Summarizing a designers' conference is a little like describing political leanings in Ohio: for every generalization you make, there's a counter-example or a diametrically opposed opinion. This is what makes the panel discussions such good fun. You get well formulated opinions, followed by dissent, followed by some genuine hashing out of the issue.

So when a group of designers agree on something, it's noteworthy; when several speakers independently bring up the same idea several times, it's downright archival. Here are a few of the notably consistent conclusions that arose from the past three days.

The All-Outsourced Design + Manufacturing Package
A dozen countries eager to move the whole product development process to their home field are cranking out really smart kids who can sketch, render, style and model as well as the most brilliant guy in your studio. In a few more years, lending that extra bit of aesthetic shine to an existing commodity product will be the least profitable game in American design.

De-Commodification
Everyone seems to agree that this is the only way forward. People still buy German cars and Italian clothes at a premium because they are distinguishable. If you design something that doesn't stand out from the crowd, you won't for long.

The Experience, Not The Product
If it's just a product, they'll buy the cheapest one. If it's a product that creates meaning, they might not.

The Multi-Functional Team
With good product relying ever more heavily on integrating a wide range of technologies, good product design relies on a wide range of expertise. Learning how to communicate with everyone in the team and know their limitations and capabilities is one of the most important, least emphasized skills a designer can have.

More Women, Thank God
Several speakers pointed out the foolishness in trying to design for a group about which you know very little. A couple specifically mentioned that women in most countries typically make the majority of purchasing decisions, and the fact that design continues to be a male-dominated field is a liability. So it's encouraging to note that 8 of the 11 student representatives vying for the Merit Award this year were female.

A few more snapshots from the Awards Dinner:

What a long line of hungry designers looks like, with the Manhattan skyline in the background.

Moments after the Student Merit Award winner is announced, smiles and congratulations all around.

A fierce game of chess breaks out between Buz and Izzy, two IDSA/NY organizers.

The finalists are seen here receiving a refund on their conference registration fees as a sponsored token of esteem, but there can only be one winner. And this year it's Evan Gant of Virginia Tech.

Evan will represent the Northeast region at the National IDSA conference. He's the one on the left in the light blue shirt (yes, I am photographically-challenged).

Here is a closeup of one of the pieces he showed.

(Update 4/10- photo removed because it wasn't evan's work. my apologies for not having a photo of his work.)

Good luck at the national competition, Evan!

Views of the Manhattan bridge from Bubby's, the venue for the student award banquet. The southern comfort food was swell and the atmosphere lively, maybe because there weren't enough chairs.

I had a great talk with Angela Yeh, chair of the IDSA New York chapter, on developing a collaborative infrastructure through IDSA to build a closer-knit design community in New York. She pointed out the difficulty of organizing the amazingly diverse New York design community, but this year's conference provides ample proof of the rewards for making that effort.

Alice Ro, who did a great job getting sponsorships for the conference, and Rob Curedale, who led the "Leveraging China" workshop, chatted about introducing more rigorous thinking and design research into the design process, amongst many other topics fueled by Rob's incredibly deep and varied design experience.

I know you'd like to see pictures, but I will plead technical difficulties.

The Pratt juggling club demonstrating a metaphor for the design process.
Les Mandelbaum of Umbra said that having the design idea is only 5% of the process. I guess the rest is juggling engineering, manufacturing, finance, marketing, research, etc.

At least these guys make the juggling part look fun.

Julie Lasky (ID Magazine) + Davin Stowell (Smart Design) + Eric Chan (ECCO Design) + Manuel Saez (HumanScale) + Walter Herbst (HLB) = an awful lot of ideas.

Davin
"People don't want photographs, they want to share memories with their friends."
(reminiscent of Starck's "People don't want lamps, they want light." And yet we keep making lamps and photo printers.)

"We don't have very many clients coming to us saying 'You know, we don't really have a deadline. And you know, just bill us when you're done.'"

