This week's design conference inspires us to learn from other designers in order to create better work for our clients.
I’m a writer, not a designer. But my words work best when they’re part of well-designed whole, when a website communicates graphically as well as through words. That’s why I love working with Infomedia, where we work together as a team to use every tool — design, words, and coding — to communicate best for our clients. It’s also why I’m so excited about Design Week Birmingham, a conference going on this week that celebrates design in all different forms, from graphic design to architecture to landscape to product design.
Yesterday, I kicked off my personal Design Week Birmingham experience with a trip to their pop-up shop, then I headed to Bottletree for a screening of the documentary Sign Painters. The pop-up, located at the Alabama Center for Architecture (109 Richard Arrington Blvd.), is well worth a trip downtown. It showcases fantastic pieces by local artists, from gorgeous furniture by Andrew Thomson, Jared Fulton and Winslow Taft, to beautiful leatherwork by Jarrod Allen’s Hide & True, to delicate cut-out necklaces from Traci Edwards. The Bottletree screening was a great event that was about more than just sign painting. It was about being passionate about your work, about your process, and about creating the very best work that you can, even when it’s difficult. I may never be a sign painter, but those are lessons I can use every day in my own writing and in my work for clients.
Design Week Birmingham gathers designers (and design-appreciators) from all over Birmingham and beyond. This willingness to collaborate, even with our competitors, is what I love most about the Birmingham community. It’s what helps us to innovate, to grow together as community of artists, and to do better work for our clients and for our city. That spirit of innovation and learning is what’s so inspiring about Design Week Birmingham, even for non-designers like me.
Design Week Birmingham still has a lot lined up this week, including a tour of this week’s REV Birmingham shops in Five Points South. Tickets are still available here, and you’ll find a calendar of this week’s events, both ticketed and free, here.