There was so much going on all weekend - tons of lectures by professional designers from around the country about the type of work they do, their philosophies on design, and everything else related to Industrial Design. It was a lot of fun and the speakers were great. A really fun talk was Marco Perry from Pensa talking about the curse of knowledge and his team's journey to redesign the Push Pop (next time you're at the grocery store or a drug store be sure to check it out).
Besides having the opportunity to listen to and meet all these successful designers, one of the most exciting parts of the weekend was seeing the Merit Scholar presentations. Every year students compete first at school level, then regional, then national for this prestigious award. The award is given based on the quality of work presented, the way in which it is presented, and how well the student presents or speaks about their work. It's always really interesting to see what kind of work other schools are doing and how our program compares. I'm obviously biased so I won't say how our SU ranks, but let's just say the caliber of our program always generates a lot of positive talk at the conference.
In any case it was a great weekend and I'm definitely looking forward to next year's conference and hopefully presenting my portfolio for the Merit Scholarship.
