IDSA / CMU

Congrats to Federico Rios: IDSA Merit Awards!

The IDSA Merit Awards were last night, and the five IDSA Professionals chose Federico Rios as the winner for CMU’s School of Design. Fed will present again at this year’s IDSA Mid-East Conference with 10 other industrial design schools in the region. From there they will choose one student to represent in the national IDSA conference. 

Along with bragging rights, Fed has won a year’s membership to IDSA, and an all expense paid trip to Cincinnati, Ohio (although the drive’s only a few hours by car). 

In addition, our very own VP Julius Tarng was chosen for the Krithika Award for exceptional creative thinking and communication skills. 

Congrats to both of you and to all the students who participated! The presentations were great :) 

And we’re back from Portland! The trip was amazing and I’m pretty sure everyone fell in love with Portland culture (there was definitely a good share of plaid shirts, fixie bicycles, microbreweries, coffee houses, and beards). A total of 37 of us, ranging from freshman to grads in both ID and CD, attended. 

We visited a whopping 20 total firms (a record for IDSA/AIGA trip) which included: Quango, Panic, Tanner Goods, FlatHed, Twenty-Four Seven, Hand-Eye Supply, Instrument, Grid/Plane, Merrell, Pinball Publishing, Second Story, Ziba, Color Cubic, Hand-Eye Supply’s Curiosity Club, Sticky Co., Adidas, Vignette BC, Sandstrom, and Nike. 

The firms were a mix between industrial design, communication design, and apparel companies. All the firms had really big spaces, with Nike basically existing as a town in itself. We noticed that a lot of the firms were focused on hand-made design, with prototype shops or final manufacturing on-site. There was also a really nice sense of community within the design firms, we noticed a lot of collaborations between different companies we visited. 

All-in-all the Portland design scene is just as great as people say it is. It’s an amazing place for young designers to get started, and where new studios seem to be growing and becoming successful at a very fast pace. There’s a great creative atmosphere, very nice and welcoming people, and it’s really easy to find the specific niche of design you’re interested in.

Thanks to all the officers of IDSA and AIGA for organizing the trip (Rachel Inman, Luther Young, Julius Tarng Vivian Wang, Samia Ahmed) and for those who volunteered to help (Sarah Read, Maya Irvine, Frankie Gaw, Jason Wilkins, Justin Edmund, Charlie Barber, Chris Ioffreda)!

- Linda 

Student Lecture Series Numero Dos! 

Our IDSA & AIGA chapters are hosting our second Student Lecture Series March 18th @ 5PM in Breed Hall. All undergrads, grads, faculty and staff are invited! If you didn’t attend the first one, the Student Lecture Series is where several upperclassmen talk about their life stories, design passions, various projects and work experience. Each talk is about 6-7 minutes long followed by a quick Q&A. 

Speakers: 

Justin Edmund (Senior CD) - “Dormant Data”

Victor Ng (Junior CD)  - “Design School Lessons” 

Allison Tran (Junior ID) - “The Making of Neue” 

Federico Rios (Senior ID)- “On Working for a Toy Company” 

Our last SLS was a really fun event so be sure to make it to this one! You can learn more about the event on our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=195919500429849. 

And of course, there’s free pizza and drinks! 

(Poster courtesy of Victor Ng)