"The rest of the world has designers, and they're just as good as you and will do it for a lot less money." (those of you who've been following along will recognize this as a recurring theme)

"A brand is nothing more than a memory of an experience."

Eric
"The world is the factory now." (third time this weekend someone has referenced Thomas Friedman's recent NY Times magazine essay)

"People care about their own actions before thinking about a company profile."

"People are ready to pay more." (examples: Prius, American Apparel, Whole Foods)

Walter
"We're all anxious about competing in a world where there's so much free and low-cost design."

"Go to the printer aisle at Office Depot and what do you see? It's all grey, it's all pretty good, but it's all just stuff."

And for the 1253rd time: "We buy experiences not objects."

"But what's beyond experience is tribal identification." (example: the Roomba robot vacuum -- not that it vacuums better, but that it makes you one of the Hi-Tech Early Adopter tribe)

"I don't really give a damn what my client thinks....The reason I say that is, I'm not in the business of making things for my client, I make things for the market. If you're going to tell me you like pink and green, that's fine, but unless you're gonna buy the entire run, I'm going to do what the market is telling us."

I'm going to rant for a moment.

John Hamilton from Steelcase just finished talking about the Think chair. The same Think chair that was presented at last year's Design:Green workshop in New York, the same Think chair featured in Metropolis Magazine recently, the same Think Chair that has its own mini website extolling its sustainable virtues and multiple awards.

I think the chair is great. As John and all of the above sources will inform you, it's designed for disassembly in 5 minutes, is almost completely recyclable and had enormous though put into its environmental impact in production and disposal.

It is, however, a showpiece. While Steelcase does have an excellent track record in taking environmental impact into account across the board, it's interesting that the Think chair is the only one they seem to talk about in terms of sustainability. The website gives you a whole section relating environmental details on the Think, and a few of their other chairs, but there's clearly been some picking and choosing as to which are their "green" chairs and which ones aren't.

...you are taking up too much room."

Native American saying quoted by Mary McBride (Columbia University) in her presentation on ethics and design strategies.

Her talk was on design as a risk management tool, "a way to shape or sabotage the future." Business is risk adverse and doesn't like the uncertainties of dwindling natural resources and changing environments, but they haven't learned better practices.
Designers can use this risk aversion and lead the way to more ecologically and socially sound products and processes. But designers too have to change the practice of design: think more long-term about materials and think about life cycles and process flow.

More socially conscious companies talk about the "triple bottom line": profits, people, planet. Design can encourage this. You could think of it as an obligation to help heal all the damage done by bad design.

Jogi Panghaal, Doors of Perception

Using the context of Indian culture, Jogi Panghaal guided the audience through an inquiry into what it is to make things.

All skills come from food and preparing food, and thus are intimately connected to the senses. Women have traditionally been the preparers of food and have the most intimate knowledge of the body- what they need and what their children need. These food preparation skills transfer to other areas and form the basis of all crafts. For example, working with scrap fabric and embroidery reflects the work women do in the field: planting, sowing rows, repairing the ground.

Jogi said several times that when men perform crafts (and there are 15 million artisans in India) they are discovering the feminine aspect of creation. But he also pointed out that when a craft becomes economically viable, men take it over and push out the women.

This was an interesting counterpoint to Rob Walker's talk about the desire-driven consumption and creation; Jogi asks us to contemplate the more fundamental drives to create: survival and the senses (body identity). In India, where most people live under the demands of survival, nothing is rejected or thrown away.

It also bears consideration in light of Andrew Zolli's revelations about the demographic pressures facing designers of the future.

Andrew Zolli is a futurist, and makes a living trying to figure out what happens next. He does this for Popular Science, American Demographics magazine, National Public Radio, and his own company, Z Plus Associates. And he's pretty good at it.

