Takeaway – To little, to late, to good.

I’ve taken far too long to get this post up as our meetup occured over two weeks ago, but that’s what happens when you run a firm, start a new one, create the cities first design co-op, run two blogs and start planning one of the biggest design events in your city. Enough excuses, let’s recap our last gathering.

October’s meetup was our smallest one’s to date with a paltry four attendees. That doesn’t however mean it was fruitless in fact it actually more productive in some respects, because without the distraction of other coversations the topics cut more deeply. Like a skilled butcher, the cleaver flashes and flicks and finds it’s way though the bone with ease. This small group made for deeper conversation. This month we were joined by Jubal Delong of JDID, Mark Aplet of Mark Aplet Photography/Visual 28 and Shalee Schafeitel of SchaScha Creative. Jubal’s a regular at all our events but his presences is always welcome as he’s an imaginative designer and a great catalyst for innovation. Mark was a first time attendee and an extremely talented web designer and photog. Shalee is a graphic designer who’s making a name for herself and friend of Jubal’s.

This month we discussed the idea of the ’studio’ and how to structure a design firm. Freelance contractors versus employee’s and whether that hinders the creative process or hastens it. Mark and Shalee left us after a couple of hours to enjoy the rest of their evening, while Jubal and I managed to stay mired in conversation until the place closed. All in all is was quiet evening but I always leave feeling satisfied and stimulated.

In future posts, I will begin to eloborate on specific design challenges and how they affect our business, culture and economy. I will also address our work in the community as designers and what that means to Sacramento as a region. As I mentioned in the beginning of the post, I’m planning a very large, incredibly innovative new design event here in Sacramento, more on that later as it develops. Stay tuned.

Sacrifice

Wes knows the kind blood shed and salty tears that are wasted on so many mediocre projects and as our fourth installment of the CCC Designer Pint Night approaches next week, he hit with a 1000 units of kick ass design with his “pint night” flier for next weeks meetup. (10.14) If you can make it, you should, it’ll be a blast and I assure you, you’ll leave feeling like the walking wounded. Limping home in a state of shock and awe. See you there killer.

Drip, drip

September Meetup – Bummer

For our third installment of the Designer Pint Night we had a similar turnout but with some fresh faces. This month we lost a few designers to the almighty work schedule as many were unable to attend to do projects and looming deadlines, but we were joined by a few additional people. Wes, a talented young graphic artist was there, along with Cody a developer and blogging consultant, Chris a product designer that has been blessed to have worked on your precious iPhone was there as was Rodney a mechanical engineer. Quite of array of artists from a plethora of industries. Our flier for September’s meetup came to us courtesy of Jubal Delong of JDID, a talented young industrial artist who was kind enough to remind us of the current state of the petrochemical burden we all face. A depressing invite, but after he regailed us with his ‘pen gun’ we all managed to walk away laughing. Sorry Jubs. Great times were had and conversations were ignited, or at least I was on fire.

Bummer.

August Meetup – Killer

Granted, i’m writing this post months after our actual meeting, but I figured there’s no time like the present to recap our early adventures. Our second meetup was exactly twice the size of the initial gathering with a dozen attendees. The conversation really ran wild this month, as we had a myriad of designers showing up from fashion connoisseurs, an illustrious architect, a talented interior architect, and we were graced with the presence of a wonderful graphic designer all the way from Argentina who joined us as a guest my good friend and cousin Jim. Fascinating conversation all around and this month in keeping with the Killer time that was forthcoming, I put together the first offical flier for our newest collaborative event. The Killer Highlife.