Photo submitted by Aisling Doheny/Lake Voice
BY ERICA ANDERS Lake Voice
A Monthly Design Duluth Series comes to the Northland.
Let’s say you’re a tourist. What attraction comes to mind for Duluth? For most, it is the lift bridge or a quaint area in beautiful Canal Park. The brand new Design Duluth Series will take place each month through May. The events will feature various speakers from companies in town, shedding light on the role of design and visual communications.
“It is our interests and passions that add to Duluth's identity. Design can help bring those ideas together when we have open communication”, said Joe Gunderson, representative from HTK Marketing and speaker at the second session of Design Duluth.
The Design Duluth Series is created to explore all of the forgotten reasons why design plays such a great role in forming our city.
With two successful sessions already done in the last two months, the next will take place on Jan. 8 with the prompt being, Iconoclast: Breaking the lift Bridge Icon-Hold. One of the University of Minnesota Duluth’s design professors, Matt Olin, will team up with representatives from local marketing firms to speak about why Duluth tends to be stuck on using the aerial lift bridge as the overused symbol of Duluth.
“We are hoping to get the conversation going about Design’s role in Duluth’s society”, Olin says.
HTK Marketing, Medium Control, Swim Creative, Port City Supply Co. and Stack Prints will all be contributing to this series.
The first time a series like this has ever been organized and carried out means there isn’t necessarily a set structure to how it will run. According to Olin, it will solely run on experimentation and is solely based on the learning and discoveries.
Founder of the Design Duluth Series and Executive Art Director at the Duluth Art Institute, Anne Dugan, felt the need to incorporate design into the aspect of how Duluth is viewed.
The art institute here in town brings awareness to many mediums of art. Duluth is a growing city and is home to countless organizations.
This six-part series will explore a range of topics, from print, costume, airplane, graphic, clothing, product and even beer design. All divisions of these categories are rooted right here in Duluth. Each month the discussions will revolve around a specific prompt along with two designers from the community to collaborate and present a discovery on behalf of the prompt.
Recently the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis had a panel of discussion about branding up north. With Duluth being the city of highest tourism and interest in the Northland, it is a goal to establish Duluth’s elements as a design capital of the north. Along with celebrating the sometimes hidden design excellence in our community and creating cross-sector discussions among different designers, the Design Duluth Series has its objectives cut out.