After some very long drawn out issues with malfunctioning microphones, Andrew held a large crowd at Memorial Auditorium fascinated well into their lunch breaks by naming four Driving Forces producing change in the world (yeah, its kind of a broad heading, but this is where futurists have to start). Incidentally, if you're familiar with the Pop!Tech conference in Camden, Maine, many of these concepts are distilled from the pile of information presented at the most recent one.

1. The Tyrrany of Choice: While the number of choices available to consumers in the developed world is increasing exponentially, our ability to recognize between them has actually dropped slightly. According to research, there are 40,000 different items on sale at an average American supermarket (including 51 kinds of toothbrush), more than double what was on sale in 1965. The average consumer can distinguish about 160. Zolli calls this Moore's Law of Crap.

2. The Chain of Meaning: For me, this was the most revelatory. Let's use the example of coffee beans --

-Commodity: a small amount of unprocessed coffee beans can be bought wholesale for about 10 cents
-Product: that same coffee ground and put in a can costs about 25 cents (the Maxwell House business)
-Service: that ground coffee brewed in water and served in a styrofoam cup costs a dollar (the Dunkin Donuts business)
-Experience: that same cup of coffee, served with flavorings and foam in a pleasant space with background music costs $4.50 (the Starbucks business)

The margin increases dramatically at each step in this chain, which is why economies move ever away from commodity as they gain the ability to do so. Design is a big part of this ability.

So, the trick is, how do you de-commodify things? Hershey's did it in Times Square, convincing people to wait 45 minutes in line to get into a blinged out Hershey's store so they can buy Kisses at $25 a pound. Directly next door is a drug store that sells Hershy's Kisses for 50 cents a pound. That's a 5000% markup -- Commodity vs Experience.

3. Demographic Transformation. In a nutshell, the developed world is shrinking and getting older. The developing world is getting larger, richer and more urban. The concept of "Design Within Reach" is laughable to most of the world, and will continue to be unless price points drop dramatically, and good design is, in fact democratically accessible to the rest of the planet.

4. Not sure what to call this one...let's say The Long Tail theory. This means that, while information and product continues to be produced primarily by a small number of entities, the number of smaller producers has increased dramatically (think blogs vs. mass media, customized shoes on eBay vs. Payless Shoe Source). And consumers are buying from both ends. The Long Tail also offers unprecedented opportunities for consumer feedback (think X-Files fan sites re-writing entire seasons of the show).

Lunch on a piece of scuplture at Pratt campus. Did I mention yay for spring?

Ze Frank
(Update 11pm- link fixed!)
Start with the classic original "How to dance properly" and turn up the sound!.

And then be jealous that we got to hear Ze Frank in person about empowering regular people to be creative.

Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap.

Discuss.

(Background: Theodore Sturgeon is a science fiction writer who, when asked why he chose to write science fiction when he was a good writer of other more respectable genres, said "Sure, science fiction is 90% crud. But then, 90% of everything is crud."

In the context of today's talks about consumer excess and commoditization of designed products, it struck me that we have to be careful about design triumphalism. It's too bad that the glorious failures never get asked to give talks at conferences.)

Speaking with a fever and jet lag, and willing to ham it up for the camera.

Rationality, Relevance, Rey the dog

New York Times reporter Rob Walker's dog, Rey.
www.robwalker.net

Reaching design-driven consumers: find products that appeal to individuality and yet create a "tribe" around them, like the iPod. Interesting products are able to create relevance in completely unrelated populations—Red Bull appeals to clubbers, gym members and Wall Street.
Even a vacuum cleaner or a water bottle can develop a fan base and generate irrational enthusiasm that reinterprets the product, breeding subcltures and customizers.

If you achieve this with your product, enjoy the success but be prepared for the inevitable backlash.

Les Mandelbaum, Umbra

Umbra found a market in the segment not served by corporate design, switching from hard-edged, high-tech design in the late 70's to the "sexy" 80's with Karim Rashid. In the US, maybe 20% of the market has a sophisticated appreciation of modern design. Umbra's challenge and mission is in addressing a minority audience- not price-driven but trend-setting.

