Overall this was one of the best IDSA district conferences that I have attended over the years. Certainly Vancouver is a beatiful city in which to spend a couple of days thinking about design. What made this conference distinctive is the focus and passion surrounding the topic, Enduring Design.

The Pacific Northwest loves "sustainability" (about as much as coffee and cheap sushi) and this conviction was evident in the list of presenters that it put to the podium. Usually at these things the speakers try and stick the conference theme somewhere in the title of their talk or work it in to their introduction. Rarely is it the backbone of their presentation.

At the IDSA-West this year we did not witness the tired parade of presenters who merely talk about their own or their studio's work. While these are occasionally interesting, or interesting in moderation, such "portfolio presentations" usually have the icky feel of a lightly veiled studio infomercial. The presenter often comes off as a design braggadocio with the an inflated sense of global importance (let's keep that you "revolutionized" the field of kitchen mops in perspective).

Conference organizer and Wesstern District VP, Dedre Toker was able to organize many leaders in the design sustainability field for this one-and-a-half-day gathering. Evidence of this was in the unusually high number of educators who spoke; yet, certainly the voice of enlightened practitioners was quite welcome. Indeed they have a more difficult task of meeting the seemingly irreconcilable demands of sustainability with corporate appetites, which nearly demand un-enduring design to produce enticing quarterly profits reports.

Thanks to the speakers, conference organizers, Emily Carr Institute, and passionate attendees for their efforts and attention to this topic. Let's hope that the spirit of the debate and the importance of the big picture endure.

The Western conference had the good fortune of attracting Ron Kemnitzer, newly elected IDSA President and Professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

Ron was on the chicken-and-egg debate panel of whether design education should lead or follow design practice. As both a long time practitioner and educator, he had the final word in stating that a adversarial relationship does neither much good. Instead we all must actively work to forge relationships that will have long-term benefits for our discipline.

Prasad Boradkar, professor at Arizona State, reflecting on the conference.

Prasad often speaks at the IDSA National Education Conferences and if you get a chance you should check out his papers at www.idsa.org (look under "resources" ; "for students and educators").

His work is intelligent, insightful and draws from western social theory and criticism.

This is one that he presented about the iPod.

Here are a few pictures of the merit presentions from Saturday night (not all inclusive, i'm afraid).

The Merit Award winners from the western district schools were:
Beau Oyler (Academy of Art University)
Randy Jackson (Arizona State University)
Nate Lau (Art Center College of Design)
Aaron Nelson (Brigham Young University)
Adam Reineck (California College of the Arts)
Rommell Hingco (California State University Long Beach)
Kevin Clark (Metropolitan State College)
Chris Morlock (San Francisco State University)
Angie Kim (San Jose State University)
Olen Ronning (Western Washington University)

The western representative to the national will be Nate Lau from Art Center. Congrats, Nate!

In catching up on some of the final presentations, here are a few presentation shots from Scott Robertson's Saturday presentation in Vancouver entitled "ID Presentation Tips and a Sneak Peek at Upcoming Design Studio Press Books".

Scott presented some kick-ass renderings from photoshop that are the subject(s) for a handful of his books and dvds. In particular, he showed us renderings and process sketches form "The Skillful Huntsman", "Concept Design I", and "Concept Design II"

The presentation here felt a bit like an infomercial to buy his products (books, dvds, workshops), but it totally worked on me as the quality of the work was quite awesome. He and his Art-Center-days colleagues can certainly impress.

Check out some of his eye candy (his words, not mine) and info on how to obtain his products through:
www.designstudiopress.com
www.drawthrough.com

Jim Budd, Associate Professor of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University, presented a talk on Saturday afternoon entitled "To Pass the Test of Time: Applications of New Technologies May Necessitate New Design Processes".

He begun by showing us aibo, Sony's electronic 'pet', as a sample look at new technologies and their impact on product design. He discussed "a hybrid design process for the design of intelligent interactive products, systems and services which shifts the focus from the role of technology itself to the validation of human experience as the central issue in the design process."

In looking to the future of design, Budd proposed that it will be increasingly important to develop:
- teamwork in the design process
- knowledge of new technologies
- prototypes that illustrate interactive behavior
- field testing of electronic prototypes (validation of concept)
- resources to document findings

core77 blogsquadder Stephanie Munson doin' her thang for design enthusiasts worldwide.

