Leslie Speer, professor at California College of the Arts, was on hand to support their student merit award winner, Adam Reineck.

Arunus Oslapas, professor at Western Washington University, was on hand to support his merit award winner, Olen Ronning.

Another fashionable conference goer.

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.

Top dogs Ty Rarick, Tim Fletcher, and Brian Roderman ham it up at the Saturday night festivities.

These students, pictured with 2 Southern District Reps, showed off their version of Southern hospitality by sharing their award winning work over dinner and cocktails. From left to right:

Andy Loewy - IDSA Southern District Education Rep
Michael Hesterberg - North Carolina State University
Renaldo Alonso - Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale
Kurt Rampton - Georgia Tech
Tom Murray - Auburn
Brooks Vaughan - University of Louisiana-Lafayette
Ty Rarick - IDSA Southern District VP

CONGRATULATIONS to Kurt Rampton, who will be headed to the IDSA National Conference representing the Southern District!

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!

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

Some people chatting during a session at the western conference.

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!

Groups broke out to have discussions on varying topics like the shift of manufacturing to China, the impact of design process in business, and design thinking. Groups were moderated by different people working in thinktank designer like Tucker, and Dan Formosa.

After our meat-centric dinner outing we were hangin' with some more of the IDSA crew at The Peabody. After hearing of our rib exploits from earlier, Marty Gage was jonesin' for some late night eats. Sadly the Rendevous was closed but he found a place open late and made a rib run.

Two full racks of BBQ Ribs, $40.
Eating ribs on the floor in the lounge of a 5-star hotel at 1AM, priceless.

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...

To be very honest, I figured Richard Simmons was dead, or missing, or at the very least, out of the public eye. But thanks to the diligence of Auburn student, Andrew Thomson, we now know with certifiable precision, the exact location of the creator of Deal-a-Meal. It turns out he's making appearances at the Memphis Women's Covention. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own two eyes. But, as you can see from the pic, Richard is indeed a deity. In fact (and I'm not making this up) when he saw that I was going to take his picture, he reached out to me, and, surrounded by his worshippers and a beacon of ethereal light, said "You're too far away from me...come heeeeeere..."

He left a profound impression on all who witnessed his glory today:

"Pure, unrestrained elation." - Chelsea McLemore

"Seeing Richard Simmons made my day...no, week! Okay, more like month." - Bethany Klausing

"Short gym shorts. Black tank top with glitter hearts. Big hair. Kissing old men in suits. I think my life is complete" - John McCabe

"I'm emotionally drained..." - Matt Julian

"Purely inspirational" - John Rea

"Do the Pony" - Corin Ludwig

"Now I know how Columbus felt when he discovered the New World...Richard, thank you...for everything." - Andrew Thomson (at the right place at the right time)

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

Scott is a professor at UW-Stout and the designer of the Toro Tissue Ring by Vessel. I caught up with him to talk about design education and our past mishaps with beer and portfolios. Eek.

Click here to listen to Scott Christensen!

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.

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.

Matt Miller (the guy wearing the tiara) picks up some bling downtown at a Cleveland hotspot. I'm sure his coworkers will be loving this.

And moving on to represent the Mideast Region at the IDSA National Conference: CIA's Michel Alvarez! Mich's winnings include a 1-year membership in the IDSA, roundtrip travel and accommodations to the National Conference in Washington D.C. August 24-27, and a lifetime supply of...guys with letters on their chests!

Introducing the newest crop of top notch talent primed to turn the design world on edge. From left to right, this year's Mideast Regional School Merit Award Winners:

Bill Bernstein - Carnegie Mellon
Sugandh Goel - Columbus College of Art & Design
Mark Spoelhof - Kendall College of Art & Design
Kirsten Climer - University of Michigan
Sun-Jan Huang - The Ohio State Univerity
Tony Trentacosti - College for Creative Studies
Ben Purrenhage - Western Michigan University
Brandon Lynne - University of Cincinnati
Michel Alvarez - Cleveland Institute of Art

NOTE - I haven't recieved the contact info from of all the Merit Award Winners yet, I'll update them as they come in...

Kudos to Paul Magee for his great job MCing and organizing the conference.

Two words can sum up the lunch experience today: tiramisu cake.

How do you know you are at a design conference?

The audience is full of people who listen AND sketch new ideas in their sketch books.

While my blogging partner in crime, Yanni, may be biased, I am not. I normally hate anyone under the age of 25 who attends art school in Cleveland. But thanks to their efforts the sign-in table was a silky smooth experienc; Matt, with his name finding know-how, Eric and his calm, cool delivery of the schedule, and Kim, she had 3 colors of markers with which I could write my name. You read that right...3 colors! Brilliant.

My first session. Thomas Mulready discusses his creation, Cool Cleveland

Truth is, Thomas is one of the Coolest people in Cleveland. Why? because he really cares about Cleveland. This is a guy, who is really trying to make a positive change in Cleveland. His strategy? Use the web and e-mail, focus on informing people about the positive things going on in Cleveland.

Thomas is not a designer, so, you might ask, why he is talking here. Honestly, I'm not sure why he was chosen, but I'm glad he was.

1. He is not afraid to embrace information technology
   
2. He is really thinking through how to use it.
   
3. He is interested in real information, not flash, bells and whistles.
   
4. He really wants to do something truly good.
   

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