Towson University’s Outreach Blog

Sharyn

On an early, gloomy Saturday morning, I made my way to the Brown Center on the campus of MICA for the first inaugural “A Day in the Life Baltimore Design Conference.”  My spirits were instantly lifted as I spotted the orange and green balloons that signified the location of the event. I guess that first cup of coffee didn’t hurt either! Anyway, here are my personal highlights of the day…

• This is a little thing, but the conference bag was filled with useful, thoughtful, and fun goodies. Useful – a desk guide that included reference that are great to have on hand. my favorite part of the guide is the fractions to decimals guide. Seems like that would be every designer’s best friend. Thoughtful – a pack of gum. Let’s face it, who doesn’t love a stick of gum after that morning cup of coffee or lunch. And fun – a super squishy green stress ball that now has a home right in front of me at work.
• The first session I attended, “Typography More than Words”, was led by Ellen Lupton who provided a review in typography basics, but then explored some topics that I was not as familiar with. I was fascinated by something that she described as “sprinting.” Her graduate students are experimenting with this process where they take a design problem, and they work through the problem in several 20 minutes sessions where they explore different solutions for the same problem. Sounds like a great way to free the creative juices and encourage experimentation.

Bridget Sullivan moderates the panel "The Value of Great Design"

• And, the afternoon wrapped up with an enjoyable panel moderated by Towson University’s own Bridget Sullivan! The panel featured four local creatives who have found success in their own business pursuits. Each of the panelists provided a different point of view because of their varying business size, length in business and overall point of view on how to approach projects, and particularly branding.

That afternoon I left the conference feeling energized and a new sense of inspiration towards the business of design. “A Day in the Life” really did make my day, maybe even my weekend.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 3rd, 2010 at 8:00 am and is filed under Events, News, Students, TU Faculty & Staff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.