It took 10 years, but now Umbra is able to survive without Wal-mart. Part of Umbra's strategy is having a dedicated manufacturing facility in China.

Design is not a department; it is Umbra. The fun part is designing product, but it only gets you 5% of the way.

Changes in the last 25 years: the rise of Wal-mart and the rise of China.
Wal-mart is about the lowest common denominator of consumer taste, but is overwhelmingly powerful at driving down prices even as materials and labor prices increase here and in China. Walmart and general consolidation in US businesses forces companies to go high-end or low-end, shrinking the middle.

Umbra's strategies to buck this trend and survive without Wal-mart: seek conscientious distribution outlets, develop an internet channel to reach consumers without the retail filter.

One of three different studio parties that took place concurrently last night -- the ECCO design studio party appeared to be the most popular. Party officially ran from 8-10pm. Above photos snapped just before 11.

Deb Johnson, head of Pratt ID and major organizer of the conference, is visible in the center of the bottom photo, during one of her brief moments of not handling logistics of some sort.

Turns out IDSA - Beyond isn't the only group using the Pratt campus for it's conference. The National Association of Black Cowboys was here too.

Didn't make it to the meeting, but apparently there was whoopin and lasso work like you wouldn't believe.

Australian-born designer and CCS professor Rob Curedale held the most dynamic, intense session of the conference so far yesterday afternoon, as he outlined to a packed room the changing realities of manufacturing and design in China. This is drawn from his approximately 25 years of experience working with Chinese manufacturers, including a great deal of time in the country.

The facts and statistics that led off the session were the sorts of things we've all been aware of, deep down, but are rarely comfortable confronting or discussing -- this was the real beauty of the session, it gave a room full of designers and students a reason to talk frankly about something that, frankly, scares us half to death.

Here are some gems:

-ten years ago, there were about 20 Industrial Design programs at the university level in China; today there are 376

-the quality of craft and technical ability that comes out of many of these programs easily rivals that of American and European design schools

-one sought after ID program in China last year received 40,000 applications for 300 positions

-Wuxi, a city near Shanghai, recently saw the opening of a FIVE SQUARE MILE Industrial Design park

-by some accounts, China now does more of the world's manufacturing than any other country

The bad news is, this is not a trend that's ending soon. Mr. Curedale's predictions see more and more of the design of commodity goods moving to China as well, to the point that nearly any undifferentiated product that can be economically shipped across the ocean will soon be primarily manufactured by Chinese firms. Not just Chinese manufacturers working for US firms, but Chinese companies, beginning to end. Recent events like Lenovo's acquisition of IBM's PC business and Haier's push for brand recognition in Europe bear this out. Can you see Chinese branded cars on American roads? You will.

It's worth pointing out that Asian dominance of global manufacturing is not a new thing. One of the most interesting of the many graphs displayed in this session shows the division of industry by region throughout history: 70% of the world's manufacturing in 1750 was Asian, much of that in China. The primacy of European and later American manufacturing is really an anomaly of the 19th and 20th century. So a return to historical realities should not be so shocking. Most of the world's people are, in fact, Asian.

Several interesting outcomes of this returning dominance are clear:

- As manufacturing expands, the cost of raw materials is rising and will continue to do so; the price of iron, for example, has gone up 70% in the past six months. This must change the way products are designed.

- China's growing affluence means companies must design for the Chinese market or face extinction. It is predicted that the Chinese auto market will outstrip America's in 15 years.

- Very few American designers seem to know anything at all about designing for the Chinese markets (of which there are between 10 and 30, depending on who you ask).

Rob's prediction here is that two major trends will sweep American design: First, a refocusing on brand differentiation, and away from commodity goods, and second, a migration of European and American designers to China to work for Chinese firms. Many of the eager students attending the session yesterday may find themselves living and working in Shanghai ten years hence. And it could be pretty cool.

