PHXDW Overview

I think I might be feeling back to normal after the last few weeks which were a whirlwind. So I've finally found a little time to write up my thoughts on Design Week. I'll start with the exhibits, which were held Tuesday night - Friday. I acted as Director of Exhibits and I think they turned out pretty dang good. The receptions at both Santy and Terralever were a success with around a hundred people at each. Everyone loved the designers work, and actually Terralever might purchase one of the designers installations to keep there.

The first exhibit of the week was at Kitchen Sink Studios in downtown Phoenix on Tuesday night. I LOVE their office. They held the student poster exhibit which got a great turnout.

Wednesday night was the Santy exhibit, Jenny Messerly, Liz Magura, Tammy LePham worked really hard with me to get the installs up. It took about seven hours to set up the poster contest and "REJECTED" logos exhibits which included 25 printed posters, a window projection and over 40 "REJECTED" logos.

The individual designers who set up at Santy for design week were Daniel Davis of Steamcrow, Jon Ashcroft (awesome prints), Jeremy Smith displayed his typeface Karmaform and Drew Dulap with his MSCED exhibit.

The Terralever reception was just as successful with Tiphani Brooke's Heart Condition, Miro Chun's Wirework install, the Pulpture exhibit, which we successfully got one entry for :) and the Phoenix Layers Competition exhibit, all of the Quarter Finals matches were printed and Andrew Coppola also put together a movie of the entire season.

So that's a quick summary of the exhibits, which ran through Friday. Friday night Punchcut showed the Typofile Film Festival which was amazing and which we got a fantastic turnout for, over 200 people! You can see a preview of the film on Vimeo.

The conference which spanned Saturday and Sunday was a huge success. It was almost flawless. Saturday kicked off with the opening titles, which if you look closely you'll spot myself and my little dog too. Then I attended the "Where is the Valley Going" and "Evolution of the Agency" panels which we got some interesting insight from some large and small agency and business owners around Phoenix.

Saturday afternoon was Debbie Millman's presentation, she is a fantastic speaker, and I love that she talks about science (and the brain) and how it relates to design. After that I checked out Eric Torres and Daniel Davis' discussion about the life of a professional illustrator. Even though I am not an illustrator, I still found what they were talking about to be relative and true for some of the things I run into in my work-life also. Then I attended Jared Benson's (of Punchcut) preso about Mobile Design, which I found to be immensely interesting, I learned new words like "biomimicry" and love the idea of "digital ecosystems".

Sunday morning kicked off with Bennet Peji, an energetic start to the day, which was great. He spoke about branding cities which I found really interesting since last year I worked on rebranding one of the cities around Phoenix. The "State of Phoenix's Creative Class" debate was after, which was fitting. After lunch I thought that Robert Neal's "UX Design and the Mind" sounded interesting, and I was right. Robert spoke about psychology and UX Design and I loved it.

Sadly the week had to end and Chaz Maviyane-Davies "the guerrilla of graphic design" ended by discussing and showing many of his social, controversial and environmental pieces of work.

Phoenix Design Week was an overall success, I am proud to have been a part of making it happen. It was a lot of work and sleepless nights for many, but well worth it. If you didn't make it out this year, I hope to see you next year, where I have heard rumors that it will be even bigger and better. I better rest up now.

Check out more photos on flickr and sign-up to be part of making next years events!