Doug Grimmet, Founder, Primal Screen talks to Cities x Design about the booming growth of the broadcast design industry and why Atlanta ranks among the nation’s largest employers in this dynamic sector.

Modern Atlanta is most commonly known as the birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr, the home of soft drinks giant Coca-Cola and the headquarters of the 24-hour news channel CNN. The city may also remind some of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games with its remnant sites still in the downtown area.

Despite recent additions such as The World of Coca-Cola, the Aquarium and the transition of Georgia State University to a full time campus, some feel the city could still benefit from innovative urban transformations. Last May, the 18th Congress for the New Urbanism took place in the city and brought together experts in the field of urban planning, government policy, and community development to discuss tangible solutions that can support the city in its transition toward more livable environments.

Atlanta, with its rapid growth, has followed a classic American urban model built up around suburban developments and highway systems. One notable presentation from the conference was on “Retrofitting Suburbia” by local academic Ellen Dunham Jones of Georgia Tech.  In her speech she proposes solutions that could change the social and environmental patterns of unsustainable suburban environments such as those that currently dot the Atlanta region.

Today, media corporations and film studios employ a large number of designers and have created a solid motion graphic design industry in the area. Throughout the years, the city has grown around the field of media and television which places the city as a serious contender alongside New York and Los Angeles. During our visit we spoke with Doug Grimmett from Primal Screen, a multidisciplinary design studio that works for clients such as ABC, CNN, PBS and HBO amongst others, and quizzed him about his city and its future.

It was clear from our interview that the presence of important corporations and media outlets are enough to draw designers to the city of Atlanta. As will the expansion of the activities of the Museum of Design. Yet it will be interesting to see how designers will continue to play a role in the regeneration of their city and how local culture and history can be more successfully integrated into the urban fabric.

Helen Johnson and Josh McManus of CreateHere in Chattanooga, TN, talk with Cities x Design about nurturing the creative economy in their city. Their discussion touches on the innovative non-profit model of their organization, how they meet staffing challenges and the advantages of being privately funded.

Cities x Design set out to clearly identify the role designers play in promoting and shaping their communities. We found a great spokesperson for Columbus in Gabe Shultz. He talked to us about creativity in Columbus, becoming a designer, his work and how he manages to do it all in one go.

Richard Crabtree talks with Cities x Design about the design community and design economy of Columbus, OH, and the visionary work of Salvato Coe + Gabor.

The Columbus College of Art and Design recently published a report entitled Creative Columbus, which is an inventory study of Central Ohio’s creative industries including the arts, design, performance, media and marketing.

The prominent design fields in the area are fashion, industrial, interior and communication design, with a concentration of businesses in downtown Columbus and many self-employed creatives in based in Clintonville.

During our visit we took a closer look at communication designers and their role in local businesses. We want to highlight CSCA (Columbus Society of Communicating Arts) for its unique and independent approach to design promotion, and its Creative Best Awards initiative that rewards local talents.

A special mention goes out to Ologie, a branding agency that helps businesses with social media strategies, and to Gabe Shultz for his insight on the role that graphic designers play in the corporate world and for keeping the experimental alive through his project Bored Sketchbooks.

Photos: © Jeff Seslar of Chromatic Identity – © Gabe Shultz

Paul Davis, Paul Nini and Kristen Harris talk to Cities x Design about what makes Columbus a creative city and why the Columbus Society of Communicating Arts revels in its independence.

Andy Warhol’s creative approach challenged the boundaries between art and design and ingeniously introduced multi-disciplinarity into the arts. He merged it all in his career: from advertising to illustration, photography, film, music, and sculpture.

By embracing creativity as a whole and by collaborating with the most inspired talents, Andy Warhol showed that commercial art (which we like to refer to in this project as ‘design’) acts as a mirror to the world we live in and can serve as interesting social study content.

Andy Warhol’s fame began with his illustration work for established brands like Tiffany’s , Columbia Records and Harper’s Bazaar to name a few. His success as a commercial artist eventually pushed him towards visual experiments that captured the American way of life shaped by consumerism, materialism and celebrity culture.

A personal favorite at the Andy Warhol Museum are the “Time Capsules”: cardboard boxes that he filled with everyday objects, photos, letters, and other collectible items, from 1974 onwards. The Museum today holds over 600 Time Capsules in their archives and gallery spaces.

The few capsules on display are fascinating from a creative and anthropological perspective as they intimately reveal the random complexity of Warhol’s existence and the beautiful designs of everyday life. Our visit to the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh showed us that life is art, art is design and design is life.

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For furniture designers Dexter Thornton and David Larabee of Doublebutter, traditional marketing strategies were not quite affordable and seemed too conventional. So instead they decided to use their skills and have a little fun on the streets of Denver by throwing miniature versions of their Roadrunner chairs up in the air.

Each miniature is carefully made in their studio. The mini chairs work as a pair (usually green and red, or green and yellow) and are attached together with a thread. The locations are chosen for their backdrop and potential in creating an interesting site specific installation. We liked the idea so we took a few of them to chuck during our US cities tour. The Roadrunner coming to a city near you!

Bennett Peji discuss his form follows function approach to developing distinctive brands for cities and districts with Cities x Design.