My involvement with Phoenix Design Week began approximately 7 months ago during an IxDA Phoenix event. During a discussion about an idea I had for a community design event, it was suggested I should become involved with design week, and so I sent a request showing my interest. Soon after I was attending meetings. I eventually began helping with the speakers and conference portion of the week, and that evolved into being directly responsible for the conference portion, which I hope everyone truly enjoyed and found worthwhile.

No one really knew what to expect and at times it seemed like it wasn’t going to wow as much as we were hoping for. I personally felt it might end up being the same old crowd I already see active in the community through outlets such as IxDA and AIGA and Creative Connect, but magic began to happen and little glimmers of hope began to shine like beacons. The presentation entries I was receiving were amazing. The ideas and topics presented had such a wide range to them and those that submitted were so passionate and excited about what they had to present. Hearing that passion and love for an event like this was encouraging.

Attendees and sponsors soon began crawling out of the woodwork and showed an interest in what we were trying to accomplish. Pretty soon we had real signs, a real venue, and real attendees. It was actually coming to light. Real speakers were showing up to talk and we had real programs and swag bags to hand out. All of this had lead me to one conclusion … Phoenix Design is *REAL*

In the end we have a fantastic event that wouldn’t have been possible without the speakers, the committees, the volunteers, and the many attendees that decided they wanted to help make this happen. I met people that I didn’t even know existed in Phoenix and unconventional areas of design similar to what I do on a day to day basis that I had no idea were hiding out in the valley. Even human sciences and environmental design geeks that get a kick out of wayfinding rather than fonts have a home here.

I found it rewarding to see all the tweets and blog posts and overhear about all the fun everyone as having and how inspiring they found it to be. I, myself, found it hard to pick just one session to go to during the breakouts and ended up wandering around all of them and gaining more knowledge than I thought possible.

In the end, the valley made this happen. The designers in the valley decided they wanted to be seen, wanted to be inspired and wanted to showcase their talents and gifts. More importantly they decided they wanted a community.