Matt recently wrote a great article about why he was excited about the upcoming Icograda Design Week Vancouver 2010 conference.

This week Icograda released this animated promo video about the theme of Design Currency created by Rethink, Giant Ant Media, Todd Smith Design and Wave Productions—all studios in Vancouver, BC.

The coolest thing for me is that the video is old school flipbook animation, not computer trickery. The production team literally printed and photographed 2,180 custom bills to create the effect. Here are some behind the scenes photos showing how they did it.

Pretty cool work guys—well done!

If you are serious about your career as a designer, and want to learn from the world’s top experts while participating in an important dialogue about the nature and value of our industry, leaving you better equipped to tackle social, environmental and economic challenges, then you should attend Design Currency: Icograda Design Week in Vancouver 2010.

Presented by the International Council Of Graphic Design Associations (Icograda) and hosted by the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada (GDC) from April 26–30, 2010 at Vancouver Convention Centre, the theme of this international, multi-disciplinary design conference is Design Currency: Defining The Value of Design, with the concept of “Currency” being expressed as the state or quality of being current; general acceptance or reception; a passing from person to person, or from hand to hand.

Design Currency: Icograda Design Week in Vancouver 2010 will offer designers, business leaders and government the opportunity to experience current design thinking. Design brings clarity and enhances meaning and has the power to influence our core values, our identity, our expectations and our worldview. The conference will help reshape our mutual understanding of the value of design by exploring the various levels of identity as it relates to processes, sustainability, economy, innovation, change and authenticity in communications that help define who we are and where we are going as a culture.

Preceded by GDC’s national AGM and Icograda’s regional board meeting, the conference will kick off with a keynote presentation of thought-leadership on how design is shaping, and being shaped by, our global community. The following two days will include highly interactive presentations, panel discussions and workshops led by a host of world-class international design experts that will maximise the opportunity for interaction between presenters and delegates. All delegates, presenters and sponsors will have free access to exhibits, forums and Design Trade Fair featuring the latest products and services from manufacturers, retailers and event partners. The conference finale will be the Awards Gala dinner for Graphex 2010, Canada’s national awards programme.

A partial sample list of confirmed speakers include:

• Nathan Shedroff – Experience design pioneer, Chair of the Design Strategy MBA, California College of the Arts (United States)
• Marian Bantjes – Designer, typographic illustrator and educator (Canada)
• Freeman Lau – Kan & Lau Design Consultants (Hong Kong SAR)
• Gregoire Serikoff – Designer and facilitator, Founder of The Value Web, member of Accelerated Solutions Environment network, Icograda board member (France)
• Ashwini Deshpande – Founder and Creative Director of Elephant Strategy + Design (India)
• Debbie Millman – Brand designer, author, radio host, President of Sterling Brands, President of AIGA (United States)
• Mark E. Sackett – Designer, radio host, President of Reflectur, Founder of BOX SF (United States)
• Jason Santa Maria – Interaction designer, Founder of Mighty, Creative Director of A List apart, AIGA board member (United States)
• Martin Miruka – Designer, author, Founder and Lead Strategist of ATOM-tdf, Chairman of Diversity Africa Foundation & KenyaOne (Kenya)
• Lise Vejse Klint – Designer, Architect, Director of INDEX: Design to Improve Life, former Secretary General of Icograda (Denmark)
• Oscar Pena – Designer, Global Senior Creative Director of Philips (The Netherlands)
• Cameron Sinclair – Architecture for Humanity (United States)
• Dr. Tony Golsby-Smith – Designer, strategist, Founder and CEO of Second Pty Ltd (Australia)

Register online before January 16th and take advantage of the early bird discounts!

Icograda has formally announced Design Week 2010 to be hosted by GDC in Vancouver with official event profile information on their website.

Industrial Brand Featured on Icograda Galeria

Industrial Brand’s new identity design was recently honoured by being featured in the Galeria section of International Council of Graphic Design Associations’ website.

I was recently honoured to be invited to contribute a poster design to Prografica’s exhibit Design/Culture: Posters for Cultural Diversity as part of the Icograda World Design Congress 2007 held in Havana, Cuba this past October. I’m not entirely sure what is says, but my bio sure looks sexy in Spanish!

The concept behind my poster design is an expression of personal individuality in light of cultural pluralism and an expression of concern for a loss of self, tradition and culture in a world moving toward homogeneity. Perhaps a bit cheesy, I used a self portrait muted by dark shadow set against a field of handwritten words describing numerous attributes of other cultures.

That isn’t a balloon I’m blowing up either, but rather a condom. Odd, I know, but it was supposed to suggest a personal celebration of individuality. I wonder how to say “blow up that condom” in Spanish? Who knows, but apparently “Ben” means “horseradish tree”. Awesome.