Design Week Portland

Events October 9, 2014

SuperTrash on display, let’s talk about it

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Our history is documented in everyday design. A passing glance at a poster may not strike the viewer as anything more than an artful image, designed to draw attention to an upcoming film. But what happens when more than 200 hundred posters, spanning fifty years, are placed juxtaposed in an exhibit? SuperTrash, a collection of cult movie bills curated by Jacques Boyreau, was first presented at the Andy Warhol Museum. Offering an alternative portrait of the 20th century, the prints amassed by Boyreau, author of TRASH: The Graphic Genius of Xploitation Movie Posters, are on display at PNCA’s Swigert Commons (1241 NW Johnson) through Oct. 21. As this showcase of vintage design warrants more than just a glance, the art school seeks to contextualize the thoughts and attitudes behind the graphic designs with a symposium hosted this Saturday, Oct. 11, as part of Design Week Portland. After settling in with a cup of morning coffee, the symposium begins promptly at 10 a.m. Boyreau opens the event, speaking to why this selection of cult movie advertisements is an avant-garde study of America’s collective past. Then, a discussion lead by notable presenters is to follow. Speakers Amy Borden, contributor to anthologies on…

Events October 7, 2014

Mix tapes, Mad Men, and urban design: Oct. 7 highlights of Design Week Portland

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Design is founded on more than just functionality. At its very core, design is rhetoric. From its beginnings as the artful speeches of ancient Greeks, rhetoric has evolved into the ability to express ideas through multiple mediums of design. Tonight, Design Week Portland hosts several events around town that use various forms of design to communicate with the Rose City. See how artist Kate Bingaman-Burt forgoes the high-fidelity romance of mix tapes to use the medium to communicate her thoughts on money, objects, and emotions. The open house exhibit, More More More, at Liquid Space (910 NW Hoyt) in the Pearl District, is a free event that lasts from 4 to 7 p.m. The show gives attendees a chance to speak with Bingaman-Burt and purchase prints of her work. Each purchase comes with a mix tape curated by the artist. Later in the evening, take a more intimate look at the work—rather than the sex lives—of Portland’s real-life Don Drapers in Portland Designers in the Mad Men Era. Browse displays featuring old sketchbooks, pamphlets, illustrations, and comics of Mad Men-era Portland designers in advertising. The collection provides an intimate look at the local men who transformed the field of ad and graphic…