Barry Wylant, professor at University of Calgary, gave an insightful look not into enduring design as objects, but instead enduring design theory. His talk focused on the early 20th century work of Italian Futurism.

He focused on the "ruthless wonderment" of the futurists' fascination and intimate connection with technology. He compared Marinetti's (father of Futurism) seminal encounter with an automobile crash to Ballard's 1973 novel and subsequent 1990's movie "Crash" with James Spader. In the movie the erotic potential of technology and the failure of that technology -- car crashes -- demonstrate this techno-lust.

He suggests that this "almost religious" relationship with technology is still prevalent today. Along the way he also introduced the continuum between wonderment and banality (from Heidegger), suggesting that the continual quest for wonderment is a manic endeavor. This leads to the question for all designers regarding "the appropriateness of wonderment" in relation to technology.

Katherine Bennett, IDSA VP of Education and Art Center faculty member, began her provocative talk with a photo of a toilet brush with disposable heads. She reminded us of the fact that this is the majority of the industrial design that is being done. And she suggests that this is not a bad thing. Indeed it is meeting some need of many, as it is a huge seller.

She questioned whether designers have a quiet contempt for low-end, mainstream products: "Do we know what these users want -- do we even want to design for them?"

She then focused on the magnificent body of work by Eva Zeisel and told stories of her visits with the 93-year-old designer. Bennett focused on Zeisel's words: "Design is a benevolent gift of love" from the designer to the user.

By designers taking an elitist stance and giving short shrift to the unglamorous design assignments, they are not truly giving these "benevolent gifts of love."

The gist of the talk was that the world depends on design to create objects that respect their banal, mainstream needs and desires. As designers we need to "get over ourselves, stop designing to impress our friends, and focus on what matters."

Some people chatting during a session at the western conference.

In the early afternoon we all pile into the auditorium for a Karim webcast via the Midwest Conference in Urbana-Champaign. This is already blogged by Ko, but since it is Mr. Rashid speaking I can't help but add in my 2 cents in here...

In attempting to succinctly convey the subject matter of Karim's talk, the thing that comes to mind is that I have no idea what the hell he was talking about. Although, the one thing that is apparent is that I do know he was not talking about enduring design.

In trying to structure a blog on this talk and make some sense of his story, I take notes. But just as he says he is going to talk about/explain one thing he jumps to a completely tangential topic. He seemed to begin many thoughts, and then not finish them. His talk was scattered, to say the least. And nothing he said was in any way insightful or novel.

He begun with a failed attempt to define design, went on to discuss consumption (unsuccessfully), said he would come back to consumption, and never did as far as I could tell.

Here's some stuff i took from the talk:

inspiration.
what inspires him in terms of the world in which we live?
- "materials"
- "digital tools that allow new forms of decoration"
- "the way we produce goods"

design of the time.
If he were to live in the future he would want to know what 2005 was really like? "What denotes the time in which we live?" "Not Plaid" - he says. It was clear that he does NOT think plaid defines our time - I think he is right about this one.

globalization is happening.
He thinks that our world is shrinking... "What will differentiate what gets produced in one country from another?"

we need differentiation.
"How will we differentiate ourselves?" within the global marketplace.

the casual age.
He thinks we are living in "the casual age". (perhaps he is living in the casual age, as he makes $10,000 for an hour long talk that sucks. I think if this were true for me, I'd be living in the casual age too). "It is important to me (him). It is now here. What is it? A world that is more relaxed and seemless. A world where you have more time to think and participate in culture." (I am skeptical that he knows what culture means.)

customization is happening.
"Mass production and non-serialization - the digital craft"
Instead of creating the same object - how can we create 'craft' (one-offs) with mass production techniques? "We can begin to create very, very diverse things."

some other good quotes:
"designocracy movement."
"the one language we have globally is the binary language ...a language of 0's and 1's."
"I would like to live in a life with less and less obstacles."
"... the technology is very seamless... this is what I desire."
"He believes that design is about shaping the contemporary world that we live in."

In commenting on his relevance to enduring design... Eames had a good quote last night that stated Charles Eames philosophy on design: "The degree to which one has a style, is the degree to which one has NOT solved the design problem." I would enjoy hearing Karim's response to this comment.

