Daily Brad, the blog

It seems that my post about IKEA, including the Okland construction logo was quite popular with the search engines, and many of you come across it by typing “IKEA Utah” into Google. So I just wanted to share in the excitement about being the first state in the Mountain West to get one, by linking to their press release on it’s opening date (less than a month away). Here’s a snippit:

DRAPER, UT, March 6, 2007 – IKEA, the world’s leading home furnishings retailer, today announced that its future Draper, UT store will open at 9:00 AM on Wednesday, May 23, 2007. IKEA Draper will be the Swedish company’s first store and restaurant destination in the Mountain West and 30th in the U.S. (In the meantime, customers can shop online at www.IKEA-USA.com, or at stores in Tempe, AZ; Covina, CA and West Sacramento, CA.)
“Due to the progress made during the fall and the snowy winter, we are confident the remaining construction milestones and interior build-up process will be complete by late May,” noted Paul Janzen, store manager of the future IKEA Draper. Janzen added, “now our primary objective is to continue hiring and training the nearly 350 Utahns who will be joining the IKEA coworker family before we open.”

The bad news is that I’ve been a bit of a slacker on posting to my blog, but the good news is that I have been very busy. (Always good news for me, never good news for clients that want to get on my schedule.) But there are a couple things I’d like to mention today.

New Designers Added
First of all, I’ve added a couple of links to the list of Utah Graphic Designers that are of note:

The Utah Graphic Artists Forum Launched
I received an email from Wade (mentioned above) telling me about the new Utah Graphic Artist Forum that was recently launched. Here’s an exerpt from the email: (I figured I couldn’t say it much better):

Now officially launched, I present a gathering place for local graphic artists. My purpose is to promote and support the development and expression of graphic arts and to facilitating and ecouraging conversations and interaction between graphic artists in Utah, in an environment free of dues or obligations. I hope to provide something of value to members involved in all forms of the graphic arts, including illustrators, photographers, graphic designers, typographers, user interface designers, and web developers.

Both working professionals and students are welcome and encouraged to participate, discussing current events and trends, historical topics, theory, techniques, technology, business, and/or employment.

Features include a forum, mailing lists, an IRC channel for chat, job announcements, RSS feeds, syndicated calendar events, and plans to meet periodically for socials and workshops. Membership is free and open to anyone interested.

Visit, participate in and support this worthy effort of uniting us creative professionals here in Utah. It looks like it already has over 40 members, and will continue to grow.

AIGA just announced their next event here for the Salt Lake area chapter:

Nate Morley, Deutsch Inc.
THE ART OF CREATIVE OPPORTUNITY

Date:
Wednesday, December 13th, 2006

Time:
6:30-7:00 pm - Mingle
7:00-8:00 pm - Presentation
8:00-8:30 pm - Q&A

Admission:
AIGA Students - Free
Non-member Students - $5
AIGA Members - $10
Non-Members - $15

Location:
Salt Lake Art Center
20 South West Temple
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
www.slartcenter.org

Directions and Parking info:
The Salt Lake Arts Center is located in downtown Salt Lake just south of the Abravanel Symphony Hall. Please carpool and arrive early. Parking validations are available at the ticket table for parking at Crossroads Mall across the street.

Nate Morely
Nate Morley is Group Creative Director at Deutsch, Los Angeles. Nate began his career at Abercrombie & Fitch where he launched the award winning series, A&FTV. In 2000, Nate joined Peterson, Milla Hooks in Minneapolis where he helped define the Target brand for nearly five years. In 2005, Nate moved to Deutsch/LA where he has been working to revamp the Old Navy brand. His most recent projects include the national launch of Helio, a new mobile service from SK Telecom and Earthlink Wireless.

