categories: Art, Events | No Comments »
Recently I attended the Rock Awards hosted by the Vancouver Island Chapter of GDC in Victoria. And what a night to remember. After a delicious locally grown organic meal, the room went dark and was filled with the deep, ominous sounds of a [...]
Posted by: Mark Busse on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
Categories: Associations, Awards, Design, Events, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Why do I so often find myself sitting in presentations that are so ill-suited to my mood or experience level or completely different than what I expected based on the pithy description you provided in your beautiful conference guide agenda? Granted, I'm an older, experienced designer, but I go to design conferences to expand my knowledge and skills just as much as the young design grad. Regardless of how many cool people I meet or how many free drinks you give me at the vendor-sponsored receptions, I'm here to learn too.
Does that mean I don't want to sit back, put my hands behind my head and laugh instead of frantically scribble notes all the time? Of course not! But throw me a bone please, will you? Your descriptions about "so-and-so and his inspiring story will provide you with insights into design leadership and describe the lessons he learned leaving you with strategies you can apply in your practice" is really unfair when it turns out to be someone glumly flipping through slides of all their accomplishments or pretty slides from their portfolio with no take away. Can you please strive to communicate to me more clearly the kind and caliber of presentation and which audience it's geared towards? If it's for newbies, please just tell me straight up. If it's a feel-good story, tell me that too as I may just be in the mood for that.
OK, enough ranting—er, observations—onto the suggestion part.
I suggest the creation of a simple scoring system based on two axis. One axis (numbers 1–5 from left to right perhaps) could be a scale from "practical" to "inspirational" so conference attendees can get a sense of the potential for practical learning and frantic note-taking versus the kind of talks where one kicks back and enjoying stories and a laugh. Both are equally as valid, but warn me please. I don't think this is too much to ask.
The other axis in this system (letters A–E from bottom to top for instance) could simply be something like an experience continuum from "rookie" to "senior"—bearing in mind that some talks are well-suited for everyone, regardless of experience or age. This way if the conference guide informed us that a workshop was rated 1A we'd at least know it was geared specifically for junior designers and would likely be a valuable learning experience. But if a talk was rated on the other end of spectrum—let's say a 5E—then you should expect it to be an inspirational experience without specific design relevance a high priority and directed to a more experienced audience
I think a system like this would be especially effective if conference speakers themselves were informed of ahead of time and required to rate their presentation, thus tailoring their materials to a particular audience—sort of like a design problem, don't you think?
Generous Design Conference Organizers, even if my suggested system isn't well considered, please consider adopting something like it so that you give us, your loyal attendees, some understanding of the kind and caliber of a presentation, drastically reducing incidents of someone being wooed by a well-written description only to find out later they missed something far more suitable in the room next door.
Gratefully yours,
Mark Busse - HOW Design Conference Alumnus, 2008
[post_title] => Conference Presentations: That's Not What the Description Said!
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Steve did a good job summing up our experiences with his review of the 2008 HOW Design Conference, which I enjoyed, so I won’t double our efforts describing the event here. But as I hear myself responding to so many questions about ho [...]
Posted by: Mark Busse on Monday, May 26th, 2008
Categories: Design, Events, Tips | 2 Comments »
We’ve been using Content Managment Sytems (CMS) around the office for virtually every web project for around 4 years now and to date have always gravitated towards perennial favourites WordPress and Drupal. Recently I’ve become [...]
Posted by: Steve Mynett on Monday, May 26th, 2008
Categories: Events | 1 Comment »
The best reason to go to a conference like HOW is the potential that you'll meet a very cool person who you should really know. Someone you soon discover is really rather like you—imagine that! A designer meeting a like-minded designer? At a design conference? No way!
And this has to do with a fake mustache...how? Well, here's what happened. At the end of the first day of the conference I exchanged cards with some interesting folks—one of whom became an instant friend. It didn't take long for our new friend to admit she had slipped into the local costume store and bought fake mustaches of all shapes and insisted we wear them out (I went with "The Rogue" obviously). Which we did of course. To the opening keynote. To dinner. To drinks. To a local jazz club. We'd have worn them all night had the sweat and laughter not caused them to eventually fall off.
Did I mention this new friend and the others in our group were girls? Yup. Two Canadian dudes wandering the streets of Boston until dawn (in search of breakfast of course) with three of the coolest mustachioed girls you'd ever meet.
We looked like a bunch of freaks escaped from Barnum & Bailey.
(Gotta love the graphic design on the mustache packaging by the way. Like we need instructions to remove the staple first? Oh wait, maybe they'd analyzed their audience and knew there'd be drinking involved.)