I think Karim should stick to his blobjects, and leave philosophical blather to better-read, more-articulate members of the design community.

[Editor: Watch the streamed webcast here.]

The afternoon begins with a panel debate on the driving influences of design with respect to practice vs academia --- Who is leading the design profession?

The postitions are as follows:
Representing Practice
(Matthew Woodruff, Adrian Van Wijk, Tony Gellion)
... takes the position that practice drives the changes in methodologies and processes and that educational institutions merely respond to the demand from the profession.

Representing Education
(Tim Antoniuk, Roger Griffiths, Ron Kemnitzer)
... contends that the institutions spark the debate and provide the climate where these innovative ideas get tested and that it is the graduates going out into practice that help create the necessary changes in the practice.

Some of the various arguments from the panelists:
"Industry is reactive." - Roger
"Academics can think more broadly and innovatively. Social and ecological concerns can take precedent." - Tim
"There is no doubt that the driving force behind change is profit." - Roger
"Designers need to think within the constraints of industry." - Matt
"Can a recent design graduate come in and do the work that needs to get done?" - Tony
"Change needs to be affected from within (the practice)." - Tony
"Education prepares students for their career, and for their future." - Ron
"When do designers ever stop being students?" - Ron

I find it interesting that we are sitting here debating about who is leading the profession, and positioning one in opposition to the other. It is obvious to me that both education and practice bring valuable skills and thinking to the table - each brings valuable, necessary, and differing insights/perspectives. To me, it seems like a more productive discussion would be "what are the strengths of each and how can we leverage this in order to advance the profession?" A more productive discussion to have, I believe -- this does come up in the many questions from the field... and Ron does end with a good quote regarding the overlap of the two "we need to find common ground."

Comments anyone ... on how we can all get along?

Yeah, so, I've been at the IDSA conference since about 7am and taken hundreds of photos already. I've hit every lecture so far and met a ton of really cool people... but I needed a lil break. It is Saturday after all.

So I snuck off to the local glass blowing studio on Granville Island to catch some industrial design in action. Here's a few of the shots.

I met a couple of the blowers out on the street and the invited me to come snap some shots of them working. It was nice and warm in there. :)

It was nice to be away from the computers for a bit and be around people doing their craft with their hands and their sweat.

These two were an awesome team. They apprenticed together in this shop and now get together once a week to blow together. Quite a crowd assembled outside their studio for the 'show'.

They ended up busting this piece by mistake, but they laughed a lot and talked about learning a few things and making a few mistake. I think hey had fun. I sure did. :) The rest of the glassblowing shots are over with the IDSA conference ones at EventBlogging.com.

After the portfolio review the talks started. Here's some shots from the morning sessions.

Stuart Walker gettin' philosophical on our asses - Read Stephanies great write-up.

Everyone is pretty excited to be here and there is a bit of a buzz in the air.

Some visual people absorb information better while they are doing creative things like drawing. I doodle a lot during lectures too... well, I used to, now I type blog posts and upload photos. :P

The rest of my shots from the western conference are being collected here.

Prasad (Assistant Professor at ASU) talks about "Design/Dermatology: The Sensual, Fleeting Skins of Objects"

"when you change your smart skin, you change your identity."
-- from /www.smartskins.com/

As a follow-up and in contrast to Stuart's talk, Prasad begins by saying that the opposite of enduring is fleeting. His talk addresses this through the topic of skin -- aesthetic manipulation, skin and surface, the external superficial appearance of things, and relationships between the inside and the outside. The skin is what we interact with -- what we encounter -- what we come across.

His talk discusses various types of skins -- rigid, translucent, permeable, elastic, and flexible -- in material, symbolic and cultural terms.

"If our task is to create enduring design, such manipulation of object-skins relegates design to cosmetic dermatology. Aesthetic modification of objects through design activity is akin to molting; as the skin ages, it becomes obsolete and no longer trendy, and is unceremoniously exfoliated. According to Marx and Baudrilland, the skin of the object, in such cases, becomes the receptacle for its exchange-value and sign-value rather than its use-value." -p.b.

