Day 43: thu, 14 nov 2013. A twofer! First: Kate greets me at 8am with freshly-baked challah, a very delicious payment in exchange for some graphic design help. Also: chilling with friends before a really rousing talk by Joe Finocchiaro.
Tag adam
Day 33: tue, 29 oct 2013. Mr. Mohr made us all do 100 logo sketches then told us they weren’t good enough and assigned 100 more. Then he stood on a chair and took this photo of us making weird facial expressions.
Saturday was spectacular. But it’s already 2am and I need to be quick:
- We started out the morning with a general session followed by a breakout session with the creators of the University of California brand. It was delightfully awkward.
- Then we went to lunch together while our teacher chaperones were off doing their own thing (as usual). 13 of the 14 minni kids were there and we had a great time! (The restaurant put us in our own party room, which had a mirror perfect for taking a group photo.)
- After that, Graham, Adam, Anna, and I went on a little adventure around the city. While on the way to MartinPatrick3, a cool little menswear/home furnishings boutique, we walked past what seemed like a thousand different Minneapolis strip clubs. Of course, we took a few choice photos. (Get it?)
- Graham and I also found flowers for our boutonnières, though mine wilted quickly and Vicki Golden made fun of me about it.
- We finished off the conference with a long, final general session, culminating with a talk by Aaron Draplin, who was completely fantastic!
- Then, an amazing, beautiful afterparty at the Walker Art Center where there were five bizarre floors of fancy food, fancy drinks, and lots of conference-goers. CCAD students literally kicked off a fantastic dance party (thanks, Julia).
- Finally, after the AIGA/Walker afterparty had finished, I made the very questionable decision of “going dancing” with eight of the other minni kids. I should have known an event starting at 11pm could only end in disaster. We all ended up in a weird, creepy place called Sneaky Pete’s where the music was too loud. It turned out everybody was uncomfortable and wanted to leave. But what a beautiful bonding experience. And we got a great group photo outside the sign.
- Oh! This has been such a beautiful day.
After the portfolio review, all fourteen minni kids walked back to the hotel together. This photo was taken in the elevator going up to our rooms, shortly before I was reprimanded by my friends for screaming too loud in an elevator at nighttime.
Oh, friday! You were beautiful.
- We started the day with breakfast (I ate an English-muffin breakfast sandwich and stashed another one in Anna’s bag) and then sat in on a general session.
- Then we raced back to the hotel to catch a taxi to tour Sevnthsin, which was in a cool, industrial part of town. It looked like a really great agency which I was very glad to tour! Besides practical work environments, they had arcade games, a ping pong table, and a small replica of the Black Lodge from Twin Peaks.
- THEN practically all of us had lunch at the hotel on CCAD’s dime.
- Raced back to the convention center in time to sit through a very boring breakout session. Thankfully, Julia and I kept each other occupied with a very dry text message conversation while sitting next to each other.
- After a short refreshment break, we went back into the big auditorium. I wrote a cheeky tweet to John which showed up on the big big screen! We listened to more people talk.
- Had a nerve-wracking portfolio review where I was locked down to a table and random people came by. Got some good advice mixed in with a bunch of lame advice. Classic portfolio reviews.
- Once it was over, there were lots of hugs. Let’s never stop this, okay? Can we keep doing this always?