In and amongst all the discussion at and about Design Currency - now a week and a half ago - there is one talk that stands out for me. And it is not to do with the way it was said, or its value to business, or its philosophical implications, or its parallel struggles with marketing in the corporate decision making process. It had to do with Cameron Sinclair's talk on architecture for humanity, an organization that he founded:

"Architecture for Humanity is a nonprofit design services firm founded in 1999. We are building a more sustainable future through the power of professional design."

Sounds good. But what does that mean in practice? The most recent (and current) example illustrates this well...

This April, ICOGRADA's Design Week is happening in Downtown Vancouver.  As a sponsor, we'll be there, personning a booth and also participating in what we can.  The theme is Design Currency: Defining the Value of Design. I've written a bit about design value on the Design Week website as well as the Graphic Designers of Canada website.

Personally, I am hoping to go to as many talks as possible during the week. The topic of the value of design is one that lead me to Smallbox in the first place; an evolution of the web has naturally extended design to web application design, and an increasing value of design in its verbal sense. So what else does it mean?

Over the last few years, I have enjoyed speaking to various designers about abstract design concepts; pulling design ideas away from the technical and into the theoretical. Why design? The reasons are many depending on who you are, but the question remains: For who do we design, and how do they measure what we do for them?

What I have noticed, from these discussions, is that we are utilizing many different specialties in various areas of design, but we are usually hoping to achieve broadly similar things by the end of the process. By collaborating on criteria to express and assign value to design, we are unifying a vision for the future of design itself.  That is pretty exciting stuff to me. Will you be there? Be sure to stop by the Smallbox booth, or spot us on the floor, and say hello!