The first presentation of the day is by Stuart Walker, Professor and Associate Dean at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Environmental Design. While his research looks at sustainable product design, his talk looks more specifically at enduring objects, their characteristics, and what we can learn/use from them. He presents objects that have existed for thousands of years -- objects such as pottery, tools, jewelry, statues – spanning diverse cultures and crossing the boundaries of time, culture, language and religion. His thesis is that such objects are non-trivial (comparatively to many of the trivial objects made today), and therefore enduring (!).

He (interestingly) divided his talk into the following framework:

inspirational / spiritual objects
objects such as: religious items, fine arts, sculpture
ideas such as: Symbolism, allusion, representation, sacred, profound

social / positional objects
objects such as: jewelry, make-up, identity items
related concepts: symbolism, status and social standing, decoration, taste, fashions, identity

functional objects (fulfills a human need.)
objects such as: tools, weapons, pottery,
related concepts: utility, usefulness, comprehension, safety, technology

CONCLUDING...
Sustainable product design is a function of:
- surpassing social/positional transience
- imbuing objects with inspirational /spiritual qualities
to create a meaningful material culture.

here is an Eames sketch from the presentation - I know, not a good photo.... but an Eames sketch nonetheless.

Eager conference goers await the Eames keynote.

The audience packs into the main auditorium at Emily Carr and are eager and ready to kick-off the conference with our keynote speaker, Eames Demetrious, who is the grandson of Charles and Ray Eames and Director of the Eames Office (since 1993). He is here to talk about the legacy of Charles and Ray Eames, and begins by stating their connection to enduring design - it is simply because of the enduring nature of the Eames' designs themselves. Hard to argue with that.

He then follows with the Eames Office mission statement:
"To communicate, preserve and extend the work of Charles and Ray Eames."

Some Works
During his presentation he shows a myriad of their works, including a lot of stuff many folks might be familiar with: the house of cards, their airport chairs, mathematica (exhibition design), moebius strip, dot pattern fabric (you'd know it, it's from maharam), India Report (the report that established the foundation for the national institute of design in Ahmedabad), the Eames Lounge chair, their splints, various sculptural forms, their molded plywood chair, their films... and even (with an emphasis on the obscene in a way only designer can understand) some photos of obscene Eames furniture knock-offs.

Some Bit 'O Background
Charles was born in St. Louis
Charles was trained as an architect.
Ray was trained as a painter.
Met at Cranbrook.
Married in Chicago.
Moved to LA.
Established a studio.

Good Charles Story
Particularly for those wanting to enter the profession, recent/upcoming graduates, or those designers who want a renewed emphasis on the types of design work you undertake. He tells a story about an 8 month trip to Mexico by Charles that served as an important trip for him in establishing his design philosophy and the types of design work he was to undertake. While in Mexico, he supported himself on the paintings that he did while he was there. This was an important time for him with an important realization that he could live and subsist on practically nothing. This made him realize that he couldn't use the excuse of 'making a living' to prevent him from doing things that he didn't believe in. Inspirational advice.

Some Quotes
"They never delegated understanding."
"Take your pleasure seriously."
"Innovate as a last resort."
"If you want the design to flow from the material, you have to surrender to it."
"The extent to which you have a design style, is the extent to which you have NOT solved the problem." (what would/will Karim have to say about this one?)

Some Words I Was Left With That Represent the Eames and Their Design/Designing
Experimental. Authentic. Material (from the material, understanding the material). Enduring. Holistic. Experiential.

Lastly, I was left with...
Prototype. Prototype. Prototype.
Iterate. Iterate. Iterate.
Experiment. Experiment. Experiment.

The conference begins with the important-people introductions -- Ron Kemnitzer (IDSA President), Kristina Goodrich (IDSA Executive Director), Dedre Toker (Western District VP)-- and a (re)stating of the western conference theme, Enduring Design. This theme questions "how designers can act in meaningful ways to create lasting design which transcends the disposable culture currently dominating the North American market."

Joel Tobman reviews his portfolio at the Industrial Designers Society of America annual conference. He came to Vancouver from the University of Calgary where he is doing a Masters of Industrial Design.

The rest of my photos from the event so far can be found here.

*yawn* Sitting here at 7:15am drinking Tim Horton's coffee and getting ready to take some photos of the portfolio review this morning at the Industrial Designers Society of America's annual western confernece. This morning there are about 20 firms here from all over the west coast with representatives who will be reviewing student work and providing feedback. Lots of folks walking around with sketchbooks and sample work. It should be interesting to talk to some folks and do some eavesdropping and hear what kind of feedback the 'experts' give.

