Day 2 of the AIGA National Conference started off with Janine Benyus and Paul Budnitz--both sensational. Janine's presentation was like a smack in the face, asking us "how badly do we want to stay here" and frankly shaming the audience into seeing the idiocity of our ways, all-the-while pointing to the obvious methods that nature solves problems. It wasn't strident, or didactic at all--she just let the evidence, Darwin-like, speak for itself. The audience was enthralled; the presentation a revelation. Paul Budnitz toured us through the (brief) history of the vinyl toy collectable, then shared some personal stories of Kidrobot and the kinds of marketing initiatives they're up to. Touching on the challenges of creativity, he was both provocative and inspiring. (See Paul at Core77's upcoming Offsite Event in a few weeks on November 9th!)

For the affinity session, I took in Valerie Casey's extraordinary presentation of "Failing Object Lessons: Design's Green Limits and Our Collective Potential to Make a Difference." Valerie is now at IDEO, but you'll recall her name from the essay she wrote for frog design's recent eco-issue of DersignMind. You'll be hearing more about the Kyoto Treaty of Design (Corey77 will be working with her through its development and deployment), but for now, you can check out the bones at www.kyototreatyofdesign.org. With the support of IDEO and frog already in the bag, this will be a key opportunity to influence the genesis and impacts of mass-produced goods and services.

Afternoon sessions included a roundtable on "The Future of Design Writing," with Michael Bierut (Pentagram, Design Observer), Armin Vit (UnderConsideration), John L. Walters, (Eye magazine), and Alissa Walker (UnBeige). The discussion--perhaps predictably, and ultimately inevitably--centered on the tension between paper and pixels (the panelists resisted it, honest!), but the session was great, with insightful commentary and not a few laughs.

End-of-day mainstagers were the incredible Marian Bantjes, who presented what was arguably the most intensely personal 25 minutes the conference is likely to see. (Wonderful to watch some brief video of her drawing on paper, btw--no turning of the page.)

Christoph Niemann shared a ton of his illustrations, debuting some soon-to-be-published work for two children's books. His stuff is SO GOOD. Finally, Nick Currie (aka Momus) took to the stage, but lacked a bit of focus, and though bringing up several interesting ideas on "the future of texture," left us wanting a bit more of a bow wrapped around the thing.

After dinner, attendees thronged to the Milk Bar for the hotly-anticipated Design Observer party, which featured 6 DJs, copious alcohol, and a some money-maker shakin'. (Alissa's got more pics here.) Official word is that the hosts got kicked out around 1:45; unofficial word is that it was well after 2:20. Off-the-record word is that some very influential highers up found themselves at a slider hamburger joint, waiting, amongst some pretty dodgy characters, 45 minutes for some food, and didn't get back until darn near 4am. Dish!

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3