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chicago design archive

Home Tag chicago design archive
a pre-show peek of the inspired home show 2022.

a pre-show peek of the inspired home show 2022.

Mar 5, 2022


this is my 11th year as a gia innovations award judge. today was judgement day to scrutinize five product design finalists in 10 categories. that meant a visit to mccormick place and an attempt at a pre-show peek of this year’s the inspired home‘s 2022 show. i didn’t go into the great halls however because i didn’t bring a hard hat. the photos give an idea of a very different presentation, a refreshing new experience.

the global innovation awards (gia) program was launched in january 2000 with the goal of recognizing and honoring excellence in home and housewares retailing on a global scale. in the 20 years since its inception, the gia program has expanded to recognize innovation in four different facets of home and housewares excellence: retail excellence, product design, booth design, and student design. the photo below may be the display case build-out where the winners will reside. in 2022 over 250 entries were viewed by 20 judges to select the 2022 gia awards winners:

discover design is seven years old in 2022 and is a destination of more than 100 design-centric exhibitors from around the world. the confines includes the discover design gallery – the photo below may be the display case build-out featuring the products submitted for the gia awards; and design debut, an incubator program within discover design, featuring new companies.

on the way out after judging and in the great concourse we find, well not really, you have to pass the pantone booth to get to the great halls or the buses. this venue is way better than their previous location in the lakeside building. here, though the architecture is a bit busy, an abundant amount of natural ambient light means a correct color presentation, a rarity seldom realized in a trade show environment.

this sunday leatrice eiseman, director of the pantone color institute will speak sunday – check your inspired home app for more details. leatrice is also the creator of the annual pantone color forecasts illustrated in the colorwatch display. color is such a vital component to good design, we recommend taking this opportunity to hear what this highly esteemed color expert has to say.

i also met this year’s student winners. this category is one of my favorite happenings and manages to showoff amazing talent and their winning effort.

below > we see the six winners and in the foreground vicki montranga. i’ve known her for over 20 years. vicki is a chicago product design historian without peer. she’s also an advisor to the chicago design archive. she conceived the student competition in 1993 and 2022 is the 29th year. i’m told there’s a box of anniversary booklets on site and one has my name on it. please do not miss this special opportunity to hear their presentations and share ideas of what does good design mean.

below > les mendelson, founder of umbra, said these student competitions are the future of design. he shared his story of his company’s history and had two of his design managers do a walk-thru of the students booth.

below > evan dash, left, founder of storebound, outlined his company’s history and design determination. dash and mendelson have both hired past winners of iha’s competition. dash hired an arizona state student who then grew the design department and manages production in china.

formerly the international home + housewares show, the inspired home show is north america’s largest housewares trade show! we connect not only buyer to seller, but also product to lifestyle and the industry to the consumer mindset. every year, more than 52,000 home and housewares professionals from more than 130 countries converge upon chicago to discover new housewares products and industry trends, meet face-to-face with executives from top retail and manufacturer brands, and gain the insights, leads and exposure to jump-start a successful year. the show is owned and operated by the international housewares association (iha), which has a rich history within the housewares industry dating back more than 80 years.

@TIH_Show #TIHS22 #giaAwards @DesignApplause #DesignApplause @pantone @umbra #design #productdesign #designinspiration #modernkitchen #modernhome #homedesign #kitchendesign #cooking

legendary chicago designer hayward r. blake dies at 94.

legendary chicago designer hayward r. blake dies at 94.

Mar 18, 2020

hayward robert blake. 94, born in west haven, connecticut. he died of natural causes on 13 march 2020.

