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Rick Griffith: What Design Might Be
What Design Might Be is an evolving presentation of constantly updated sources and references from design history with predictions and possible trajectories for designers in all disciplines. Rick shares why he continues to love design after 30 years and what he is currently excited about in the areas of design, system change, and knowledge production.
Michael Lehrer: Architecture is Optimism: The City of Angels' Better Angels
Optimism in the studio spills into the culture-at-large. Optimism transcends property lines into neighborhoods. Optimism isn't trivial, it's persevering for a vision. Over the past 20+ years Lehrer Architects LA has been working in professional and civic roles to get people off the streets and into decent housing. This talk will explore the continuum of housing and how creating HOME for someone - for anyone and everyone - is about providing human dignity, safety, love and respect through affordable housing solutions, shelters and community projects. Their projects throughout the city of Los Angeles all share a level of design sensibility and beauty not often seen in these types of spaces and provide a model of how to enhance a community by caring for its most vulnerable residents with dignity through design.
Phyllis Williams-Strawder: Getting Lost On The Way To The Entrepreneurs House
Getting lost on the way to becoming an entrepreneur is to damn common. It's usually because we take a path we don't know. We also have a tendency to take the path that someone else created. Creating your own shortcuts and knowing when to diverge is scary because you may not see yourself as a trailblazer. It's time to stop going in circles and trust that you know what's best for you.
Amber Case: Building Technology from the Human Out - Calm Technology, Humanity, and our Collective Future
Calm technology describes a state of technological maturity where a user’s primary task is not computing, but being human. The idea behind Calm Technology is to have smarter people, not things. Technology shouldn’t require all of our attention, just some of it, and only when necessary.
The terms calm computing and calm technology were coined in 1995 by PARC Researchers Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown in reaction to the increasing complexities that information technologies were creating. How can we design technologies that become part of a life and not a distraction from it? Technologies that respect human time instead of deterring from it? This talk explores the concept of calm technology, a method for smoothly capturing a user’s attention only when necessary, while calmly remaining in the background most of the time.
The terms calm computing and calm technology were coined in 1995 by PARC Researchers Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown in reaction to the increasing complexities that information technologies were creating. How can we design technologies that become part of a life and not a distraction from it? Technologies that respect human time instead of deterring from it? This talk explores the concept of calm technology, a method for smoothly capturing a user’s attention only when necessary, while calmly remaining in the background most of the time.
2022
Martin Venesky: Crossing Disciplines and Back Again
In 2014 Venezky exhibited his photographic work for the first time. Although photography had played a role in his design work for years, this was the first time it was presented for its own sake, without any client or external project brief. From that point on he has been slowly steering his work in that direction, with unexpected results. Venezky will discuss this transformation and how the two disciplines of design and photography strengthen, challenge and enhance each other in his recent work.
Jessica Bellamy: Creative Impact: Equity in Information and Experience Design
Learn about Jessica’s experiences as a creative operating at the intersection of community organizing, information design, research, and experience design. In this session, she will walk participants through impact design case studies and offer a foundation in data equity. Jessica will also share her six principles of Conscious and Responsible design, and the tools necessary to be successful in the social change sector.
Joel Pilger: Our Crisis of Unhelpfulness
Design is supposed to make things easier. Why are designers making things harder? Design promises solutions to a world of questions in search of answers. But what if the designers are invisible? Meet Our Crisis of Unhelpfulness, where clients with real challenges struggle every day to find, understand, and collaborate with creators who are all sadly floating in a sea of sameness. In this talk, RevThink consultant Joel Pilger will reveal the root causes of the crisis, as well as the discovery that has helped hundreds of creative firms around the world overcome it.
Liz Jackson: Engaging in Disability as a Creative Practice
Designers are increasingly referring to disability in terms of accessibility. But accessibility is only one part of disability; it’s the need. And it is being taught at the exclusion of disability history, disability culture, and disability theory. Liz discusses the impact of engaging in disability, not as a problem to be solved, but rather as a discipline and a creative practice. This presentation teaches designers how to design WITH, rather than for disability.
Deann Van Buren: Peace By Design
Peace by Design looks at the work of Designing Justices Designing Spaces (DJDS), along with research that explores how design in the public realm can support healing from interpersonal and transgenerational harms.
