Presentation Descriptions

Jeff Boortz - Core Creative Collaborative Relationships

Over the past two decades Jeff Boortz has created Emmy Award winning maintitles for TV shows, on-air identity and promo packages for networks around the world, interstitial advertising content for TV, futuristic spots within a major motion picture, directed an independent feature film, and even launched and ran a network—and none of it did he do alone. Drawing examples and sharing war stories from his own work Boortz will discuss the core creative collaborative relationships between Creative Director and Producer, Creative Director and DP, Creative Director and Animator, and even Creative Director and Client.

Tali Krakowsky - The Science and Fiction of Experience Design

Krakowsky's presentation will provide an introduction to Experience Design, and how it impacts design thinking.

Fiction meets science when emerging media, interactive content, cinematic storytelling and architecture come together to create Experience Design. Re-imagining both media content and screens, Experience Design challenges traditional forms of content creation and expands the art of the digital into the realm of the physical. In her session, Krakowsky will make these seemingly abstract ideas very real and demonstrate that much of the present and future of design and architecture resides in this new discipline.

Using inspirations from projects across the world and work from Imaginary Forces, Krakowsky will discuss current trends in the fusion of design, technology and architecture. Transformations in design thinking, inspired by emerging technologies and a fascination with storytelling, are changing the entertainment, educational, corporate and retail environments of the 21st Century. Tracing a quick historical evolution of interactivity in architecture, this session will examine several key projects in terms of design methodology in an attempt to suggest some goals and processes for the field of Experience Design.

Kaye Gosline - The Art and Science of Color Trends

Kaye Gosline will share her review of color trends that was first presented at the influential Heimtextil show.The trend show at Heimtextil is a long and well-established orientation tool with product developers, architects, designers and furnishers contributing. Beyond that her lecture will expound upon what historically has driven color trends. She believes that the classic idea of tracking trends is being turned upside down in the world today and that the rules may no longer apply. Her goal is to inspire designers to develop their own point of view about palettes by sharing images from her many travels. Gosline’s expertise in color and color trends is an expertise that transcends disciplinary lines —it affects us all!

Doug Grimmett and Jim Choate - Collaboration sparks Collaboration

Animation/design studio, Primal Screen may be a serious business, but its ideas are concocted in a laboratory of whimsy and collaboration. In 2000 the studio purchased a 1940s-era commercial print house on Ralph McGill Boulevard in Atlanta. Creative Director, Doug Grimmett enlisted Architect Jim Choate to turn the large, raw space into an environment that would inspire his staff of animators, illustrators, and sound and graphic designers. The result was playful, dynamic, fun, and functional. But how did it all come to be? Mad scientists, Jim and Doug discuss how a collaboration between modern architecture and a modern design studio created the ideal space for creative people to work together.

Jonathan Bragdon - Design Voodoo: The Visual, the Virtual and the Meaningful

Only a few years ago, design imagination was limited by the practicalities of physical production. Today's technologies can help create elbow room for creativity, by serving as tools that expand rather than limit possibility. Architects, interior designers and product designers are moving away from old processes that build prototypes and demos (to save money) toward improved processes that create platforms around core models (for increased and replicable revenue). And digital tools are one step ahead, opening up new doors into the marketplace.

Using examples and case studies from design, technology and manufacturing companies, Bragdon will show that the glory of these advances lies not in the technology itself, but in opening up meaningful experiences for designers, end users and the way we do business. The new design imagination breaks old assumptions and utilizes constantly developing tools to embrace - and advance - change for the better.

Public Art Panel

Whose Public Art: Who Does Public Art Belong to Anyway? This will be a discussion of who public art is made for, and who it belongs to, centering on two recent Atlanta controversies.

The panel will be chaired by David Hamilton, Praxis 3 and chair of the Metropolitan Public Art Coalition. Panelists will include John Szabo, Director, Atlanta-Fulton County Library System; Amy Landesberg, public artist and architect; Eric Bishop, EDAW, and a representative of Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects.

A panel discussion about the reasons for and role of Public Art and what role finished works of public art play in the community, centering on two recent controversies in Atlanta. In both cases works of publicly commissioned art and/or architecture specifically designed for a site were moved or threatened with destruction after a private interest asked that their own plans be considered for a public site. These two situations describe a fluid public landscape in which business and other private interests can influence the use and future of public sites. This panel will examine the reasons for the creation of public art and architecture, its purpose and its role in the public realm. Panelists will also be asked to discuss the particular situations outlined above.