I love these nerds. This weekend, I attended the Michigan Press Association Convention in Grand Rapids, and I learned so much about journalism in the state, and the future of print media.The first session I attended was on social media selling, presented by Amie Stein. It was targeted toward ad salespeople, but I still found …
Left to right – John Berry, director of Design West Michigan, with Clive Owens. On Wednesday, February 5th, Design West Michigan hosted a lecture featuring Clive Owens, founder of Society for Experiential Graphic Design. It introduced me to something that I hadn’t known much about before – experiential design. Experiential design is the category of …
The biggest gathering at Kendall College of Art and Design is Halloween. There’s a costume contest, there’s food, everyone comes to it. On most other days of the year, the school is empty. The dialogue and personality class at Kendall College of Art and Design is solving community and student life issues the same way …
Last weekend I went to Design For Good, which was hosted by AIGA West Michigan at Grid 70. The basis of the event was this: For one weekend, designers and copywriters and web developers get together and use their skills to help out a local nonprofit. Seems great, right? I worked with the Greater Grand …
SiTE:LAB Workflow happened on Friday night at the old public museum, 54 Jefferson. It was fantastic. It was awesome. I am so happy that I was able to be a part of it. The Chairmania exhibit that my Collaborative Projects class worked on went really well. We worked hard on it, and it was so …
Design/Educate/Connect partners with the GRAM to showcase local entrepreneurs who bridge the gap between design and business. On Friday night, the third annual D/E/C event featured seven business owners. One defining characteristic of D/E/C is the fact that the interviewees are interviewed by people who they know well – often colleagues, friends, or partners. The …
In 2007, Paul Amenta was looking for a way to give his sculpture students some experience outside the classroom. To do this, he started SiTE:LAB, which was then called ActiveSite, to use empty, but architecturally intriguing spaces as homes for one-night art shows. SiTE:LAB Workflow, as a part of Art Downtown, will be the third …
Start Garden is the Rick DeVos – powered venture capital fund in Grand Rapids. Instead of going the traditional investing route of picking a few business ideas and hoping that they are profitable, Start Garden is investing small amounts in a greater number of businesses, and offering guidance and further investments down the road. Every …
I went to Kendall’s fashion show, Bodies of Art, on Friday. It was fantastic. Everything was made out of paper, which made it even more impressive. I’m amazed at the things everyone created out of just paper. Congratulations to everyone involved, you’ve all done so well.
Design is all about process, and that’s especially true of large, long-term projects. This semester, I’m taking Collaborative Projects, and we’re working with the Grand Rapids Public Museum to create a traveling exhibit. The first step in the our process was research. On the first day of class, we went to the Van Andel Museum …