Peter Burr: Pattern Language
This is an interview that followed the exhibition of 'Pattern Language' by Peter Burr. 'Pattern Language’ is a term coined by architect Christopher Alexander to quantify the aliveness of certain human ambitions through an index of structural patterns. Some advocates of this design approach claim that ordinary people can use it to successfully solve very large, complex design problems. In this piece, Alexander’s design theories are applied towards the construction of a generative video game labyrinth resulting in a rhythmic animation made of rippling, skipping, and strobing arrays of light. The whole environment is infused with a procedural vitality brought forth through cellular automata and crowd simulation algorithms.
Tré Seals: Being Vocal
Tré was only two years out of college with a passion for branding, and all of a sudden, he got bored. “I was tired of the process of searching for inspiration only to realize that everything looks the same,” he says. “I started wondering if I had chosen the wrong career path. Once I discovered that the design industry is over 80% white and the majority male, everything made sense. When an industry is dominated by a singular experience, a singular perspective, this creates a lack of diversity in people, experiences, ideas, voices, and most importantly, creations. So in short, I started, and continue to expand upon, Vocal Type Co. for the (less than) 20% who feel that they don’t have a voice, and continue to be underrepresented, in the design industry.” His talk will cover the founding of Vocal Type Co., the importance of diversity in design, and a look at his process.
Debbie Millman: Why We Brand, Why We Buy
Why We Brand, Why We Buy is an entertaining sociological, scientific and anthropological overview of why humans buy and brand things.
2019
John Bielenberg: When Wrong is Right
The way we solve problems is broken—we’re trapped by techniques and assumptions of the past. Today's big challenges like climate change, population growth, species extinction, and new technologies emerge at an ever-accelerating rate. We struggle to find the imaginative answers we crave and when we do, biology and culture conspire to obstruct our progress. Find out how thinking wrong can conquer the status quo and help you do work that truly matters.
Michael Ellsworth & Gabriel Stromberg: Social Studies
Exploring the power of design and how it has the ability to facilitate identity, action and connection.
Allison Arieff: Solving all the Wrong Problems
Every day, innovative companies promise to make the world a better place. Are they succeeding? We are overloaded daily with new discoveries, patents and inventions all promising a better life, but that better life has not been forthcoming for most. When everything is characterized as “world-changing,” is anything? If the most fundamental definition of design is to solve problems, why are so many people devoting so much energy to solving problems that don’t really exist? How can we get more people to look beyond their own lived experience?
Mohan Nair: The Deadly Sins of Business Transformation
How does an organization innovate when markets are transforming? Innovation is usually considered the instrument to transform organizations and markets when actually identifying transformed markets ahead and then using innovation as an instrument is more appropriate. Yet many leaders see digital, blockchain, artificial intelligence as keys to change. Mohan brings a fresh perspective to transformation. His keynote will connect personal and business transformation in a unique and memorable way. He believes that companies lose their personality before they lose their way. Based on 10 years of research and a book, Mohan will explore the power of uncovering market shifts long before they happen and how to act on them.
April Greiman: Color Is
My work interest has always been a study in, and observation of, light and space. Often technically two-dimensional, certain projects demand space around them in a specific way, attest to a longstanding relationship with architecture – the impact on the senses at different scales, creating tactile and experiential opportunity, exploring color as an object in and of itself.
While scale change encourages a cycle of (re)creating, color and light play the more significant part of creating, perceiving, and appreciating ‘environment.’
Color is space, space is color, color is light. Color can heal, raise one from the dead.
While scale change encourages a cycle of (re)creating, color and light play the more significant part of creating, perceiving, and appreciating ‘environment.’
Color is space, space is color, color is light. Color can heal, raise one from the dead.
Chris Do: Art of Communication
Learn how to say what you think, minus the stress, awkwardness, and friction around difficult subjects like budget, scope creep, art direction, hiring/firing, and other pain points around client/staff interactions.
Kim & Jeff Kovel: Family Album
Family Album: A Conversation with Creative Siblings Kim Kovel and Jeff Kovel, moderated by April Baer.
2018
Angela Luna: Clothing for Crisis
Many factors that contribute to the safety of refugees and migrants worldwide; some allowing them to cross borders undeterred or be assisted in a moment of life or death. Clothing has typically NOT been considered one of these safety facilitators or a crisis aids. Apparel with intentional and innovative design CAN, however, offer aid in emergency situations, as well as combat prejudice and ignorance, promote solidarity, and spread awareness. Angela Luna will highlight these crisis-aiding values and how we all can contribute to this cause.
