Finally, an answer to the oft asked question – Is there a fast-paced, real-time, interactive reality show for us designers?
You bet your wireless digital stylist there is! “… 16 cities … 256 international competitors … 48 champions … competing in 2D, 3D, and Motion Design” for fun and fabulous prizes. In the spirit and tradition of celebrating independent design and creativity, Cut&Paste presents the first ever global design championship, a culmination of the best-of-the-best from the Digital Design Tournament 2009, slated for October 16th in New York City.
“With the broad geographical reach of an Olympic event and the nervy psychological gamesmanship of the X Games, the championship approaches design as a spectator sport and amps it up like never before … As with the Cut&Paste city tournaments, the global championship will feature a tech set up that registers every mouse click and tapped command emanating from the designer’s workstations and projects them live and in real time on large-scale displays.”
Ladies and Gentlemen take your seats, as designers wait behind assigned keyboard/monitors in the darkened arena for the competition to begin. Like a heavy-weight boxing tournament, blaring music and a fast-talking MC transform the usually pensive and internal practice and process of creative thinking into a bawdy, white-knuckled, right-brain design-slam. Contestants must withstand the palpable pace and pressure as judging eyes watch strings of monitors and the minutes tick on down to the final hoorah. No stress here.
This past spring, the Cut&Paste competition traveled to design-centric locations around the world – the circuit, a where’s-where of all things hip and cool – Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Boston, New York, Toronto, Chicago, Amsterdam, London, Berlin, Barcelona, Milan, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo and Sydney, with sponsors that include Autodesk, IDSA, Motionographer, IdN Magazine, Stash, Flavorpill, Wired, Scion, I Amsterdam, Adobe, Wacom, Nvidia, Converse and Pantone.
In addition to fame, glory, and the esteem of their peers, the fastest-on-the-draw will win grand prizes which include a contract with 55DSL to design an exclusive limited edition of their Capsule Collection (t-shirt, sweatshirt and dress) to be sold exclusively at yoox.com … the best-in-show in the motion-design category will receive an opportunity to collaborate with Converse on a special, to-be-announced project. Woot!
And, I must say, Pantone has really rolled it out since the days of the post-holed PMS (Pantone Matching System) flip book. Their push into digital media is fierce (there’s even an app for that) and involvement in the C&P championship, deep. The colorful Pantone ”MyColor/MyIdea” promotion brings each of the 48 designers into the mix — 2D design contestant Allison Torneros from San Francisco (below), for example, is matched with Pantone color #103-1-2-C. We also get a link to her website, email address, sample of her work, and a glimpse into her own personal “inspirational idea” — “cosmic creativity”. (Sorry, no astrological sign.) To check out the match on the other 47 designers, or to explore the “1000 most recent color ideas” go to the C&P site.
