Guest Post by Kara Basabe // Artwork by Carlos Basabe
Time to start practicing your Southern Drawl, y’all. On Tuesday, we learned that the Orlando Design Community will be very well represented at this year’s Creative South conference in Columbus, Georgia. This month’s community meeting was focused on discussing the upcoming conference (April 7-9, 2016) and highlighting the local talent that has participated in the conference in previous years as well as a few speakers who are featured this year.
We kicked things off right with Mr. Creative South himself, Mike Jones, who is the founder and head organizer of the conference. Mike joined us via Google Hangouts to get us pumped up for another fantastic weekend of connecting with fellow designers and leaving as one big family. You can find all the details for this year’s event on the website, but Mike’s three main goals for attendees to walk away with after the conference are a sense of community, Southern Hospitality (if you don’t believe in it now, you will after Creative South) and to leave inspired and ready to make some cool stuff. It was great to hear from one of the people I consider to be the poster child for community speak at our meeting and reinforce the notion that what we do each month when we get together for these meetings matters and a strong community can make a difference in our lives.
Two local creatives, Carlos Basabe and Adam Grason, will be speaking at the conference this year and they gave a little preview of their talks. Carlos gave us a brief glimpse into some of his recent and ongoing work and alluded to the long journey he has taken to becoming a full-time freelance illustrator. Adam gave us a taste of what we can expect to hear from his talk, “Sledding Uphill,” which will also cover his journey to becoming a full-time illustrator, and featured some of his work for clients like Disney and Airstream. Each speaker left us with an inspirational quote that underscores their respective talk: Carlos said, “You can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love,” a quote from Jim Carrey. Adam’s parting words were, “Work hard, never settle, and success requires risk.” Justin Mezzell, last year’s MC, and Shauna Lynn Panczyszyn, a speaker in 2015, also shared their personal experiences with the conference and talked about what makes Creative South a truly special conference like no other. Pro-tip: Justin says, “Prepare to get weird.” Weird, but awesome.
We wrapped up the evening reminiscing about how great Re:Solutions 2016 was this year, highlighted a few upcoming events and of course, shared a few beers. Cheers, y’all, and hope to see you in April!
Upcoming Events:
Ad 2uesday with AIGA and Ad 2 Orlando – Tuesday, February 9, 6:30pm – Ollie’s Public House
Ad 2 Orlando and AIGA Orlando are joining forces to make this monthly mixer event even better. Grab a beer and rub elbows with some of the most creative and passionate industry professionals in Orlando. More information here.
What Lies Beneath, A Night with Type Designer Bruno Maag Thursday, February 11 – FREE for AIGA Orlando members – IZEA
It’s been thirty years since the first Macintosh revolutionized design. Today, the possibilities for typeface design are near unlimited, yet so are the challenges for the type designer and for the type user. The presentation aims to give an insight into the thinking, planning and execution of typefaces for demanding brands and increasingly complex technologies using case studies of Dalton Maag projects. More information here.
Kara is an art director, designer and amateur movie critic living and in Orlando. She spends too much time on the internet. Keep her company on Twitter @kaybigs or on Dribbble at https://dribbble.com/kaybigs.
