WORDS Tiffany Bell
The first ever Design Week Birmingham (October 21-28) is being hailed as a weeklong celebration of great design to promote communication, collaboration and lasting relationships among the design community.
From pop-up shops to a letterpress and screen printers fair (and a packed schedule in between), the event first caught our attention when we learned Jared Fulton of Plenty Design Co-op was at the helm. You may remember seeing Plenty’s modern furnishings at Southern Makers or in an earlier issue of MADE.
Naturally, we sat down in one of our favorite handcrafted pieces to get the Design Week Birmingham scoop in a recent interview.
Who is behind it all? Local design professionals in different disciplines. In May we started spreading the word about organizing it. By word of mouth and reaching out to design organizations we formed a team dedicated and passionate about the idea. We are all volunteers, doing this in our free time. It is pretty amazing to have 20 to 30 people from difference design backgrounds working together.
Who are some of the designers featured and where are they coming from? Featured designers include Charles Spencer Anderson and John Peterson, as well as several other thoughtful and innovative designers. They come from San Francisco, Charleston, Atlanta, across Alabama, and many from right here in Birmingham.
What shouldn’t we leave the house without when we come to DWB? A sketchbook for taking notes? Nope, leave that behind, come ready to have a good time and meet other likeminded people interested in good design.
This is clearly not your average craft fair. What are some of the highlights of your multi-faceted event? Monday night is going to be a blast with a kick-off party at Bottletree Café and the viewing of the documentary Sign Painters. Friday night’s Rapid Fire powered by Pecha Kucha is a must see – 12 presenters have 7 minutes to rapidly show their work and what inspires them. The closing lecture is going to be amazing with two nationally known speakers, graphic designer Charles Spencer Anderson and citizen architect John Peterson, and an after party at Good People Brewing Company. Really, it’s hard to choose – they all are so great in their own way.
The bar seems to be set pretty high for vendors. How have you maintained the level of quality? It comes down to wanting to promote great designers making things regionally and locally. We want to include things that we as designers would find interesting and want to purchase.
What’s the cost for admission to any DWB events? The way it works is Design Week Birmingham curates a few events including The Design and Thinking documentary viewing, Rapid Fire powered by Pecha Kucha, Saturday’s Printer’s Fair and the closing lecture ceremony with two great speakers. These are the events included in the premium pass for $35. Then, other organizations that want to host events around the theme of design awareness and why design matters can get placed on the schedule. These are either free, have their own tickets, or reservations are required due to limited space.
Bring the kids or leave them at home for this one? Definitely bring the kids to the Printer’s Fair on Saturday, highlighting screen printers, letter-press artists, book makers, digital printers and anyone using printed media. The screen printers will be doing live demos which can be a very hands on experience for kids. For the most part though, DWB will include events geared toward an adult crowd.
Any strange requests from vendors/designers so far?
The agent of someone we considered for our keynote said he would require 25K and a certified personal driver to escort him around town.
Any plans yet to make this an annual fall event?
Definitely. This year we will see what’s good and what isn’t, and tweak it to be even better next year. We have talked about home tours, open houses, and more interactive design events for next year.
For tickets and details, visit dwbhm.com