A 4-hour drive from Atlanta takes us to Savannah, a time capsule of southern charm and hospitality. The city has beautifully preserved its historic buildings and green areas, and most interestingly has also been transformed by the presence of Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). The involvement of young artists and designers in this historic city creates an unusual mix of old and new narratives.

SCAD is a creative education empire established in 1978 that now counts four campuses in three different countries and over 9000 students. Walking around in Savannah, one can only notice the overwhelming presence of SCAD and the instrumental role it has played in restoring the historic districts. The School of Fibers is located in a building from 1906 that used to serve as a military hospital during the Civil War. SCAD’s main auditorium is located in a former high school building built in 1920. A former warehouse built in 1956 houses the industrial design department. The School of Film is located in an old power station originally built in 1894.

SCAD turned historic Savannah into a energetic platform for the young generation. Its dominating presence in the city has caused a few stirs however the benefits brought by the school have most certainly helped save many failing buildings and neighborhoods.

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.

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.

For the longest time Columbus has been considered a typical American city and its local population has been viewed as a mirror image of the U.S. population as a whole. For this reason the city is often used as a testing ground for corporate America’s latest products and services.

Large chain retailers and brands such as Abercrombie and Fitch and The Limited (parent company of Victoria’s Secret) are headquartered in Columbus. Similarly, large insurance companies are firmly based there as well.

Despite such facts, Columbus doesn’t lack personality and is not afraid of supporting independent initiatives. And with the largest university campus in the United States, Ohio State University is a strong local asset that grows and graduates inspired young minds and plays a role in spreading fresh ideas into the city’s diverse communities.

During our short stay, we had the opportunity to walk High Street of Short North, an area recently praised in the New York Times. Highlights include Jeni’s Ice Cream offering handmade confections made with locally sourced ingredients, the spacious and luminous Northstar Cafe, and Tigertree, a select store with unique design pieces from the area and beyond. The noteworthy North Market (the only market in Columbus and also small business incubator) was unfortunately closed during our visit.

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.

Full Pittsburgh City Report

Some locals in Omaha think that their city is of one of America’s best kept secrets and want to keep it that way. Others wish that more people stopped in Omaha (instead of just flying over it) because there is more to the city than Mutual of Omaha, Omaha Steaks and Warren Buffett: Omaha is also a creative incubator and the Silicon Prairie of the region.

Omaha is a small city made of contrasted districts in the downtown area. The real surprise for us was to discover the Old Market District after a long drive from Colorado. The Old Market is authentic and delivers an old Western charm that can no longer be found in a majority of American cities.

Omaha seeks to bring its population back on the streets and revive the city center. Inspired dining venues such as M’s Pub or The Boiler Room are local favorites in the area and prove that restaurants that blend design with fine food are an integral part of a city’s appeal. A number of affordable urban living developments surrounding the market are attractive alternatives to suburban neighborhoods.

The world renowned Bemis artist-in-residence center (pictured above), set up by Ree Kaneko in the early eighties has had considerable influence on the creative character of Omaha and helps to diversify the local population (we spotted a couple of young Japanese artists struggling to order steaks at M’s Pub). The recently opened Kaneko Center is another initiative that explores new creative possibilities for Omaha (see our blog post and video), and we heard that a new design school may also be seeing the light of day in a few years time.

Jun Kaneko is a prolific artist working across disciplines and who is known for his large scale ceramic sculptures. He and and his wife Ree initially decided to buy three empty industrial building on Jones Street as a place to store his work. Very quickly, they realized that they could do a lot more and give back to the community of Omaha by creating the Kaneko Center, a place to explore creativity in relationship to art, science and philosophy.

In May 2009, the center served as a venue for Big Omaha, a conference gathering forward-thinking creatives, entrepreneurs and innovators. See our interview with Jeff Slobotski and Dusty Davidson, the founders and organizers of the event.

The center also includes the Kaneko/UNO (University of Nebraska in Omaha) art and design library that serves as place to stimulate creativity and the imagination of local residents.

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Keywords – Desert, Optimism, Eclectic, Contemporary, Native, Artistic

Population: 4,281,899
Incorporated: 1881
Nicknames: Valley of the Sun, The Valley, PHX, The 602, Bird City,

Tourism / Place branding / Historic Landmark

• Arizona Biltmore Hotel and Spa
• Frank Lloyd Wright
• Modern Phoenix
• Hotel Valley Ho

New Arch / Urban developments

• Will Bruder
• Phoenix Central Library
• Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art
• Deer Valley Rock Art Center
• The Palo Verde Library by Wendell Burnette and Gould Evans
• The Loloma Transit station
• Richard Meier’s new contemporary courthouse

Design businesses

• JRC Design – Environmental Graphics
• Moses Anshell
• Arizona Office of Tourism

Creative initiatives

• Eye Lounge [ art ]

Local businesses

• Made Art Boutique
• Tammie Coe Cakes
• Welcome Diner
• Rhythm Room
• Passage
• My Florist Café
• Zoës Kitchen
• LGO, La Grande Orange Grocery and Pizzeria – located in an old post office.

Institutions / Organizations

• AIGA Arizona
• Heard Museum (Native American Art)
• Pueblo Grande Museum

Art and Design Schools

• Arizona State University
• Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts
• Innovation Space (ASU)
• Stardust Center (ASU)

Articles / Blogs / Other

• Phoenix Envy

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Keywords – Sustainable, Environmental, Micro-cultures, Independent, Avant-garde

Population: 575,930
Incorporated: 1851
Nicknames: City of Roses, Bridgetown, Little Beirut, P-Town, Rip City, Stumptown, Razorblade City, PDX

Developments

• Handcrafted cottages
• Parks
• Rehabilitation of neighborhoods (Boise Eliot, Humboldt, Overlook)

Tourism / Place branding

• Travel Portland – Agency: Sockeye Creative
• Ace Hotel

Design businesses

• Sockeye Creative (Travel Portland campaign)*

Institutions

• Museum of Contemporary Craft

Design initiatives

• AIGA x Portland Office of Sustainable Development / Urban Forest Project*

Local businesses

• Grand Central Bakery (industrial space turned bakery)
• Chapterfour (clothing)
• Lark Press (letterpress + paper products)
• Flutter (epitomizes Portland’s love of the eccentric)
• Tita Pista’s (pop up restaurant)
• Saraveza (micro brewed beers)
• Nike (Eugene)
• Wieden + Kennedy

Links

• http://portland.aiga.org
• Portland Creative Conference
• Creative staffing for the Portland region
• Public Commision
• http://www.iamoregonian.com/content
• http://www.travelportland.com

Schools

• Oregon College of Art and Craft
• Art Institute of Portland

Articles

• Inner North Portland / Monocle Feb 09 pp148
• Print Magazine Regional Survey 2008
• Rethinking the mall | NY Times

“The Ainsworth Collective, a group of some 50 households in Portland, Oregon’s Cully neighborhood that came together out of a mutual interest in sustainability and community, have created a micro-economy within their few square blocks. They’ve published a directory of services provided by neighbors (from tax preparation to massage services to cat-sitting), encouraging local transactions. They’ve instituted tool-sharing, car-sharing, bulk food-purchasing and even own a farmer’s market that sells produce, baked goods and other items made by its members. There may always be mega-malls, but developers and architects would be remiss in not exploring grassroots solutions like this.”