Next MAKE is set for 2013!

Orangutan Swing workshops offer a chance to have conversation offline, in a way that’s not overly directed.

Here’s a pic from our last one!

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UPDATE: 3 pics from MAKE!

More than 30 people joined us for MAKE. Even with the Duke game on.

Dipika hosted.

Fishmonger’s has an upstairs that reminds us of Ireland, so we picked it for this year’s MAKE.

Also, we have a community page to evolve the dialogue. It’s on Facebook at Facebook.com/MakeNow.

Introducing our guest speakers!

Make is a roundtable on the creative process. A series.

Design Kompany loves to gather people to talk about a topic in depth.

On Friday, March 9 in Durham, NC, we host MAKE.

A roundtable on our favorite topic. Ever.

The creative process.

To mix it up, we’ve invited these people to join us and some 30 guests who’ve RSVP’d.

Introducing our speakers

Allow us to introduce our diverse mix of guest speakers.

Donald Martiny, a painter, recently showed at The Carrack Modern Art in Durham. I haven’t met him yet, but the images I saw—bright colorful zooms of paintbrush strokes—reminded me of something Akira and I first noticed and loved in the Pop art of Roy Lichtenstein. In his artist’s statement, Donald says: “Many of the abstract expressionists of the 1950s, the second-generation abstractionists in particular, adopted an attitude of an all over attack, attempting to fill the canvas with energy.” For him, the gesture of painting is the most intriguing part. “My interest lies in freeing the gesture from the traditional rectangular shaped support and exploring its potential.”

You might not know this, but Eleni Vlachos co-founded Triangle Meatless Monday and the Bull City Vegan Challenge. When I first met her, I’d just come back to Durham from Seattle and she had lots to say about her time living there! So it was nice to have a common geographic vocabulary. Now I know she drums for Beloved Binge and screens her documentary Seeing Through the Fence. Akira and I met Eleni through our collaboration to find a look and feel for Durham’s Cleveland Holloway neighborhood, for which Eleni volunteers.

Jamila R. Davenport, aka OMNI Photography, was born, raised, and cultivated in Durham. She came to MAKE last year, and since then we’ve seen her at a few other events of ours around town. Most recently, she photographed these images of SCALE for us, so we have beautiful pictures! I also totally admired Jamila’s professional style and superb follow-through when I commissioned her to photograph my Sharpie art show opening last month. And I have never seen anyone get so excited talking about photographing food! Passion is awesome. Jamila studied at the Savannah College of Arts & Design and N.C. Central, and her personal motto is: “LIFE… In Perspective.”

Nathan Clendenin is a photographer. “I try to spend time in bookstores and online looking for inspiration,” he says. “Even if it is just to appreciate the work of another artist, it’s nice to know there are so many creative people in this world doing different things.” When he wrote that, I just knew he was a good person to be part of MAKE! I met Nathan months ago at a mixer at Bull City Forward, and he popped into my mind when I was planning this. I was so happy he was game to be part of MAKE with very little to go on besides, “It’s a roundtable on the creative process,” or something to that effect, via Twitter. A self-described “extroverted introvert,” he says: “I love it when I hit my stride and things come together.” How did he get into this? “I think somewhere along the way I found myself immersed in art more than any other subject.”

I can’t say enough good things about Mas Sato, who makes kids furniture, and is one of the nicest people I’ve met since the Durham Return. That was by the farmer’s market, when I happened upon his furniture design booth. I met his kids (Hana and Kenji), his wife (Jeannine), and his parents! They are Japanese immigrants, and had Mas in Flushing, Queens. Growing up in the NYC metro area, he was surrounded by both the urban artistic influences of the city and his father's interior architecture work within the Japanese community. In search of a profession that made use of his aesthetic sensibilities and attention to mathematical detail, he did stints in graphic design and architectural drafting after graduating from Duke University in 2000. Yearning for something more hands on, he found his calling in furniture design and craftsmanship.

Seth Patrick is an illustrator who, like Donald, I have yet to meet in real life! But I know he is one of those people who are open to coming to things, meeting people, and mixing it up, so I invited him to be a guest speaker for MAKE. You can see some of his work here. He has a dog named Macho, and cats named Wednesday and Picasso. He teleworks as a graphic designer for a New Mexico consulting firm, too.

I met Sarah Goetz at a really random on-the-spot art show that we both had pieces in. I loved her circular watercolors instantly. “For better or worse, I just never stop thinking about art,” she says. “For me, art is a way of sharing sensations and thoughts with others through a medium which effects me more than words do. I tend to extend that to sharing sensations of all kinds – food, music, spaces, light. I try to draw the attention of those around me to things I find beautiful, and appreciate it all when it is in front of me.” One of the drawbacks of this, though is trying to get through to people. “Sometimes it is hard to communicate without going through the lens of art. Having this much enthusiasm for color and form is not always well received.” I think at MAKE, she may find her crowd.