Chris Riley: The Ethics of Content
As the worlds of journalism and advertising collide and combine, how do we avoid a world defined by one big infomercial? How can we create trust for our clients and our industry when boundaries are so blurred?
Ryan Summers: An Artist's Guide to the Scientific Method
Feature Films. Animated Series. Video Games. Visual Effects. TV Shows. Over the last fifteen years, Ryan Summers has worked on nearly every creative canvas the arts can provide. There is one constant that has helped fuel his inspiration, unlock hard-to-solve problems, and bridge communication gaps between clients, agencies, and fellow artists. And it comes from a place most artists fear to tread: the realm of the Scientific Method. After years of studying science as a chemical engineer, Ryan stumbled into a computer animation lab, animated his first bouncing ball, and rocketed off into a life filled with exploring the arts. Lightbending, pixel peeping, and pencil pushing became his everyday norm, but the iterative and cyclical process of Observe, Test, & Develop perfected in the scientific world has always been a ready and useful tool.
Rebeca Méndez: Design as a Social Force for Change
Rebeca Méndez’s talk will focus on her research, practice and teaching which stem from the belief that art and design can serve as a force for social change. Méndez will present recent projects and introduce her new initiative— CounterForce Lab, a research and fieldwork studio based at Design Media Arts and the School of the Arts and Architecture at UCLA, dedicated to using art and design to develop creative collaborations, new fields of study, and methods to research, create, and execute projects around the social and ecological impacts of anthropocene climate change. The CounterForce Lab is committed to the practice of design and media art in public space, critical approaches to landscape, and artistic projects based on field investigation methods—artistic fieldwork practice.
Kawandeep Virdee: Expression, Voice, and Joy
You see me, and I see you, we both exist and we’re laughing together. Kavendeep Virdee works to encourage these moments amongst family, friends, or strangers in public/live spaces and digital spaces. When people see one another in a piece, they both exist to the other. When they can interact with each other, a whimsical experience can turn profound. Virdee encourages the absurd, the ridiculous, the surreal, and the magical. His presentation highlights how to use interactivity to give voice and expression, and future opportunities for people to create meaningful, compelling experiences.
Tanner Woodford: Here's to Adventure: Designing a New Museum
Founded under the leadership of Tanner in 2012, the first pop-up Chicago Design Museum (ChiDM) exhibition was held in a 6,000 square-foot vacant office space in Humboldt Park. In 2013, the museum installed a second pop-up exhibition (Work at Play) in a 17,000 square-foot retail loft space downtown and funded a capital campaign on Kickstarter. In its first five years, the organization has grown to 3 full-time staff, with dozens of interns, and hundreds of volunteers. It has organized 11 major design exhibitions that are free and open to the public while planning over 100 events and collaborative workshops. Its mission of strengthening design culture and building community is fulfilled through a variety of programs for designers and the public.
John Cary: Dignifying Design
Almost nothing influences the quality of our lives more than the design of our homes, our schools, our workplaces, and our public spaces. Environmental psychologists have long described this influence as “place identity” — the foremost building blocks of our sense of self are the spaces in which we live, work, and play. The design also has a unique ability to dignify or reflect back to people the value of their lives. Despite all this, design is often taken for granted; most people don’t realize that they deserve better, or that better is even possible. Drawing on examples from around the world, author John Cary’s keynote showcases buildings that dignify illustrated by stories of their actual inhabitants and users.
Bryan Lee: Design Justice
Design Justice advocates for the dismantling of privilege and power structures that use architecture and planning to create systems of injustice throughout the built environment. This presentation speaks to the organizing, advocacy, and design work tied to racial, social, and cultural equity.
Lynda Decker: Women, Design and Leadership
The gender pay gap in the United States is 20% on average, with women earning 80% of what men earn. Sixty percent of design graduates are women, but only 11% of creative directors are female. Based on the current rate of leadership progression, it will be almost 70 years before there is parity of women and men in equal positions of design leadership. Lynda Decker is co-chair of AIGA’s initiative, Women Lead. This year the initiative made a commitment to doubling the number of women leaders in the next two years. Lynda will speak about AIGA’s efforts and how we can create lasting change.
2017
Ann Friedman: Follow Your Bliss. Then What?