The morning panel of celebrity design objects was a huge success.
Eclectic. Comfy. But when do I get to try them out?
Thanks Knoll!

Yay Spring in Brooklyn!

Thumbnail glimpses of the work of this year's student merit award finalists (at least the ones that displayed work in the break area).
The presentations in the late afternoon had the greatest turnout of the day by far. Congratulations to all of the finalists!

top to bottom:
anna engstrom
paul conte
michelle simas
keri bronk
kate witherspoon
sondra law

*If I have misidentified any work, please let me know!
(Update 4/10- kate witherspoon's work was mis-identified as evan gant's. Corrected above and apologies to both students)

Four design entrepreneurs:
Todd Seidman (54Dean), Scott Lundberg ([Make]), Paul Galli (54Dean), and Stu Constantine (core77).

A frank panel on using your portfolio to get a foot in the door, featuring an HR expert, a recruiter (or more accurately "THE recruiter" in ID), and three potential bosses. Some disagreement around the details, but the central message was the same across the board.

THE SHORT VERSION: If you're Shaq O'Neill, you don't need to know how to hit your free throws. But if you aren't a Shaq, you'd better master the basics.

THE HARD TRUTH: Desirable employers get 100 portfolios a month. More often than not they are looking for a reason to screen you out, not in. So don't make any easy mistakes.

STANDING OUT IN A DIGITAL WORLD: Use physical mail—a thank you card, a paper portfolio rather than email or cd.

OTHER POINTS THAT CAN"T BE STRESSED ENOUGH:
* Research the corporate culture of the company you are sending a resume/portfolio to. Ask about dress code, office size, etc. before you interview.
* Put your name on every page (digital or physical)
* Process, Process, Process. Sketching is the day-to-day lifeblood of ID, not flashy rendering.
* Persistence pays off.
* Energy, enthusiasm and passion should come through in your presentation. This is fun, folks!

Finally, a surprise (for me): Reviewers often like to sit back and let the student walk through the portfolio orally while they look at the images. Be prepared, concise and enthusiastic, then let the reviewer ask you follow-up questions.

left to right: Patrick Rae (Moderator), Chair of IDSA Philadelphia; Mario Turchi, Co-founder, Ion Design; Kevin Young, Principal, Continuum; RitaSue Siegel, President RitaSue Siegel Resources; Janet Villano, Industrial Designer, Rockwell Group; Sharon LaBella, Human Resources Manager, ChaseDesign

(Update 4/12- corrected order of names in photo. Thanks for the tip Arjun Joseph)

Five start-up design firms out of Pratt Institute met in a panel discussion on taking the independent path to a design career.

My pics of the event were weak so here are some pictures of their work (except Dan and Kiel—where the $#%@ is your webpage?)

upper row, left to right: The Design Can (Jeanie Choe & Steve Tomlinson), Dan Alexander & Kiel Mead, Eenamaria (Sarah Morgan)
lower row, left to right: 54dean (Todd Seidman & Paul Galli), [Make] (Scott Lundberg)

Everyone stressed the supportive community of fellow designers that serves as a sounding board and provides advice and inspiration, which sounds like a great and possibly unique feature of the industrial design world.

Lessons learned (and shared) included being open to happy mistakes and flexible enough to work within a transitional business model, developing a collaborative approach that works for you (whether with partners or employees) to make more powerful concepts, and learning to be very social as a means to build contacts.

In the first session, moderator Peter Barna, Provost of Pratt Institute, and audience members commented on the focus on craft and home items, noting the absence of digital products and large-scale manufacture. One of the reasons is the scale of a start-up doesn't lend itself to mass production, even when such is the ultimate goal. Several participants discussed the joys of working in products they feel passionate about, even as they kept day jobs in order to fund their businesses.

The workshop on sensory experience in environment design turned into jovial mayhem as Tim Kelly of Blue Sky Exhibits demonstrated the power of sight, sound and touch to develop a mood and create emotions. The overall atmosphere of whimsy created by soap bubbles and noisemakers resonated well with the mostly student audience and created a nice counterpoint to the deadly seriousness of portfolio review and jobhunting.