Nate’s work as been recognized at Cannes and in nearly every professional advertising journal including Archive, Communication Arts, AdAge, Adweek, Creativity, Director’s World, Shoot, Animation World, Boards Magazine, MediaWeek, and more. Several of Nate’s projects have been listed among AdAge’s Top 10 Best Web Films. OddsAgainstSeven, a series of short films created for Target, was named Creativity Interactive Work of the Year. Nate was recently featured in the People and Players section of Madison + Vine
from AdAge.

What is Web Directions North?

Put together by designers and developers, for designer and developers, this conference is brought to you by Dave Shea, Derek Featherstone, Maxine Sherrin and John Allsopp. Over two days and nights, Web Directions North is packed tight with sessions by renowned, inspiring, entertaining speakers and experts, parties, and more.

Come along and hear Kelly Goto, Andy Clarke, Adrian Holovaty, Douglas Bowman, Dan Cederholm, Joe Clark, Molly Holzschlag, Derek Featherstone, Veerle Pieters, Jeremy Keith and all the other present and future web luminaries, who’ll be covering covering Ajax and Javascript, CSS, Microformats, mashups, standards based web design and development, accessibility, web app development, XHTML and HTML and more. Beginning with an optional day of workshops from some of the web’s best educators, and rounded off with two optional days of skiing and boarding at Whistler [that's British Columbia folks], Web Directions North is 2007’s web design and development event not to be missed.

What did I say about the Design a Snowboard contest? This contest is sponsored by Digital Web Magazine and here’s what they had to say about it:

(more…)

AIGA just announced their next event here for the Salt Lake area chapter:

Allison Williams: Design: mw
Things/ Not-things

Allison Williams of the tribeca, ny based design firm ‘design mw’ will speak about the myriad things she has helped create at the company she founded with her husband, jp williams, over a decade ago. she will also talk about other aspects of the work at mw that never quite become tangible objects, but have a weight of their own.

Date:
Thursday, November 16th, 2006

Time:
6:30-7:00 pm - Mingle
7:00-8:00 pm - Presentation
8:00-8:30 pm - Q&A

Admission:
AIGA Students - Free
Non-member Students - $5
AIGA Members - $10
Non-Members - $15

Location:
Salt Lake Art Center
20 South West Temple
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
www.slartcenter.org

Directions and Parking info:
The Salt Lake Arts Center
The Salt Lake Arts Center is located in downtown Salt Lake just south of the Abravanel Symphony Hall. Please carpool and arrive early. Parking validations are available at the ticket table for parking at Crossroads Mall across the street.

(more…)

So I ran across an interesting site tonight called NO!SPEC. The site’s mission is to educate both clients and Visual Communication designers (also known as ‘graphic’ designers) about the nature of speculative, or “spec” work and how it effects us all in the design community.

The site also serves as a vehicle to unite designers who support the notion that spec work devalues the potential of design and ultimately does a disservice to the client.

How do you feel about Spec work?

Visit the Site | Digg story

So my friend Tyrone Gibson, who’s one of those designer-types that lives and breaths good design, sent me an email this week inviting me to an AIGA event that he’s involved with. Here’s the sum-up:

Brian Collins will be coming to Salt Lake and BYU on THU October 26 to discuss “How Design Can Change the Future” - it may seem a bit egotistical but ladies and gents - this guy has got some incredible thinking. He comes from Ogilvy Mather in New York and runs “BIG” Brand Innovation Group. His thoughts will open minds and leap bounds in telling the story of any business or organization.

Read a recent article at Brand Packaging about what he’s thinking:
http://brandpackaging.com/content.php?s=BP/2006/08&p=4

They’re still looking for a few sponsors, if interested. The full event details are included on the AIGA Salt Lake Website at this link:
http://aigasaltlake.com/2006/08/brian-collins/

Date:
Thursday, October 26th, 2006

Time:
6:30-7:00 Mingle
7:00-8:00 Presentation
8:00-8:30 Q&A

Location:
Salt Lake Art Center
20 South West Temple
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
www.slartcenter.org

Admission:
AIGA Students - Free
Non-member Students - $5
AIGA Members - $10
Non-Members - $15