Who’s on for MAKE!?

facebook.com/makenow

New guest speakers added to MAKE lineup!

MAKE is a roundtable series on the creative process.

UPDATE: Save the date for MAKE!

Fishmongers
Downtown Durham
Friday, March 9
7 to 9pm
RSVP to dipika @ designkompany.com

Details to come on speakers.

Thanks!

UPDATE: MAKE 2012 coming soon

Watch this space for news about a new MAKE event, slated for Friday, March 9 in Durham.

More soon.

UPDATE: September 28

It’s today! See you at Parker and Otis in Durham. We’ll start at 5:30PM.

Here’s a little Slideshare…

UPDATE: September 20

IDEATION:

Ideation from Design Kompany on Vimeo.

UPDATE: September 9

Ladies and gentlemen. You’ve been asking about when we’re going to have the next one, and after a busy summer of awesome projects, DK is ready to report that we are geared up for MAKE2 at the end of this month.

Mark your calendars for Wednesday, September 28.

We’ll be at Parker & Otis from 5:30 to 7pm. If it’s one of those nice, crisp fall days, we can hang out on the lovely porch they have.

The big idea is we won’t have to deal with a lot of noise like last time, and it might be easier to hear with small table breakouts instead of one massive set of people trying to be heard. You guys who came to MAKE were so sweet not to complain about it, but I sure felt my ears grating at West End Wine Bar and thought we could try a different spot.

Tea.

Coffee.

Early evening conversation.

Let’s see how it goes?

Watch this space for updates. Special guests, and more to think about ahead of MAKE2.

Leave your comments below if you have thoughts on what we should bring to the conversation.

Thanks!!

Dipika

UPDATE: September 7: save the date for make2!

MAKE2 is on.

The theme is IDEATION.

Where do good ideas come from? How do you capture them? Why does it matter?

MAKE2 :: IDEATION
Parker & Otis
Wednesday, September 28
112 S Duke Street
Durham, NC 27701

RSVP on Facebook

Follow #makedurham on Twitter

Looking for speakers. Suggest?

Details to follow. Watch this space for updates.

UPDATE: August 27

Fantastic planning meeting with six creative people today to talk about the next MAKE. Or series. More to come.

Soon.

UPDATE: May 17

Will there be another roundtable?

YES.

Will it be like the last one?

No two roundtables are ever the same. That’s the beauty.

We want to rotate venues, and also try some new topics.

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM MAKE

If you missed MAKE, here’s a roundup DK wrote for the blog, Processed Identity.

UPDATE: March 5

A new series of posts reflecting on the MAKE roundtable begins with “Desire to Go and See.” Read the full post here.

More than double the number of people we’d thought would come made it to MAKE. At one count, 47.

They didn’t know anything about it.

Aside from the general topic: “The creative process.”

And this idea of “a roundtable.”

And the digital flyer on our Facebook page for MAKE. Design Kompany’s a pretty new entity in town.

Which made me wonder…

What makes a person opt to come to something like this?

UPDATE: February 25

Lovely evening yesterday at Durham’s first roundtable on creative process. Thanks!!

Warmly,
Dipika & Akira

Some pictures:

Friendly debate on what the creative process is and isn’t, and what it means to MAKE.

Join the conversation

Leave a note with your thoughts on Facebook:
Facebook

Tweet with us:
#makedurham

RSVP on Facebook
#makedurham

The Creative Process

What is it

Who uses it?

What changes as a result?

In order to delve more roundly into these questions, Design Kompany is hosting the roundtable “Make.”

It will be on Thursday, Feb 24 at West End Wine Bar in Durham starting at 7pm. Panelists below. Admission is free. Tell your friends.

The Panelists

We’ve asked people to join us from creative fields ranging from architecture to visual information design.

Bora Zivkovic is blog editor at Scientific American. He organizes RTP’s annual ScienceOnline conference, and blogs and Tweets. He also edits The Open Laboratory annual anthology of the best writing on science blogs, and was an online community manager at the Public Library of Science.

Photographer Alex Maness was with the Independent Weekly in the late 1990s, when DK got to know and respect his image-making style.

Beck Tench is a simplifier, illustrator, story teller and technologist. Formally trained as a graphics designer at the University of North Carolina's School of Journalism and Mass Communication, she has spent her career elbow deep in web work of all sorts – from the knowledge work of information architecture and design to the hands dirty work of writing code and testing user experiences. Currently, she serves as Director for Innovation and Digital Engagement at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, NC where she studies and experiments with how visitors and staff use technology to plan, enhance and share their everyday lives.

Mark Branly founded Neural 9, a Web development firm helping clients connect and interact with their audience on the Web. As both Web designer and developer, Mark straddles the creative process with both sides of the brain. In addition, he is also an emerging photographer with a permanent collection hanging at Beyu Caffe and a current show at Altered Image Hair Design. He holds a BS in Computer Science from North Carolina State University.