The key point of the session was to watch out for mixed messages among the sensory factors in a design. Tim defined the differing approaches to environment design and product design by saying that "the user touches a product but an environment touches the user." Personally, I think that employing this environmental approach in product design, thinking about how a product touches the user rather than vice versa, would serve to enhance the emotional impact of product design as well.

Rather than the expected museum exhibit or theme park examples, Tim used samples of his trade show exhibits to demonstrate how to apply sensory experience to a marketing environment.

Tim Kelly, Blue Sky Exhibits

The goody bag received by attendees: magazines, t-shirt, sustainable hardwood samples, Schick razor, nifty dog toy, notebook. I remember seeing the dog toy in a portfolio on coroflot (by Ryan Rutherford). Very squeaky.
Plus there is a spiffy raffle. The NE IDSA organizers did a great job on sponsorship.

Lauren Schwartz and Monica Granfield have both done an awful lot of interface design, for some companies you might have heard of. Mostly Microsoft. And they like designers...they really do. Enough so that they were willing to come and chat with a roomfull of them just before lunch today, about some strengths and some "opportunities" (read - things that annoy them) they see with designers in technical industries.

Now, they did give a list of PowerPoint bullets, identifying some skills they wish more designers had, but I'm not going to list that here. They're words like "Leadership" and "Diversity" and other terms that could be construed a hundred ways.

The upshot of the whole thing is that the more a designer knows about the process they're designing for, and the more they understand what the other team members are doing, the more effective they'll be. Pretty level-headed stuff, backed up by plenty of examples.

The phrase that sticks out for me is "This is my vision" -- something I've heard from plenty of designers' mouths, and something that, for some reason, irritates non-designers. In fact, this is the crux of the cross-functional team's biggest problem. While product development is increasingly done with such multi-skilled groups, very little is taught in design schools about communicating and negotiating with non-designers, and yet it's something that happens every day in the real world.

A couple of excited students, still amped from their portfolio reviews this morning.

Stefani Baschetti is from Virginia Tech, and spent a good long while with exhibit designer Fred Blumlein of RAA:

John Singleton is from Bermuda originally, currently in the midst of ID studies at Savannah College of Art and Design. Just came out of a long session with *three* reviewers, including Alias master Henry Yoo, Sonic Design partner Klaus Rosberg, and veteran product and furniture designer Rama Chorpash.

The morning was devoted to student portfolio review, and since I am one of those students who managed to graduate without an internship and without showing anyone a portfolio, I took the plunge as well. In fact, today is my first time showing my work to anyone outside of Pratt. Many of the students here today are pros at the review process and hustle to see as many people as possible off the schedule. The level of composure and focus is very high, as is the quality of the work.

When I show my work, this is what I worry about: drawing drawing drawing.

But here's what the reviewers are interested in:
*thought process from initial thumbnails through to finished product— "don't be afraid to show the rough initial sketches where the design began"
*describing the problem—what is the market, what are the tech/human constraints, what are the project parameters? This can illustrate project management skills in addition to the creative design aspect
*showing some business savvy—not expertise, but research showing consideration of the user and the environment
*and yes, hand skills

This is not earth-shattering stuff, but it helped me break out of my overwhelming concern about not being a top-tier artist and really focus on what I do well. It is a mistake to work on your portfolio alone until it is perfected—feedback at every step is absolutely vital and certainly not anything to fear.

The IDSA conference is a great opportunity to get feedback and non-academic perspectives. The rooms were packed and the discussions extremely constructive. It's a true exchange—the reviewers are providing a service to the students, but they also have strong motives to seek out creative new work and look outside their own companies and fields.

Thanks to Bill Bickford of Estee Lauder, Jessica Lynn of Rita Sue Seigel Recruiters, Richard Snow of Lighting Services Inc. and Heather Reavey of Continuum for giving me the reviewer's perspective.