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Having just returned from HOW Design Conference, I have a hundred stories and many photos to share about the last five days in friendly Boston. But before I do that (and to buy me a little bit of time to get organized), let me just post thi [...]
Posted by: Mark Busse on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008
Categories: Events, Inspiration, Travel | No Comments »
While the GDC members and the guest of honor were out for dinner, I had been eagerly anticipating the presentation, thanks to our brief encounter. The venue was filled with energy upon arrival. Those lucky enough to get tickets enjoyed drinks and food, while others stood in line hoping to get tickets and stand at the back. Amid all of this, the man everyone is waiting to see slips out, for a smoke, and invited me along. Saying, "I'll smoke, you don't have to."
Our conversations flowed from race, to photography, to children, and to culture. In that brief moment I caught his thoughts on independence, his journeys around the world, and questioning why the Chinese are growing in power. It made it easier to confirm his stance on the design industry in New York, "If you are a designer with a really well-done portfolio, New York is the place to be." Two cigarettes and a carrot stick later, the show must begin.
After an intro story about sea elephants and blowjobs, Sagmeister captures everyones attention by yelling "Shut the fuck up!" into the mic. He dove into a studio profile: music business design (a music building 'Casa de Musica' logo approach), socially responsible design (Pentagon squandering with creative approaches, the pig car train and topsy-turvy bus), and corporate design (a lighting company corporate report using same embossed relief of a flower under many lighting conditions).
At this point I'm building a large interest on seeing these pieces in real life, not on the screen or magazines. If only a Canadian organization can commission a project, I won't need to fly to Lisbon or New York.
The pace was steady, the audience was enchanted. His energy heightened as the second half approached, Sagmeister switched to his series,
"Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far." To document Sagmeister's inspirational qualities is a bit of a chore, he truly is someone you have to meet to understand. One of the messages he did refresh for me, was the importance of representing internal reflection in creative ways. It doesn’t take much, just a little time and “schwoopdeeboop,” you might end up with something great.
Before the presentation was over, his books were all sold, and the line up for autographs had begun. There is mystery and hype surrounding Sagmeister, but there are no smoke and mirrors involved in his work. What he does and how he does it has a certain flavour, but when it comes down to it he isn't a celebrity designer with an attitude, in person, he's just like anyone else. An equal amount of people support and oppose his work; there are other designers that are provocative and inspiring. Although design
used to equal fart, the truth of the matter is that Sagmeister dances on the tightrope between art and design.
[post_title] => Sagmeister: Design, Inspiration and Sea Elephant Blowjob
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If I was asked who Stefan Sagmeister was a week ago, I could’ve given a handful of knee-jerk descriptions; he’s a designer, he’s provocative, he’s influential. I could’ve said many things to describe the icon h [...]
Posted by: Steph Co on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008
Categories: Art, Articles, Events, Guest, Inspiration, Learning, We love | No Comments »
If you’re in any field related to art or design, you very likely know who Syd Mead is—the artist primarily responsible for the look and feel of influential movies such as Aliens, Blade Runner, Tron and others. Well, as a volunteer o [...]
Posted by: Mark Busse on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008
Categories: Art, Associations, Events, Inspiration, Vancouver, We love | 3 Comments »
Yup. You read that correctly. Rogue graphic design star Stefan Sagmeister will be giving a presentation in Vancouver as part of GDC’s Salazar Student Design Awards at 6 pm on Friday, May 9th at the Roundhouse Arts & Community Cent [...]
Posted by: Mark Busse on Friday, April 25th, 2008
Categories: Associations, Design, Events, Vancouver | No Comments »
IBC was honoured to design and produce the website for GDC’s Graphex National Design Awards this year. The competition has been judged and the winners will be announced on March 28th at a formal awards gala on March 28rd at the pres [...]
Posted by: Mark Busse on Saturday, February 16th, 2008
Categories: Associations, Design, Events, Vancouver | No Comments »
Vancouver, BC has been chosen as the official host city for the annual SIGGRAPH conference in 2011. This is a huge win for the city and is the first time the conference will venture outside the United States. The conference should prove a s [...]
Posted by: Mark Busse on Saturday, December 29th, 2007
Categories: Associations, Events, News, Technology, Vancouver | 1 Comment »
Word has it that the Graphex 2008 commemorative binder is totally WOW! The binder was given out as a welcome kit to the judges and so far it’s been very well received. Don’t you just love the laser etched bamboo cover? We do. Th [...]
Posted by: Claire Alexander on Friday, November 30th, 2007
Categories: Associations, Awards, Design, Events, Industrial Brand | No Comments »