Durham native Tiff Broili worked at San Francisco Arts Commission and did museums studies at University of Oregon.

Javonne M Clark produces and writes music, in addition to filming. “I am currently working on creating a television show about the city of Durham that I have written.”　He adds: “I am 32 years old and currently attending grad school at North Carolina Central University. I have been very into the arts since I was a child. My first love was writing poetry which later led to rapping. As a result of rapping, I decided to teach myself to compose my own music. I have written and directed several plays and well as one short film. I am currently writing a 1 hour drama for which I have completed the first two episodes. I own a Canon XL-2 video camera and that I use to shoot footage which I edit with Adobe Pro CS5.”

Scott Harmon spends most of his day wandering the streets of downtown Durham causing trouble. His main creative outlets are Center Studio Architecture and his real estate development company, Re:Vamp Durham. His underlying passions are independent entrepreneurism; emergent, progressive organizational systems; and new theories in economic development. As a progressive, he fundamentally believes the answers to our world’s problems lay in front of us to discover. History holds lessons, but not the answers we need right now. The world spins in one direction only–forward.

Jeff Brenman is the founder of Apollo Ideas, a leading presentation consulting and design firm. “When you have a high stakes presentation, Jeff's your guy. He creates visual stories that captivate and draw an emotional response. Through simple, clear communication, Jeff has earned some of the highest accolades in the presentation world.” For example: Winner of Slideshare's World's Best Presentation Contest in 2007 & 2008. Creator of ShiftHappens (DidYouKnow?) and THIRST — viral hits with more than 13 million views. Featured in: Garr Reynolds's Presentation Zen and Presentation Zen Design. Jeff's been called on by Time, Inc, Google, Johnson & Johnson and other Fortune 500 companies to amp up their presentations and storytelling. Jeff received his degree from Northwestern University and currently lives in Durham. In his spare time, he enjoys improv comedy, photography, and a good sandwich. Jeff also writes the Apollo Ideas Blog, one of the best free presentation resources on the web.

Behind the scenes

Special thanks to Carter Cue at Durham County Library for guiding us with putting this together. And to Barclay McConnell at Durham Arts Council for helping us spread the word.

We got inspired to run roundtables after meeting John Boylan, who runs a “Conversations” series in Seattle.

How to participate virtually

Want to join us but can’t make it to Durham?

Send us some questions you would put to this group by leaving it in the comment box below.

Or, Tweet your question with the tag: #makedurham.

Will we have livestreaming?

That is something even I am not sure about yet. Want to, though. And live-tweeting, too.

OK, but what are DK’s roundtables like?

They’re nonlinear, organic discussions with no fixed agenda or guest lists.

Some of my favorites have been:

Why We Need Internet to Find Friends

Flourish: What is the Role of the Artist?

Dream Kitchen brownbag series with rotating special guests

If you’d like to know about other events, check out DK’s events page.

UPDATE: February 9

Our panelists are now confirmed!

UPDATE: February 12

Our favorite presentation designer, Jeff Brenman of Durham-based Apollo Ideas, will also join us for Make!

Just added a bio and pic for panelist Javonne Clark.

Special thanks: In addition to Carter Cue at Durham County Library and Barclay McConnell at Durham Arts Council, big shout-outs to Alison Dorsey at Bull City Forward, Eric Larson at NC State College of Design and Adam Klein at Durham Chamber of Commerce for helping us spread the word.

UPDATE: February 16

New to Durham but very excited about the local art scene is The Mascot Gallery‘s Tessa Haviland. She’ll be moderating “Make” next Thursday. Exciting!

Some questions that are popping up: What conditions make it possible to be creative? What gets in the way? What does “creativity” really mean? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment in the space below.

Thanks to Downtown Durham Inc. for sharing news of “Make” through Facebook!

Update: February 18

Excited to announce we’ll soon run a guest post on our blog from logo designer Steve Zelle of IDApostle.com! He has a blog dedicated to the process of creating brand designs, called ProcessedIdentity.com. Steve’s written lots and talked to many people about “process,” so we’re psyched to hear what he has to say.

What to expect at Make? Be thinking about these questions this week as you go about your day to day. What do you think of when someone says, “I enjoy the creative process.” Or, “I’m not creative.” What defines creativity? We’ll start with a super brief intro of the eight guests, then open it up for dialogue. Tessa Haviland will moderate to keep us on topic. More updates soon!

UPDATE: February 22

If you have questions to put to the panelists ahead of the talk, shoot us a note at letsplay [at] designkompany.com

Thanks to AIGA Raleigh, Marry Durham, and Chris Chinchar for helping us spread the word!

UPDATE: February 23

Check out this guest post by Steve Zelle as a ‘prologue’ for Make!

UPDATE: February 24

TONIGHT! See you there!