This morning Lisa Smith, designer, educator, writer and co-founder of Object Design League, posted a rich article on the recent design club movement bubbling up in the US. The article highlights the efforts of our very own JOIN: Design Seattle, as well as the America Design Club based in New York and Object Design League in Chicago.
The article goes beyond just identifying this movement, and begins to investigate the forces behind its development, including the lack of federal support for up-and-coming designers like that which is available in most of Europe.
Lisa Smith writes in her closing paragraph:
"Though groups have always organized to promote ideas they believe in and young people have always collaborated to produce experimental work, the significance of AmDC, JOIN and ODL is that rather than collaborating, they aspire to help young, independent and struggling American designers by creating durable relationships and creative opportunities. In their optimism for self-organization and their outwards engagement, these clubs are part of a larger Obama-inspired zeitgeist that prioritizes restructuring over coping, and could very well bring about significant change in the American design scene."
Check out the inspiring and optimistic article on Core77 here.
The following photos are: JOIN's recent Ctrl+Alt+Design exhibition, logos of the American Design Club, JOIN: Design Seattle and Object Design League, the Brite Collective lighting workshop and results, and the commemorative pillow from Ctrl+Alt+Design.
And no, James and I aren't there, but Brit will be, along with Erika and other Grain friends like Jamie of Iacoli McAllister and JOIN. It should be a packed event! We are really excited and humbled to be showing with this group.
This morning Lisa Smith, designer, educator, writer and co-founder of Object Design League, posted a rich article on the recent design club movement bubbling up in the US. The article highlights the efforts of our very own JOIN: Design Seattle, as well as the America Design Club based in New York and Object Design League in Chicago.
These new Model Citizens photos all come from the Core77 New York Design Week 2009 slideshow. They were taken by Lisa Smith (above) and Glen Jackson Taylor (all below). We were proud to see that 18 of the 445 pics posted from the busy week were from Model Citizens. View the whole slideshow here.
Thanks to everyone who came out to support Model Citizens in New York last weekend! Our favorite part of the show was getting to know all of the designers exhibiting. It was such a great community. See links to all of the participating designers here. Big thanks to Erika Carmichael for the invitation. 
We're in New York getting ready for Model Citizens (which opens Saturday May 16th) and loving all the press going around. Check some of it out here:
We were happily surprised to find our new chair, Cafe America, on Core77 this morning!! The chair, which is being finished as I type, will be shown at Design Within Reach Seattle tommorow as part of the M+D+F exhibition. We are also taking it with us to New York next week along with our Ty Recyclable Shower Curtain and our Appropriated Series Bench for Model Citizens NYC 2009. We just figured out pricing, so I hope to get Cafe America up for sale in our Grain shop soon!
We want to send a HUGE thank you to everyone who blogged about Ty last week. It made our launch especially exciting and brought a lot of visitors (and buyers) to our site and shop. 
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