"Most of us have been told to “do what you love” at some point. But it’s really not that simple. There are downsides to monetizing your creative work—and upsides to keeping your art for yourself. How do you design a (work) life that balances doing what you enjoy with the realities of needing to make money?
April Soetarman: A Working Theory of Delight: Sound and Space in Design
"Sound is an amazingly powerful design material, but it is often treated as an afterthought. My work aims tap into sound as an emotional influence in everyday life and design. I’ll be sharing insights about sound through the lens of cognition, culture, and story, and examples of projects with sound as a critical design material.
Ashley Shaffer: Design & Government How Do Governments Be More Citizen-Centered?
Around the world, our governments are looking for better ways to help citizens become more healthy, more informed, and more resilient. At IDEO, we approach these challenges with a human-centered lens – reframing citizens as customers. How can we design a voting system that’s intuitive and equitable for everyone? How can a website serve the needs of every resident? How can a public school cafeteria build new eating rituals? Stories of citizen-centered design at work.
Brad Cloepfil: Case Work: Studies in Form, Space, and Construction
Brad Cloepfil, Founding Principal of Allied Works Architecture, will discuss the firm’s design process, creative work and notable projects (such as The Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, and the National Music Centre of Canada, in Calgary) presented through the lens of their exhibition entitled Case Work: Studies in Form, Space, and Construction.Case Work offers an inside view into Allied Works Architecture’s unique approach to design, a process driven by a rich material and physical investigation. For Brad Cloepfil and Allied Works, each project begins with the creation of hand drawings and concept models. These highly evocative artifacts—forged of diverse matter such as reclaimed timbers, porcelain, resin, glass, lead and steel—distill the essence of each project, and explore the dialogue among material, technique and intention that lies at the heart of architectural practice.
Elena Moon: Teach a Grandmother, Change the World: UX Design for Good
How do you design a tablet app for rural users who have never handled a digital device? What do you do when they speak no common language, and lack the ability to read on their own? Elena Moon traveled to Rajasthan, India, to learn from an international group of grandmothers who were learning to become solar engineers, despite a lack of literacy. Each had traveled from a different part of the world to participate in the 6-month Solar Grandmother program, hosted by India’s Barefoot College, a 40-year-old grassroots institution dedicated to helping marginalized people build skills that bring solutions. In many cases, these Solar Grandmothers become respected leaders, presenting a model for women’s empowerment to the rest of their community.
Evan Clabots: The Role of the Designer in the New World
Design’s role in society is not constant. At times, design is about style – a redressing of objects that we already know. Other times, design is about innovation; it becomes more about creating the world around us than simply styling it. Historically, periods of innovation often align with the advent of new manufacturing techniques, which allow us to push the boundaries of production. Today, we see technological advancements in the form of 3D printing. This technology has its advantages for commercial design, in that it allows for more localized production without the pressure of producing at economies of scale. It is also making design tools more accessible to the public, much like Instagram has for photography or Garage Band has for music. As these tools become more prominent in everyday life, the public will have the ability to create their own products and style their own lives. The impetus, therefore, is on us as designers to leverage the technology and continue to create products that meet consumers’ needs and are relevant in a changing society. This Keynote will address the democratization of design and the role of the designer as the industry shifts.
John C Jay: No Creativity. No Life.
Innovation, new ideas fueled by technology and social change will determine who will lead us into the next revolution. It is not the size of the brand, company or organization but the depth of one’s thinking and ability to make ideas into reality. As with brands, small cities and communities can compete with the biggest and the best if they build their own network of top talent. Creativity is not a luxury or an expense. It is the catalyst for our future. It is about survival. Without it, you merely exist. For now.
2016
Kassin Leverity: Interior Design Fair
As Founder and Executive Director, Kassin is responsible for Interior Design Fair (IDF) vision, strategy, and leadership. In addition to overseeing the design firm’s day-to-day operations and business development, Kassin is directly involved on client projects as a creative catalyst. Under her direction, IDF creates innovative residential interiors and brings company brands to life in 3D. Kassin has spearheaded the design and style of countless residential and commercial projects, including national and global Airbnb offices, Tradeshift, 23andMe, Everlane, and several tech startups and design-forward businesses. Her passion for both forward-thinking design and excellent customer service is influenced by her background in various design and management roles with several top Bay Area design firms, most recently as Director at Kendall Wilkinson Design & Home and formerly for Steven Miller Design Studio and Jeffers Design Group. Believing that spaces can alter how you feel and amplify who you are and what you bring to the world, Kassin contributes inspired design solutions to philanthropic enterprises such as the Homeless Prenatal Program (HPP) and the Ronald McDonald House at Stanford.