husband of simone louise (nee roussy), for 58 years; loving father of paul (kim), christopher (anita), and yvonne (brian); proud grandfather to andrew, meredith, anaïs, anikó, hayward, tawny, and kiera. hayward met his wife in france during wwii while serving as a sergeant in the signal corps., after which he studied design at institutions including, the cambridge school of design and illinois institute of design. he began working in the early 1950s as a package designer in new york city and later moved to chicago where he worked with raymond lowey, the container corporation, sears, ecko-alcoa, and low’s, inc. in 1961 he founded, hayward blake and co., and in 1967 incorporated with jack weiss. together they worked with designers in the design partnership which served as a model for similar collaborative efforts elsewhere. his design projects included the signage system for o’hare airport, identity designs for wait radio, titles for the film bang the drum slowly, catalog design for the block gallery, and identity program for the newspaper the rapid city journal. hayward taught at northwestern university’s, medill school of journalism, and lectured and judged at communication exhibitions nationwide. he was an active member of the 27 chicago designers, the american institute of graphic arts (fellow), society of typographic arts (president), the caxton club (president), design evanston, evanston art center (board member), and the porsche club of america. hayward was an amateur race car driver, loved sailing, scuba diving and was an avid squash player. the words above are provided by hayward’s son, christopher a designer in his own right, currently an adjunct professor in the interactive arts and media department at columbia college chicago.

i owe a great deal to hayward. he was responsible for my first chicago design hire at his firm, the design partnership. an advocate of thinking differently his concepts were engaging and caught your eye. his penchant for details was no secret as everyone knew he always carried a small screwdriver lining up screws in the lighting fixtures, something i tend to do myself now. in his mid-80s he was still working the audience at local design happenings. regarding the amateur race car driver thing, he looked and played the part.

memorial services will be announced at a later date.

donations may be made to either the alzheimer’s association or the newberry library.

selling design: 27 chicago designers. 1936-1991.

selling design: 27 chicago designers. 1936-1991.

Oct 21, 2016

the exhibition celebrates the 80th anniversary of the founding of the 27 chicago designers.

in 1936, the 27 chicago designers organization was founded as a primary marketing tool for a very young profession and its local pioneers. for 55 years the 27 chicago designers made a significant contribution in shaping and influencing not only chicago design but design in the usa as well.

the exhibition focuses on the founders and charts the development of a collaborative approach to design. highlighted is the incorporation of modernist and experimental materials and practices into commercial design culture. inherent in the theme is the promotion of chicago as a center for progressive design and advertising.

launch party 21 october 2016 / 6pm

Chicago design week 2013.

Jun 2, 2013

2013chidesignweek1 10 > 15 june 2013 | this is the fourth annual chicago design week #chidw. quite a bit of design going on elsewhere too. [ aiga @AIGAchicago ] [ chicago design museum @chidm ] [ idsa @IDSAchicago ] [ luminaire @luminaire_ ] [ neocon @neocon ] [ shared practice @SharedPractice ] [ sta @STA_CHICAGO ] [ the guerrilla truck show @GrillaTruckShow ] @DesignApplause encourages to ‘proceed to add value’ by sharing and via ‘comments’ below.

chidw13-chdm-banners1as seen from the chicago design museum, banners promoting the one month pop-up exhibition are currently lining state street directly in front of the museum space located in block thirty seven, 3rd floor | click > enlarge

chidw13-truck1guerrilla truck show / 11 june 2012 / 6:30p

neocon13-ideas300-2

W-G13-ForceofNature3force of nature | an installation by the guild, karlssonwilker and wolf-gordon

izzy13-mini1showroom 11-100

cdw13-vitra-physix1hanging with physix by alberto meda | vitra showroom #1192

legacy_model2model 2 bike | custom bike by legacy frameworks, a step-through bike frame with a belt drive | at the guerrilla truck show

neocon13-haworth-bluescape1thinking bigger > bluescape | haworth showroom 312

hm13-AnEngineOfProsperity1showroom 3-321

Decca13-1decca élan / showroom 3-101

JANUSetCieBMW2win this bmw 128 | janus et cie showroom 3-107

aiga91_Conference_banner2love power money | 1991 aiga national conference || head heart hand | 2013 aiga design conference

Archive 12. Call for entries extension.

Jul 31, 2012


A special offer for DesignApplause followers and friends. The Archive 12 deadline to submit has been extended to 6 August 2012. Archive 12 is an annual Chicago regional design competition. [ details and entry form ]

Interview with chicago design museum. Launch 2012.

Jun 11, 2012

click >enlarge

We are talking to Tanner and Amanda Woodford on the premises of the soon-to-be-ready-for-prime-time Chicago Design Museum. The museum (CHIDM) is of the pop-up variety and will pop-up in a week. Between now and then there is a lot of work to do. Let’s find out what’s happening.

