Phoenix’s design week inspires new artists
Parisa Amini
Phoenix Design Week brought people from the local design community together to promote their art, their companies and themselves.
It all started with a letter from Mark Dudlik to the Phoenix design community.
“In February, I wrote an open letter. It took me a month of editing and considering it, and I finally released it in March,” Dudlik said. “I said something that we were all thinking: We needed to make our city better. That message alone seemed to get people excited enough to sign up.”
Designers from cities across the valley came together to make it a reality and that was when the first ever Phoenix Design Week was created.
The event was held Wednesday Oct. 21 through Sunday Oct. 25.
The week kicked off with a showing at Kitchen Sink Studios, a creative design studio where artists displayed their work in a variety of styles.
That Wednesday night another reception was held at Santy Integrated, a local design company.
There were several mediums of art that included design week posters, rejected logo designs and font forms.
Thursday offered a third and final reception at Terralever, a marketing agency.
Friday night of Phoenix’s design week offered up a film festival at the Madcap Theaters where Typophile, a typography community based out of California, released a series of short films about typography.
The film festival catered to over 200 attendees that watched Typophile’s Film Fest 5.
The show was a one hour selection of typographic films coming from around the world from such countries as Argentine, Russia and the United States.
Their films varied in style and subjects, but was a hit among those who attended the event. They created a lively presentation of motion design, animations, interviews, documentaries and short stories.
With the weekend came the conferences featuring a variety of people involved in design from across the country. This portion of the event was held at the Phoenix Convention Center.
During the day, panelists spoke about their involvement in the design community.
It was a great opportunity for those wanting to have a future in design.The opening of the conference integrated a discussion on the current state of the creative class and what can become of it in the future.
A keynote speaker for Saturday was Debbie Millman, the AIGA national president. She moderated a panel on Phoenix’s creative class, where they discussed multiple topics.
The highlight of the event took place Saturday night with a party at the Clarendon Hotel.
Attendees were able to meet and greet one another and create some possible networking opportunities.