Sam Stubblefield: Experience Design
Sam is interested in shaping architecture, film, music, urbanism, and digital tech to create a more interesting life for anyone that happens to come across his work. By encouraging abstract thinking and play within deep-practice teams, Sam has created art, architecture, and situations for organizations like Amazon, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, Lady Bug House, Madison Square Garden, Microsoft Research, Sears Tower Visitor Center, and the London 2012 Summer Olympics. This work has contributed to projects that have won multiple AIA National Honor Awards, International Interior Design Association awards, MOBIUS Gold Awards, Society for Experiential Graphic Design Honor Awards, and the Cannes Lions International Award. Sam is an instructor at Experience Institute (www.expinstitute.org), is Director of Trouble and Problems at NOT ART (www.not-art.org), plays music under the moniker Sound as Architectural Material, and is a founder of a future-focused incubator with an interest in architectural integration of art and internet. Sam’s work can be found on every continent except Antarctica.
Desiree Matel-Anderson: Global Disaster Innovation Group
Desi Matel-Anderson is the Chief Wrangler of the Field Innovation Team (FIT), 501(c)3, and CEO of the Global Disaster Innovation Group, LLC. Desi is the first and former Chief Innovation Advisor at FEMA and Think Tank Strategic Vision Coordinator. During her tenure at FEMA, she led the first innovation team down to Hurricane Sandy to provide real-time problem solving in disaster response and recovery and ran think tanks nation-wide to cultivate innovation in communities. She has worked on numerous emergency management projects with agencies, communities, organizations, and companies. She also lectures on innovation at Harvard, Yale, UC Berkeley and several other universities across the country and serves as consultant on innovative practices and infrastructure for agencies and governments, nationally and internationally.
Carla Delgado: Pentagram
A native Texan, Carla is a graphic designer at Pentagram Austin. Her work is primarily focused around editorial design, a passion she found while working as a page designer for a small-town newspaper. Her work has been featured in Communication Arts, Graphis, Print and the Society of Publication Designers Awards Annual. When she’s not designing, she’s entertaining her 5-month-old son Daniel, tinkering in her woodshop and doing as many things outside as possible.
Chris DeWan: Second Story
For two decades, Chris DeWan has used design to connect people with places, objects, stories, and each other. With a focus on visual communication, he has led a broad range of award-winning traditional and non-traditional interactive media projects. Currently the Design Director at Second Story, part of SapientNitro, Chris oversees the practice of visual, interaction, and motion design across Second Story’s studios in Atlanta, New York, and Portland, Oregon, where he is based. Chris studied Graphic Design at the School of Communication Arts in Minneapolis, MN.
Jeff Roberts: SERA Architects
Jeff’s work is focused on “place-based” design strategies for projects that embrace ecological principals with a goal to create a more sustainable future. Passionate for regenerative development challenges that balance the well-being of social and environmental ecosystems with economics much of Jeff’s work is based on innovative design techniques around living system thinking that enhances place-making opportunities. He practices working processes that value collaborating with diverse and interdisciplinary stakeholders to manage interdependent success for all. ” I have a deep interest in “nature deficit disorder” and the impacts it is having on a generation of children that are not connected to nature on a daily basis. As more and more people move to urban environments what are the techniques to reconnect human beings to nature so they can leverage problem solving skills in native environments that is intuitively buried in our DNA but is not being accessed today.”
2015
Gail Anderson: Lemonade from Lemons: Finding Inspiration During Crazy Times
I started a spanking new job as Chair of the largest undergraduate design and advertising program in the country just one semester before the pandemic struck. After a summer of endless Zoom meetings and much hand-wringing, I’m ready to start the new academic year. How do you find inspiration to keep yourself going during such a painful time in the country, and in the world? How do you make lemonade from lemons? Please join me for a look at fun and shiny objects that keep my spirits up, and hear some [hopefully] inspiring words to help keep us all afloat creatively.