[DesignApplause] Tanner, what’s your idea of a pop-up museum?
[Tanner Woodford] The whole idea is to host annual design exhibitions and events in a local, historically significant space. In addition, we’ll have events throughout the year that will support the broader initiative of the Design Museum.

[DA] Tanner and Amanda, tells us a little about yourselves and how this idea came up and your roles in it.
[Amanda Woodford] I became involved in the museum through Tanner; currently, I am the Director of Ignorance & Ambition, our official store. We’ve been married for five years and attended the Herberger School of Art & Design together at Arizona State University, where all of this started.
[TW] The concept started five years ago in Phoenix with a friend, Mark Dudlik. At the time we wanted to create a magazine, so we started interviewing designers such as Rick Valicenti, Milton Glazer, and Ivan Chermayeff. While we gathered quality content, the magazine unfortunately never came to fruition. Eventually, we started thinking about Phoenix Design Week – centered around a conference, the first of which was in 2008. It evolved into something very credible and is still going on today. During the whole process, we talked about the general lack of design museums the U.S. The pop-up model of a museum appealed to us, as it would bring a celebratory feeling to the process of design. The first pop-up Design Museum was in Phoenix, in October of 2011, during the AIGA Pivot Conference. Two months prior to this, Amanda and I moved to Chicago. Eventually we decided to open up a Chicago satellite, and so far the city seems very receptive to the concept.

[DA] Is the sole focus of the museum graphic design?
[TW] Currently we are 90% print driven. We are living in a flat world, but because the museum is in it’s first year, it makes sense to keep a tight focus and enables us to present comparable typologies.
[AW] Print) was a natural start for us and fairly easy to curate for our first run. Next year we (with our board/committees) may decide to go in a completely different direction. For now, graphic design works for us.


[DA] What’s your opinion of a museum vs a gallery installation?
[TA] We’ve been involved in big conversations of “what’s a gallery” vs “what’s a museum”. You can show current, popular pieces in both but the museum seems better suited for exhibiting items with historical significance, whether it be in the field of design or elsewhere.

[DA] What was interesting to me as I found out more about your museum and finding something interesting to present via the Chicago Design Archive was the extent of interest for looking at the historical work.
[TW] Exactly. There’s a need to provide easy access a wide range of creative history.

[DA] The Modern Wing at the Art Institute is finally mounting design. Thank you Zoe Ryan. And graphic design you certainly show the poster, the book. The Wing also shows motion pieces but I’m not sure if there is interactive pieces.
[TW] Last week I read, although I can’t remember the source, an article that said that interactivity will be pervasive in museums in the next two to five years. We (CHIDM) do have motion pieces, though they are confined to a small video viewing room. I would love to have more.

[DA] Let’s sum things up. This is the first Chicago Design Museum and when did you decide to have it here and why now? Was it to coincide with a somewhat new Chicago Design Week? I think this is the third consecutive year for Design Week. How did you orchestrate this event?
[TW] Amanda and I only started talking about this nine months ago.
[AW] We’ve been in Chicago a little less than two years. Our work on the Phoenix museum last October brought us to the idea that we’d like to bring it to Chicago.
[TW] It took a lot of time to actually commit to it. We really didn’t start working on it until January 2012. We started by building a small board together about five months ago. Initially, we asked five people to come to our one bedroom Logan Square apartment and started talking about what we might want to do. We made a list of exhibition ideas and started pouring into those.
[AW] When we started, we didn’t have a timeline in mind. But pretty quickly everything fell into place and here we are in June with the museum open.

very first chicago design museum site sign.

[DA] You’ve built a very clear and easy to navigate web site. How did we ever get by without a Web presence before? How tight is your business model, your goal, your mission statement? Do you have this plan in writing, a graphic standards guide?
[TW] It’s always changing. Some days we’re very structured, and others we flew by the seat of our pants. We didn’t start by asking people to come on board with a specific task for them in mind. We asked everyone how they would like to participate and then our titles and duties evolved. We responded to the needs of the museum; some have taken tasks on that they’ve never done before, but have become really good at.
[AW] Our board now numbers around nine. We first started by meeting every Tuesday and we now have full board meetings every other Tuesday, with separate committee meetings in the weeks between. For the month of May, we were almost always at the space getting things ready.

