Georgia Tech hit IDSA Memphis with 63 students and a clear determination to make themselves known! At night they hit Beale Street with clearly blurred vision...
University of Houston meets Georgia Tech.

More Georgia Techies representin.

Some photos from the awards dinner:

A lot of people loaded into the Round Barn Center.

Watching the student presenters kick out the jams.

Fellow BlogSquadder Don Lehman is getting crunked.

Bust a move?

The floor punch?

The robot?

Those Kansas gals popping and locking.

Some of the core conference team: (L to R) UIUC ID sudents Mona Haggag and Danielle Moorman, and UIUC ID Professors Deana McDonagh and William Bullock Director David Weightman.

The Impact Conference Gallery Opening! Along with a slide display of midwest student work, the UIUC Art/Design department announced the official opening of their product design gallery. The initial exhibition of products were all donated by companies and designers around the world, along with an open call for submissions for other innovative products.

Milling around the projected student work.

Knob tweaking on the wheels of steel.

British accents are fun to listen to.

Some kettles in the collection.

In the house: Stumpf, Rashid, Lovegrove, Eames, etc.

The Kohler Purist Hatbox toilet. This is the second time I posted a toilet this weekend. This one costs $4000. Brings new meaning to the term "sitting on the throne"...

Design conferences are magnets for craziness. This year's regional events brought us Richard Simmons in the South, the National Association of Black Cowboys in the Northeast, and now the good folks of Kohler being forced out of their hotel (by armed guards) at the Midwest conference because of a hotel wide Hip-hop show. Nice.

Click here to listen to Lisa Hood and Cinny Tsai of Kohler talk about being turned away from their hotel by armed guards!

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.

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.

And here is the red punch...

Like many of our peers across the south, Ayham and I (Mardis) made quite a trek across the south to attend the IDSA conf. We left University of Houston's new ID studios on Thursday. Barelling accross Louisiana, high on energy drinks and gas station goodies, we were determined to roll into Memphis in style -jittery and windblown :) Nine and a half hours and a speeding ticket later we arrived in Memphis (86mph in a 60... who knew that wouldn't play well in LA? -duh!). 4:15am to bed and up at 8:30... ahhh, the things we do for the love of design.
Not to be disappointed, IDSA has stepped up to the bar. They have planned an action packed weekend full of design workshops and events (parties) from dawn to dusk. Seriously folks, its gonna be a hell of a weekend. "Wish ya'll were her... -Mardis"

Some post-conference unwinding took place at the nearby...well, the name escapes me. As soon as someone emails me with the info, I'll fix this post. Needless to say, good times were had. Students from the Kendall College of Art & Design and The Ohio State University were on tap to duke it out across 8 foot tables covered in green felt. Notice I made sure to include the "The" in that last sentence. I know those OSU people get all touchy about that. I'm kidding, of course. Not. Seriously though, everyone I talked to was way cooler than I remember being when I was in college. I know I talked with some University of Michigan kids earlier in the day, but they were MIA, as were the local CIA students. Saturday night is already shaping up to be something special though. For now, these debauchery-free shots will have to do...

UPDATE - The bar was called The House of Cues

Check back beginning April 1 to see ongoing coverage from the five IDSA District Conferences.