Elle Decor Goes to Baltimore

The March issue of Elle Decor includes a travel piece on Baltimore written by Jill Gerston (and including a quote from yours truly). Gerston highlights lots of good architecture and design resources, like Patrick Sutton and Housewerks. Check it out.

Design Convo #15

The line-up for next week's Design Convo in Baltimore is just stellar.

Geoff Stack and Julie Gabrielli will be leading the conversation, which has the theme Sustainability: diversity, interdependence, self-organization. We’ll explore how these concepts can apply to design work in Baltimore and beyond.

After a brief introduction, there will be three short presentations:

• Julie Gabrielli of GOforChange will talk about the diversity of the UMD LEAFhouse project team. (I wrote about this project for The New York Times Magazine)
• Pavlina Ilieva of PI.KL Studio will discuss the aspects of self organization in the Commonwealth project she completed with partner Kuo Pao Lian.
  
• Dana Bourland will cover the interdependent parts of her work with the Enterprise Community Partners

After, there will be about 60 minutes of facilitated small group dialogue with plenty of time to share thoughts and new ideas.

The 411:

Wednesday, February 3rd

6:30 pm. At the Windup Space, 12 W. North Avenue, Baltimore.

Free to all. Cash bar.

Brought to you by D:center Baltimore.

(We will be encouraging folks to find ways to support Architecture for Humanity’s efforts in Haiti at this event. If you cannot make it, please check out A4H at this link.)

Letterpress Design Competition

Holy crap this is cool...

Gilah Press + Design in Baltimore is hosting Ready, Set, Fly! a design competition that could result in your artwork being tranformed into a limited edition letterpress print. Ten submissions will be selected for inclusion in a limited edition box set.

The theme for the competition is "fly" and can be interpreted however you like. Designs will be judged based on concept, design, illustration, and typography. Gilah will then host a show featuring the new work and the box sets will be available for purchase.

To submit your work for consideration, go here. The deadline is February 12.

And to learn more about the fantastic work being done at Gilah, check out this blog post from when I toured their studio space last month.


A Heidelberg letterpress in the Gilah Press + Design studio in Hampden.

Detroit's New Taubman Center

Middle school students at the new Henry Ford Academy in the Taubman Center in Detroit. All photos by Nathan Kirkman for Metropolis.

In November of 2009, I went back to Detroit after being in the Motor City for Project M (and starting a big debate with this blog post.) While in town during the Project M trip, I got a late night tour of the then-under construction Argonaut building . Once home to General Motors design group, the building was being renovated by the College for Creative Studies into an interdisciplinary design eduction and innovation hub, with activities ranging from a design-focused charter school to professional space for start-up designers. I saw the building in action this fall and wrote about its transformation—and the evolution of design education —for this month's issue of Metropolis magazine. See the excerpt and link to the full article below.


Inside the new Taubman Center in Detroit.

Back to the Future

A school dedicated to design-based learning opens in the very building where GM's legendary Harley Earl became the father of the modern car.

It’s an overcast day in early November, and the students of the Henry Ford Academy: School for Creative Studies (HFA) seem especially charged. Deshon Mumford, a ninth grader, leads a tour of his new school and explains that some of the excitement may be because he and his classmates just picked their official mascot. The sixth-to-twelfth-grade public charter school opened eight weeks earlier with students from neighborhoods across the city of Detroit as the inaugural class, and now they are helping to establish traditions. Nominations were taken, votes counted, and from here forward the students of HFA will be known as the Mustangs. Deshon, a bright kid who likes to write poetry, says it wasn’t his first choice, but he appreciates the process. “We all got a vote,” he says. READ MORE.

Writing for the Web

I recognize the irony in using a photo of a vintage typewriter for this post, but it's so much nicer than a shot of a keyboard...

I'll be teaching an evening Odyssey course through Johns Hopkins University this winter titled: Writing for the Web: A Primer for Getting Published.

There are increasingly more opportunities to get published online as print magazines fold and Web-only presences emerge. Writing for the Web and submitting online to publications is not the same as writing and submitting to print publications. Knowing the difference is important. In this course, we will talk about where publishing is going and how the online community will affect writing opportunities. This class is one part writing—how to make your prose sing for an online audience—and one part practical—how to get published or self-publish via a blog. It's a workshop for those who want to get published for fun or for profit.

This continuing education class is open to anyone. Click here to be redirected to the Odyssey home page and then click on the image of their Spring 2010 course catalog for more information and registration forms.

The basic 411:

Class takes place on the Homewood Campus of Johns Hopkins University
$180 (12 hours) 6 sessions.
Tuesdays, February 16 - March 30, with no class on March 9.

New Year, New Blog

For the past several weeks I have been working with Web designer Justin Kropp on creating an actual Web site for my work and my blog. So very soon I will be launching eedickinson.net. Stay tuned...

Big Boyz

As seen at Friends bar in Fells Point. Photo by Seth Sawyers.

'Tis the season for best of lists and countless retrospectives, so I'll add to the growing pile with the Best Marketing Technique of 2009. And the winner is...Big Boyz Bail Bonds. Sad, but true. Anyone living in Baltimore has likely seen their blazing pink and yellow ballpoint pens peaking out of restaurant aprons and pleather credit card folders. I've seen them in offices, coffee shops, college classrooms... Nearly as many pens as there are bail bond locations. I've been told that reps from the company drop these off by the bagfull in vans emblazoned with the Big Boyz logo. I've also been told that the pens have a knack for breaking open and bleeding blue ink all over you. I should insert some serious social commentary on the industrial prison complex and the truth that these pens portend, but I'll let the garish, prolific, oozing pens speak for themselves.

Market Forecast: 2010

For Architect magazine's December issue, I spoke with experts in different sectors of the architecture and construction industry to find out what they think will happen next year. Here's what they had to say...

RIP I.D.

More bad news from the world of design. F+W Media announced yesterday that it will fold I.D. magazine. After January, the 55 year-old publication will be no longer. This ranks up there with the loss of Gourmet in my mind. Another stalwart publication bites the dust.

The publisher released the following statement to explain their decision:

The fragmentation and specialized information needs of I.D.'s core readers (product designers) and the plethora of information resources available to them—some for free (online and B2B) and others that are highly specialized and targeted to specific industries served.

F+W will continue to produce Print.

Holiday Shopping

A long hiatus from blogging. I went to Paris over Thanksgiving. When my husband and I returned to the U.S., the customs officer looked suspicious when we said we were bringing absolutely nothing back with us (besides higher cholesterol and an extra five pounds). The exchange rate just sucked, so no gifts from abroad. Back in Baltimore today and the weather can't decide if it wants to rain or snow. So for now, it's snrainy. We've got a fire going in the wood stove, but I'm going to venture out into the inclement day and join my friend Lisa at the Charm City Craft Mafia Holiday Heap sale over at St. John's Church. A sneak peak at some of the vendors below. Runs until 5 PM today in case you're in town and want to head over.


Letterpress cards from Bowerbox Press.


As someone who likes to keep handwritten journals when I travel, here's a map of Florence book by Bowerbox Press.





Screenprints from 2Hawks2Fishes. They have a wonderful collection of rock posters from local bands.



Flasks by Maneating Flower



Ceramics by Little Flower Design