If any of the participating students read this, I hope you will leave a comment with your impressions.

Heather Reavey of Continuum smiling as she gives me the hard, cold facts. Post pictures of my own portfolio? Not this time.

The morning crush, seen here at the bagel table, is made up of students preparing for portfolio review. We are crammed in to the 4th floor hall in Pratt Studios, but it does make for some high energy and serendipitous bumping into all the right people.

A good chunk of the first day is reserved for portfolio reviews. The setup, shown above, is pretty straightforward: students sign up on a Very Large Schedule Sheet, then direct themselves to the appropriate professor or industry professional, identified by one of those little desktop number plaques reminiscent of Carl's Jr. restaurants.

While I (and probably you, if you're reading this), are familiar with the process of portfolio review, the scale of it is something new. Covering 20+ tables in two rooms, reviewers and reviewees from as far off as Virginia and Massachusetts are randomly paired to spend 15 minutes evaluating their Life's Work Thus Far. An organizer explained that they did their best to put students in front of reviewers not from their own school, but the preponderence of Prattsters leads to the inevitable: one reviewee strolled in to the room and looked up to discover she was to show her work to a favorite teacher from 2 years ago.

Other schools are out in heavy force though. A Virginia Tech student stopped to mention that somewhere over 30 students came up from her school for the conference -- no school requirement, just interest and a desire to see how the other folks do it. She and a friend were looking for the model shop and evaluating student work pinned on the walls as they went.

This being an art school, they couldn't do something pedestrian like put up signs to tell you where to go. So Pratt installed a number of these orange jumpsuit-clad volunteers who answer questions and steer attendees around the extensive construction on campus. The volunteer pictured above chose to take it an additional step and pimp up the outfit with some clever accessorizing.

In addition to Holly's eloquent and necessary guide to Canal Street (one of the best resources a designer ever had, in my limited opinion), I thought I might mention a few less hectic spots to get inspired if you're a designer in town for a few days. You'll at least have Sunday free, right?

Museums:

There's the obvious Cooper-Hewitt, which serves as the design branch of the Smithsonian. One of the few branches of that institution to live somewhere besides the Mall in DC, it fills Andrew Carnegie's former Fifth Avenue mansion with well-selected exhibitions of interest to design geeks. Current shows are both focused on textiles, one guest curated by Dutch designer Hella Jongerius, the other concerning new technological developments in woven materials.

Less obvious might be PS1, a MoMA-affiliated institution just across the East River from midtown Manhattan. It's known for exceptionally daring, exploratory exhibitions, and the current show is one of the best: Greater New York, an event that happens just once every three years, dedicated to young and emerging artists in the Tri-State area. Every time it happens, someone becomes famous, so drop by, and you too could say "oh yeah, I heard of her years ago, before she got big..."

Stores and Showrooms:

Moss is the must-see, of course. It was recently named by Icon magazine as "probably the most influential design shop in the world," and a visit to its oppressively gorgeous, tantalizing white space will make a believer of you too.

For more home-grown flavor, Sublime is definitely worth a check. Sprawling elegantly over a wide-open, three level space in Tribeca, it features furniture and product design from U.S. designers exclusively, some of which you'd be hard-pressed to find in any other showroom.

If your time at Pratt has you intrigued with design in Brooklyn, take the G train up to Williamsburg and visit The Future Perfect. The small but passionately curated selection of goods includes several local designers, as well as work from farther afield, and the sense of irony and humor that permeates it all is downright refreshing.

This is just scratching the surface, but you knew that. Off the top of my head, there's also R 20th Century for midcentury modern, ABC Carpet and Home to see what the fashionable Gothamite is kitting out their overpriced apartment with, The MoMA Design Store for MUJI goods (the only place in the country that sells them, sadly), the Noguchi Museum for..well...Noguchi, and any number of elaborate retail spaces in the Meatpacking District.