Great keynote last night by Eames Demetrios at the Emily Carr Institute for Art and Design.

So I have never been to this fine city before, so I spent the day on a bike riding around the place. For those of you who have never been here before, it is quite nice. The city is nestled between many bodies of water and many mountains - here is some zeitgeist for you.

Here are some prototypes from ARRK Product Development Group.

And here is the red punch...

I am here at the beginning of the IDSA's western conference in beautiful downtown Vancouver after a nice day of biking around the city on a beautifully sunny day (despite an archetypal pacific northwest forecast for overcast and rainy weather).

The conference begins with an enjoyable Alias-sponsored reception, where many attendees eat food and drink red punch. Here are some attendee's eating, drinking, and being merry...

Here's a link to all the photos I've uploaded from the Industrial Designers Society of America's western conference in Vancouver BC at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design.

Hey there. Well, we're back in business with internet and power so no more excuses, eh? Here's some of the first shots from tonight's welcome reception sponsored by Alias.

This is the Alias illustration whiz I was telling you about in my previous post. This kid has mad skills!

See, told ya. He whipped this out in less than a minute.

Check out that printer in the bottom left hand of the image. That is a 3d modelling 'printer'. It creates one off prototypes of anything you can model in 3d software. Amazing

This object is the color registration test print that this printer spits out to calibrate itself. Amazing.

More of the cool prototype objects that have been created with this 3d printer. You can have one for only $28,000. :)

I also met the other Core77 bloggers. They're great. I hope I get a chance to kick it with them some before they head back home to America. :)

Well, the wireless is sketchy, several hundred of us are sharing a couple power outlets, and we're an hour behind schedule already.... but I'm stoked to be here nonetheless. Tonight is the kick-off of the Industrial Designers Society of America's annual western conference in Vancouver BC. I'm here at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design on Granville Island and the keynote will begin here any moment. I spent the afternoon walking around the campus, visiting the IDSA exhibit hall and chatting with other attendees.

The crowd seems to be made up of a lot of 3d modelers and illustrators and the hot booth is definitely the Alias/Wacom space where they have two 20inch Wacom tablet touch sensitive flat screen monitors running Alias' special drawing software. It's pretty hot. The artist who is demoing the gear is really good and can bust out a 3d sketch of nearly anything in about 10 seconds flat. Their booth and demo made me want their tech!

Anyway, there will be some time lag unfortunately between my photos and posts and them being uploaded due to technical difficulties, but hopefully by tomorrow AM when it gets hot and heavy all those issues will be cleared up. If you are at the conference here, please say hi... or leave a note in the comments. I'm looking forward to seeing who is reading this. Anyone in particular you guys want me to speak to? I brought the podcasting gear so I can do some interviews if I meet some interesting people.

Upon arriving in Vancouver (airport code YVR) and after passing through customs, I am greeted by totem poles and greenery just outside the airport.

Here's lunch. For a bargain $5, you get an assortment of yummy, premium United snacks.

Hello. It is Stephanie and I will be covering the IDSA Western region conference for core over the next several days. While Kris can provide the inside scoop as a Vancouver resident, I will provide the commentary as an outsider.

As I head off to Vancouver from Chicago on Thursday, it is important to remember the passport!! I left yesterday morning and arrived in Vancouver last night.

In case you haven't heard, here's a related news flash on the passport thing... Recently announced this week was legislation (beginning in 2008) that passports will be required for all US citizens traveling to Canada and Mexico. Check out the news flash here:.

Vancouver, BC, Canada - April 8th - 9th, 2005

The conference theme is epitomized in the recent IKEA commercial that shows a lamp left out on an empty, dark street in the rain, as a voiceover chides, “Some of you feel sorry for this lamp. That’s because you’re crazy. This lamp has no feelings. Plus, the new one is much better!” This conference tackles a difficult paradox: as designers, we wish to create products that are valued and cherished for their beauty, yet the very nature of our work requires that we be constantly recreating and improving. And, the environmental impact of our work adds another aspect to this intricate topic.” How do designers act in a meaningful way within this context? How do they create lasting, enduring design, which transcends the disposable culture that dominates the North American market?