Clipart Art

I am DJing a Red Bull Music Academy event this Monday at the Social. As you can see by my unofficial D.I.Y. flyer for the event, I should also pursue a career in graphic design. OCAD, here I come!

Speaking of graphic design, the annual Canadian graphic design conference, DesignThinkers is happening at the Metro Toronto Convention Center October 17th-19th. The pre-conference (which is actually open to public) on the 16th will be a screening the film Helvetica. The other three days will consist of of series of talks by innovators in the field, book signings, workshops, and studio tours of some of Toronto’s top design studios. You can register for the event here (there are affordable students rates for the conference as well). I am considering pretending that I am graphic design student myself just to hear some of this year’s speakers talk. My top speaker picks are:

Grant Gordon, creative director of Key Gordon Communications, will be speaking about his campaign to get all of us to Flick Off. Check out the company’s raison d’être:

“Getting people to buy SUVs and feed fast food to their kids is no way to earn a living. We’re a group of branding experts who grew tired of adding to the world’s problems. Key Gordon creates provocative communications for companies trying to change the world. While some observers write us off as tree-huggers in Birkenstocks, they couldn’t be more wrong. For starters, most of us wear Cole Haan”.

I wonder if Key Gordon would consider a psychology grad as an intern for their company. Take my card:

Marc Gobé, author of “Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People” will be talking about his newly released book, “Brandjam: Humanizing Brands Through Emotional Design”.

Grant McCracken, author of “Culture and Consumption I and II, “Plenitude”, and “Big Hair” will tell designers why culture matters:

“The world of branding, innovation and design is now rocked by new development. Celebrity culture, social networking, new methods of marketing, chimera like Second Life, sure bets like Facebook, we are dealing with a world in flux. Grant McCracken offers an anthropological map of what our culture is and how to survive as a designer within it.”

Check out Grant’s blog.

Let me know if you are thinking about attending. I could use a partner in crime!