Friend of the studio and occasional collaborator Jer Thorp is putting on some Processing Workshops in Vancouver. I’ve had an intro into Processing from Jer while I was in school and enjoyed it, though sadly haven’t spent much time in it since. If only there were some great one day sessions held in a great location that I could take…

The Alcuin Society and BC Chapter of GDC are co-producing a FREE EVENT featuring Canadian book designer, illustrator, art director, and publisher Frank Newfeld on April 2nd at SFU Harbour Centre in Vancouver.

This intimate evening will include an exhibit of Mr. Newfeld’s work, a presentation by the master himself as he shares his thoughts on illustrated books, particularly those for the younger reader. This should be of special interest to fans of Newfeld’s illustrations for Alligator Pie (poems by Dennis Lee). Copies of Mr. Newfeld’s recent memoir, Drawing on Type (The Porcupine’s Quill, 2008), will be available for purchase and signing.

Place: SFU Vancouver (Harbour Centre)
1900 – 515 West Hastings St, Vancouver
Date: Thursday, April 2nd, 7:00 pm
Cost: FREE, but seating is limited and only those who RSVP here will be admitted.

Come make your voice heard and your vote count at the GDC BC’s Annual General Meeting and holiday social on January 22nd at Stanley Park Pavilion. Our special guest speaker this year is Mark Strassburger from Modern Dog in Seattle, who designed custom posters for the event (available to attendees only). This FREE event also includes food, a cash bar and a live jazz quartet, but RSVPs are required.

Click here for more details and to RSVP.

I consider myself lucky to one of the lucky few able to get a ticket to last night’s sold out inaugural Interesting Vancouver conference with some friends. Oops, I meant to say “unconference.” It was the third local event that I’d consider part of the unconference social movement which is growing in popularity, as both a co-host of Likemind Vancouver and an attendee at the latest edition of Pecha Kucha—all in the span of a week.

My friends and I, including CSS guru Dave Shea, his beautiful fiancé Lauren Isaacson, and my colleague Matt SamyciaWood, decided to try to avoid using the word “interesting” during the event, lest the offender be forced to buy the next round. Let’s just say it was  good thing we augmented the rules before we were completely sideways and Matt had hit the limit on his credit card. That would have made the night ahead definitely…uh…interesting.

Unconferences are becoming quite popular recently. Perhaps it’s a reaction to these uncertain political, economical and environmental times, but I don’t care—I like it. The idea of large, complicated and expensive conferences centred around an industry or topic has it’s place, but I relish the idea of smaller gatherings of like-minded folks to discuss a variety of topics that affect them. And the notable lack of pressure to hand out business cards and endlessly network, seeking clients or employment is refreshing.

The evening was nearly flawless in its execution. Organized and calmly presented. The schedule was adhered to strictly and the presentations were divers, fresh and succinct. Having been disappointed with all but a few of the speakers at the recent Pecha Kucha event—some of the better ones actually in the audience last night—I found the key strength of Interesting Vancouver was the quality of the presentations themselves. Clearly the organizer, Brett MacFarlane, put a great deal of time and thought into inviting just the right mix of topics and speakers, includeing James Chutter , Darren Barefoot, Dave Ng, Tom Williams and Irwin Oostindie among others.

Presentations alternated from quick three minute overviews to longer twenty minute diatribes on topics such as eating local food, the challenges of living abroad, the impact of art & design on culture, and how we can all find meaning in our lives by supporting various charities. Some speakers addressed precisely how interesting Vancouver is directly, with explorations of the efforts being made to build community and gathering spaces, how BC is a world leader in addressing climate change, and the variety of museums in the area. Every single speaker seemed hand selected and were clearly well prepared and well rehearsed for the evening. The final presentation of the night was by new Vancouverite and 2nd Globe artist David Young, who  ended with a sobering look at moments of genius and accomplishment throughout history that occured in cities much smaller and less developed than Vancouver, challenging the audience to consider “Why not us?”, suggesting that Vancouver may indeed by the “next great place.”

Another key factor for me last night was the combination of the high calibre of attendees combined with the casual, comfortable feeling in the room. Hosted at The Vancouver Rowing Club, with its spectacular views of the Vancouver skyline, the event had a casual, town hall feel. People from all walks—though admittedly skewed toward the geek “wonk” crowd—sipped beers and munched apples compliments of the organizers. Apples and beer? Try it for yourself, it’s a delicious combo.

The night ended as it had begun: enjoying good conversations over drinks with likeminded friends, only this time they were coffees with cake—to help shake off the multiple beers imbibed earlier. I’m looking forward to next year’s edition of Interesting Vancouver and recommend you attend, although I hope it doesn’t grow much larger due its success this year, and suggest you think up a more clever drinking game than we did. Ouch.

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. In it Walker claims that design conferences have become “exercises in regenerated, wasteful spectacles,” feeling “less like intellectual retreats and more like conspicuous consumption.” In her forthright Core77 post she shares her perspectives and offers numerous ideas for making them more sustainable and relevant. Perhaps her most profound recommendation being to cancel conference plans altogether and replace them with more organic, local, spontaneous and sustainable alternatives.

Having attended numerous conferences and helped organize various events over the years, this article really hit close to home and resonated with me. I even did a little ranting about the traditional conference format myself after attending the HOW Design Conference in Boston earlier this year. But more importantly, it made us in the GDC/BC Executive reconsider our own choices regarding events and role in hosting competitions such as Graphex and conferences such as Icograda Design Week.

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.

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 on the SIGGRAPH board I had been sent to run a couple errands for an event we’re hosting tonight and it was a bit of a surreal jolt for me yesterday as I realized that I not only had film cans in the back of my car containing a print of Blade Runner: The Final Cut but that Syd Mead himself was sitting in the passenger seat next to me after picking him up at the airport. Wow. On the ride into town I found Mr. Mead to be warm, charming and with a terrific sense of humour. You can hear and meet the “Visual Futurist” yourself at tonight’s event in Vancouver—including watching Blade Runner in a large theatre the way it was meant to be viewed with its Art Director in the audience.

Information and tickets available online at www.siggraph.ca.

GDC/BC Presents: Design Speaker Series #1 – Logo Savvy Book Launch
Thursday October 18th, 2007 @ 7–10pm at Emily Carr Institute Theatre, Granville Island, Vancouver.

Ever wonder how some of the world’s top brand identity firms go about creating names and identity designs for their clients? Learn from case studies that dissect the branding process at the Logo Savvy book launch.

Special guests:
• Mark Popich, Hornall Anderson Design
• James Bateman, Karacters Design Group
• Dann Ilicic, WOW! Branding

Visit the event website for more details an to buy tickets.