[DA] You perfectly describe the passion and commitment required to make this happen. And most if not all have full-time jobs. How are you funded?
[TW] We started with sponsors. We have different levels starting at $5 up to $5,000. All our levels are now covered. We’ve set funding goals and assigned our committees tasks that are aimed toward funding. Amanda runs the store. There is the funding committee. There are committees for marketing, space, events, and exhibits. We’ve been lucky to hit our goals very quickly. I can’t tell you the number of people who told me in this short period of time who would say “I’ve been thinking about this for 10 years.” Everyone is asking how they can help, many have contributed financially, and a few have actually joined the board. We’re also a not-for-profit organization and a subsidiary of Lost Creature (founded by Mark Dudlik) in Phoenix and some support comes through that company.

[DA] 10 years! I’ve bring up every once in a while over the past 30 years. Either talking about it amongst designers or going to the museum’s directly. Though architecture has been well represented. The museum’s were afraid to touch it. They were afraid of putting images of their collection on the Internet for fear that someone would download it. Seems almost funny now to talk about those days.
[TW] The museum concept, a small one such as ours, is less fearful and more adventuresome. We don’t feel we have much to lose as long as we provide a quality presentation. We can bring in the superstars if we’re lucky, as well as introducing talent that is unknown.
[AW] And we have the store we showcases local talent.
[TW] Four of our exhibitions in this year’s show are renowned in their fields.

debbie millman’s installation arrives

[DA] You set your sight on Design Week based on last year’s success. How did you integrate your new effort with theirs?
[TW] We first went to AIGA and then to STA. That’s pretty much it as far as organizations. We also talked to sponsors who supported Design Week.

[DA] How long will you be up?
[TW] For the entire month of June. We have a reception on 11 June and there are other events planned during the month. Debbie Millman will give a talk on 13 June and on 20 June Adobe will be giving a Creative Suite 6 workshop. We also have open hours from noon to 8p on Fridays and Saturdays.

[DA] What can we expect at the reception. I just returned from Design Week in Milan and their Temporary Museum had lectures, presentations, bands, it was huge, noisy, and inspiring.
[TW] No lectures at the reception, but there will be music, beer and wine, a photo booth, and of course the exhibitions and video room. It will be largely celebratory. We hope to see around 500 people come through that evening.

[DA] It all sounds it will be fun and inspiring. How do you get here if you don’t have a car?
[AW] There’s a bus on both Chicago and Sacramento. There’s the green line a short taxi ride away. We are also talking to the taxi companies about putting up a taxi stand.

[DA] How did you find this space. It’s a bit out of the way if you are thinking downtown, but it’s very nice space with parking.
[TW] Finding the space was the most difficult part of making this happen. David Szef, our Chief Facilities Officer, must have contacted 40 realtors. Then he had to go out of town so I took over and contacted another 80. It’s difficult to lock down a space for just a month. We had a couple of great spaces that were rented right from under us. It seemed if we could get a commitment two months before our event, we had a chance. Catherine Caravette was a huge help in us finding and utilizing this space.

[DA] You should talk to Sam Vinz and Claire Warner of Volume Gallery. They have to go through this all the time.
[TW] I was thinking about that very thing.

[DA] What’s next?
[TW] We are planning to have events throughout the year and have this event again next year.
[AW] I&A will be online after this event. We may also add items from the PHXDM.
[TW] We are thinking that the store doesn’t even have to be tied to our events, but can be popped at any creative event, an art fair for example.

[DA] Ok, see you for sure at the reception if not sooner. This great and thank you.
[TW] It goes without saying we are really excited too! Thank you.

100 year anniversary: 100 icons | vsa partners

resources
[ chicago design museum ] [ phoenix design museum ] [ adobe ] [ aigachicago ] [ chicago design archive ] [ sta ]

Chicago design week 2012.

Jun 6, 2012

11 > 16 june 2012 | this is the third annual chicago design week. quite a bit of design going on elsewhere too. [ aiga @AIGAchicago ] [ chicago design museum @chidm ] [ idsa @IDSAchicago ] [ neocon @neocon ] [ shared practice @SharedPractice ] [ sta @STA_CHICAGO ] @DesignApplause sez can you tweet that ?

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