Fast Company’s Masters of Design Celebration

Last Wednesday night I had the honor of attending Fast Company’s Masters of Design Celebration in New York City, where our Kicker Studio Conference Phone was on display as part of the Expert Design Bloggers’ Project Gallery.

Our phone was in great company alongside projects from RKS, Ammunition, Lunar, and Smart Design, all perched on a table between the snacks and the new Porsche Panamera. The new HP Envoy laptops were on display as well, accompanied by young pretty models who could explain both their palm weight and processing power, while never losing their smile.

The event kicked off with a panel discussion among three of this year’s Masters of Design: Pentagram’s Lisa Strausfeld, David Rockwell of The Rockwell Group, and David Butler from Coca-Cola. Moderated by Linda Tischler from Fast Company, the conversation was both insightful and entertaining.  And it generated my new favorite digispeak phrase, “to double click” (on something to explore it in more depth).

The room was packed with interesting people from the design industry, and I was honored to share a green “Expert Design Blogger” badge with  veterans like Steve McCallion, Dan Harden, John Edson, Robert Brunner and Tom Dair. I enjoyed great conversations with fellow bloggers and Fast Company staffers, as we milled about the exhibition that also included work from IDEO, Alessi, David Adjaye, and an interactive Coke machine.

My favorite piece was by designer Ken Carbone, who created a scupture from his personal journals, handmade books filled with images, sketches and collages of found materials and words. It was strikingly low tech, visceral, and expressive,  in a room full of metals and plastics.

In the end, I didn’t win the raffle for the free Envoy laptop, and as far as I know no one went home with the Porsche. But I enjoyed the evening nonetheless, and I’m proud to have represented our one-year-old Kicker among so many masters of design.

You can find the official photos and videos from the event at Fast Company.

This was written by Jennifer. Posted on Wednesday, October 28, 2009, at 6:35 pm. Filed under Events. Bookmark the permalink. Follow comments here with the RSS feed. Post a comment or leave a trackback.