Phoenix Design Week

I’ve been asked to write something about Phoenix Design Week, and the reason why I have taken forever is because I didn’t know what to say about it.

I know now. Phoenix Design Week has helped me become a better designer, by showing me a community of talented people, who have become great colleagues, and some have become friends, and has helped me reconnect to what I really loved about design.

When I was done with college, I was mentally drained, so I took a sabbatical from performing design work. That lasted a few months, and I had some small time jobs, working with print, and learning about the industry, and then I got my job at U-Haul, performing web design on a national scale. While the jobs were good, in some aspects, it wasn’t mentally stimulating. I had lost that passion that I had throughout school.
Then came a fateful night, I had heard about the AIGA showing off the Milton Glaser movie at ASU, and I had found out some people with a thing called “Phoenix Design Week” were going. So I decided to climb out of my shell and go. I met Mark Dudlik, Sunny Thaper, and Andrew Courdek, and had an amazing night, filled with sarcasm, hilarity, beer drinking, and most importantly, I found people who were passionate about design.
Needless to say, I signed up to help with PHXDW, and soon found myself elevated from being part of the volunteer crew to a member of the Promotions team, coming up with promotion ideas, drinking coffee, and taking on the role of Poster Czar, overseeing over 120 entries to the Phoenix Design Week Poster Contest, which has been deemed as a smash success for the movement.
And it was in that Poster Contest that I regained my passion, and spent 5 days constructing, shooting, and assembling my poster.

Phoenix Design Week Submission "Phoenix Design is Natural"

Unlike the majority of the work that was created for the poster contest, mine utilized the elements around my home. A specific type of stone, twigs, and hard desert grass all came together, and building it, and seeing the results was cathartic. It made me feel alive, and I wanted to design again, and I mean actually design, not just layout, but create functional art.

So, in that respect, Phoenix Design Week has re-awakened my desire to design and by extension, my soul. Since then, I have created an identity for myself, redid my portfolio, and I am pursuing some very exciting prospects for work.

Also, being Interviewed by the Arizona AIGA, Spicywebdesigners.com, and being showcased at Phoenix Design Week helps.

Things are looking brighter. And if you’re in Arizona, and a designer, and if you have no plans this weekend, please, I urge you to go. You will meet an amazing group of people, and if you’re lucky, like me, you’ll be inspired. http://phxdw.com/register

Recent Developments

So tomorrow, things will change for me.

I start doing contract work for the illustrious Branding Strategy firm, Heasley & Partners. I will be doing social media work, as my work with promoting Phoenix Design Week, and my past with AIGA helped get me this position with them.

“But it’s not a design job! You wanted a design job!”. True, I do and still want a design job, and seeing that this is contract, I will still be looking. But this provides 2 things.

1: It’s work.

and

2: It’s something different and therefore, very interesting.

Over the past few months, I have truly seen what social media can do. Twitter is faster than the news, everyone and my mother is connected on Facebook, Myspace has morphed from a pedo-playground into a free hosting service for music, Youtube, Vimeo & Hulu all provide entertainment/news/opinions.
And to me, a brand can reach out and “touch” their audience.

Right now, I have a feeling that some people are going to call me a hypocrite, because I vehemently defend print media. As Sagmeister says, “print is like the electric guitar”, in the sense that despite the fact that we have keyboards & synths, there is still interest in using an obviously limited instrument, and what can be done with the guitar has only gotten more amazing as time goes on.

So there, not a hypocrite.

I believe this gives me the opportunity to create unexpected promotions, and keep them on the right track with current ones.

It’s been a rough road, so this looks promising.

As for other developments, this week, I will do a case study on myself, and my current re-branding strategy. I believe that the old identity that I have used for 4 years has finally ran it’s course, and I have re-worked a new identity. I just need to prepare some collateral for it, and of course, finish the new website.

And of course, I will write about my first day.