Laurie Haycock Makela: speechless: different by design (a case study)
Described by Forbes as “a new exhibition that bucks the status quo…broadening the idea of visual communication,” the multisensory exhibition “Speechless: Different by Design” wowed visitors to the Dallas Art Museum. In her talk, Laurie Haycock Makela will discuss the exhibition itself, together with the book she designed for this extraordinary project, which focused on the senses, not language.
Justin Ahrens: Seeing Differently
We are all built to see the world differently. It’s one of our unique, innovative traits. We all say we want to be a part of changing the world, but how do we actually accomplish this? Can we actually make a difference? This presentation will give you thoughts, prompts, and examples of how you can use your gifts to See Different.
Shabazz Larkin: Find Your Art
Can art be a spiritual practice? By the way, what is art? What is good art? What is a spiritual practice? Will it help us find our purpose? Why do we keep obsessing over our purpose? Who are we? Are we supernatural beings? Is art supernatural? Does quantum physics have any answers? Is God a man-made design? Does that mean God is real, or not real? Am I flawed or are they flawed? It certainly matters - but why? This and other unanswerable questions about purpose, shame and vulnerability with Shabazz Larkin, founder of Larkin Art & Company in Nashville Tennessee.
Bluebook Performance in the Sonic Loom
Music, light, and textiles meet in an installation called the Sonic Loom. Join three-piece band Bluebook performing a set of “smouldering chamber pop” (The Denver Post) inside their large-scale textile and light installation. Through the loom, Bluebook will present a liminal, transformative space and offer their audience a unique audiovisual experience.
Design Matters with podcast host Debbie Millman and artist Laurie Haycock Makela
Join us for the Design Matters interview as podcast host Debbie Millman returns to Bend Design. This year Debbie interviews AIGA medalist Laurie Haycock Makela, a leading voice in transdisciplinary graphic design practice and education for more than three decades. Recently, Makela designed the book “Speechless: Different by Design” and was one of six artists collaborating on the celebrated multisensory exhibition at the Dallas Art Museum.
James Victore: The Things That Made you Weird As A Kid, Make You Great Today
How do you hold on to your innate creativity from childhood to today. AND get paid for it?
Bend Design Panel: Manifestations of White Supremacy in Design
Hear from a diverse panel of Black creatives on their experiences working in Oregon’s white-dominated design industry.
With: Danielle McCoy (Designer at Wieden + Kennedy) and Justin Morris (Creative Director at Kamp Grizzly). Moderated by Jason Graham / MOsley WOtta
With: Danielle McCoy (Designer at Wieden + Kennedy) and Justin Morris (Creative Director at Kamp Grizzly). Moderated by Jason Graham / MOsley WOtta
Jen Wick + Precious Bugarin, You Belong Here: Imposter syndrome and creating a culture of belonging
Imposter syndrome is the feeling that you’re not good enough, undeserving of your success, or that people will discover that you’re a big fraud. Perhaps you feel you have to fake it until you make it. Maybe you feel unworthy of the position you’re in or afraid to move forward into a new one.
In this workshop, Precious and Jen will lead you through conversations and creative exercises to explore imposter syndrome and its effects on your creative life. With new insight, you can deeply believe in your value and better advocate for yourself (and others!) at work and in life. We want you to unplug from the dominant culture narrative that you need to be perfect or be like anyone else in order to grow, learn, thrive and belong.
In this workshop, Precious and Jen will lead you through conversations and creative exercises to explore imposter syndrome and its effects on your creative life. With new insight, you can deeply believe in your value and better advocate for yourself (and others!) at work and in life. We want you to unplug from the dominant culture narrative that you need to be perfect or be like anyone else in order to grow, learn, thrive and belong.
Corey Martin and Greg Hoffman: Drawing from Landscape
A conversation with Corey Martin, Principal at Hacker Architects and Greg Hoffman, Global Brand & Design Leader
Join Greg Hoffman as he moderates a creative conversation with Corey Martin about his award-winning approach to architecture within the Pacific Northwest. They will explore his firm’s mission of creating spaces that make us feel more connected to the landscape and each other, and their impact on architecture in Central Oregon, as seen through iconic structures such as Lakeside at Black Butte Ranch, the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Central Oregon, and the upcoming Grove at Northwest Crossing; all of which represent a unique relationship between the natural and built environment. Greg and Corey will also discuss their creative collaboration on the High Desert House, right here in Bend, where Greg and his family were the clients.
