Present Joys

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?

What a day today was! Let me tell you about it:

• I got a lot of sleep: eight hours of sleep. Better sleep than I’ve gotten in ages.
• We met this super-cool dude Bryan Kahrs in the hotel lobby at 9am. He talked about his life and reviewed some of our portfolios.
• Then we all walked to Chipotle in search of a cheap lunch. After that, Anna, Julia, and I wandered around the city with Lutz, Burleigh, and Vicki Golden, where we found both a really cool street market and the Oscar-Meyer Weinermobile.
• Then we toured Target HQ, which is quaintly nested in downtown Minneapolis, and was great. While there, we took a peek in the Target-branded gift shop.
• After that, we headed over to the convention center to register, where we got a big bag of random things. We then proceeded to shop around the tradeshow floor for even more random things like free posters and paper samples and chapstick thingies.
• Went to the conference’s first general session, which was three hours long and featured a ton of different interesting things (including George Lois!)
• Ate hors d’oeuvres and stuff during a really busy opening reception, where I got to meet Michael Bierut! And do all kinds of other fun stuff, including: spending time with people I enjoy and drinking weird things and trying to coordinate 14 people jumping in unison at a photobooth.
• Rejected my friends’ requests to “go dancing” (whatever the heck that even means) and instead went to a late-night screening of the very nice documentary Sign Painters.
• More sleep, right now? This is so very nice.