On second thought, perhaps one Sunday isn't quite enough for all of this.

This is the view from Memorial Hall, where most of the NE conference sessions will take place.

There is too much to see and do in New York to make comprehensive suggestions, but I did promise a little more about Canal Street.

Canal Street is a major tourist destination, with its eastern half being the anchor for Chinatown to the south and Little Italy to the north. For the IDSA attendee, of more interest may be the industrial supply stores and junk shops that cluster around the western half of Canal Street (most are west of Broadway).

Below is a short list; besides these few, Canal between 6th Avenue and Broadway hosts shops for electrical and mechanical parts, discount electronics, second hand motors and assorted junk. Only Pearl Paint is open on Sundays, though.

1. Plastic Land (plastics) 357 Canal @ Wooster
2. Canal Plastics (plastics) 345 Canal @ Wooster
3. Canal Rubber (rubber and foam) 329 Canal @ Greene
4. Industrial Plastics (plastics of all kinds) 309 Canal @ Mercer
5. Space Surplus Metals (scrap sheet, bar and rod stock) 325 Church @ Canal
6. Pearl Paint (5 floors of art supplies) 308 Canal @ Mercer
7. Victor Machinery Exchange (machine tools) 251 Centre @ Broome

For lighting and restaurant supplies, head north on Bowery from the eastern end of Canal to find blocks of lighting stores and restaurant supply stores. And back on the tourist beat, west of Broadway and north of Canal to Houston St. is SOHO with great art galleries and boutiques for clothes, furniture, etc. Ingo Maurer's lighting store at 89 Grand @ Greene is a personal favorite.

A final note: Canal Street is also the center of New York's counterfeit handbag market. The people whispering "Louie-Louie" up and down the street aren't trying to get you to dance—they want to sell you fake Louis Vuitton.

Industrial Plastics on Canal Street, much beloved of ID students at Pratt and a classic New York destination for wacky things made of plastic—nativity scenes and disco balls as well as great model-making supplies like acrylic rod and sheet stock, is closing.

I was there Saturday and saw a sign saying "everything 50% off." I inquired and heard the sad news—they are to close on April 15. A writeup in the New York Times cites the general difficulties doing business in lower Manhattan since 9/11 and higher plastic prices due to oil prices.

Canal Street as a whole is a blessing for local ID students: it's an only-in-New-York resource for stores with all kinds of industrial parts, scraps and model-making bits and pieces that inspire us and save our a**es when projects are due. But easy access to such supplies can be too much of a good thing; Pratt professors have been known to refer to some student work as "Canal Street design": too literal, relying on putting current production parts into new contexts rather than really thinking deeply about the problem. I know this because I am guilty of it.

Regardless of the pitfalls, Canal Street is a treasure trove for a designer. If you are visiting New York for the IDSA conference, I recommend a stop. In the next day or two I will post a map and some pointers. Losing Industrial Plastics will mean losing a bit of the soul of Canal Street. It is the best of the plastics stores (of which there are three—an embarrassment of riches!) for pure atmosphere and for surprises on the shelves.

However, my sadness will not stop me from taking advantage of the opportunity to stock up on half-price supplies before April 15th. And, if no one else does, I may just have to buy the forlorn plastic turkey carcass as a memento. I have a great idea for a lamp design...

Brooklyn, NY - April 8th - 9th, 2005

The Beyond...Conference promises to address, head on, the crossroads the Industrial Design profession is at today. As industrial designers continue to evolve and expand beyond form giving and traditional product innovation, the skills required to be successful globally are rapidly changing. What will having a degree in industrial design mean beyond tomorrow? What skills will a designer need? What will design firms look like beyond tomorrow? What will you be beyond tomorrow? The Beyond... Conference continues the Northeast District Conference's Dialogues format, where contributors will not only share their thoughts and opinions on the profession, but will be accessible to all attendees via intimate panel discussions.