Join Greg Hoffman as he moderates a creative conversation with Corey Martin about his award-winning approach to architecture within the Pacific Northwest. They will explore his firm’s mission of creating spaces that make us feel more connected to the landscape and each other, and their impact on architecture in Central Oregon, as seen through iconic structures such as Lakeside at Black Butte Ranch, the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Central Oregon, and the upcoming Grove at Northwest Crossing; all of which represent a unique relationship between the natural and built environment. Greg and Corey will also discuss their creative collaboration on the High Desert House, right here in Bend, where Greg and his family were the clients.
Greg Hoffman: Equality by Design
Cultural Impact Through Creative Leadership
This is the moment for the creative community to take the stage in driving equity and equality through our work and within our design industry. Greg draws from his past experiences leading design, advertising, and marketing for the Nike brand to illustrate which characteristics of creative leadership need to be elevated to power meaningful and lasting positive cultural impact.
This is the moment for the creative community to take the stage in driving equity and equality through our work and within our design industry. Greg draws from his past experiences leading design, advertising, and marketing for the Nike brand to illustrate which characteristics of creative leadership need to be elevated to power meaningful and lasting positive cultural impact.
Samuel Stubblefield: Awe
In complicated times, we often lose a sense of groundedness. Almost ironically, groundedness is exactly what is needed as we sift through oceans of information every day -information that tells us who we are as individuals and as a species.
Awe-inspiring experiences clear the clutter and recalibrate our relationship to the universe, giving us a better perspective, making way for clarity of mind, and bringing about a more confident sense of purpose.
Awe-inspiring experiences clear the clutter and recalibrate our relationship to the universe, giving us a better perspective, making way for clarity of mind, and bringing about a more confident sense of purpose.
2020
Angela Luna: Democratizing Sustainable Fashion
What is the role of the designer in the modern age of reuse, resale, and recycling? With sustainable fashion and responsible consumption landing far beyond so many people's budgets, there's often no choice but to shop from environmentally and ethically harmful brands. Angela Luna, Founder and Creative Director of ADIFF, invites us to consider alternative methods of fashion consumption that won't destroy the planet or our wallets.
Anisa Tavangar: Telling Visual Stories Through a Lens of Justice
Through art and the insights of those who create it, beauty can thoughtfully weave together hidden narratives. When appreciated in its fullness, beauty can stir appreciation, invite curiosity, and inspire conversation. Join Anisa Tavangar of For Freedoms in an exploration of the following questions: What story are we telling? How can art (and the voices of artists) become a catalyst for justice and beauty? How can we be more visionary and less reactionary?
Daniel Toole: Nature and Materials
Can architecture create a deeper connection to nature? Using examples from his studio's quickly growing portfolio of urban projects and private residences, architect Daniel Toole will guide you through his design process that focuses on the interplay of light, site, and materials to create unique places for living and contemplation.
Dot Lung: How to Survive a Pandemic, War and the Instagram Algorithm
How to rebuild your social media from scratch. Learn social media survival skills to overcome pandemics, war and algorithmic changes. Dot will share her social media strategy that generated multiple 6-figures during the Covid-19 lockdown!
Maya Bird-Murphy: Making Design Accessible, One Student at a Time
Join architect and changemaker Maya Bird-Murphy as she discusses her journey through the field of architecture and explores the lack of racial diversity and equity that inevitably led to the creation of Chicago Mobile Makers. Learn how to lean into change, offer hope and dream up new solutions that will inspire future generations.
Robb Mills: Documentary Sound Design: Where Subtlety Meets Significance
Robb Mills dives into his role as Sound Designer on the Oscar-nominated documentary Hunger Ward, an unflinching spotlight on the weaponization of food in Yemen's tragically overlooked and ongoing civil war. Learn about his intensely collaborative process with the filmmaker Skye Fitzgerald to subtly recreate and augment the sound in many scenes, returning them to their original emotional depth without fictionalizing or overreaching the intended narrative.
Skye Moret: Engaging Design for an Unstable World
Can design shift our planet's socio-ecological interactions of the future in a positive and sustainable direction? Through data-driven design, design systems thinking, and collaborative decision-making, we have the potential to shift---and ideally advance---dynamic stewardship of our world. Using examples from her kaleidoscopic career path, designer, scientist and adventurer Skye Morét will explore how design can inform, shape and encourage the critical rethinking of our blue planet experience at the intersection of climate, environment, and social justice.
2021
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