Design Insights

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Around the Studio Melissa Balkon Around the Studio Melissa Balkon

Telling stories of art and failure at PechaKucha

One of the annual events of Phoenix Design Week is PechaKucha night. A pecha kucha—Japanese for "chit-chat"—is a roughly 6 1/2-minute talk with a rigid framework of 20 slides that auto-advance after 20 seconds. This year’s theme revolved around the idea of process, and I thought it might be fun to share about my so-far-unsuccessful quest to find "my art." Grab a seat and get ready to watch me fail!

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Around the Studio Melissa Balkon Around the Studio Melissa Balkon

2015 PHXDW Design by the Numbers

Back in July the 2015 Method + Madness conference was initially announced, and I approached the event chairs about getting involved. I met with Robert Renteria over coffee and, to my surprise, he asked if I'd take up the role of this year's Design Chair. The past months have been a whirlwind, and I thought it would be fun to break the project down by the numbers!

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Around the Studio Melissa Balkon Around the Studio Melissa Balkon

Futuralbum submission

A couple of weeks ago, Michigan-based artist and illustrator Troy Deshano reached out to me about participating in his new side project entitled FUTURALBUM. The concept was simple: redesign an album cover of my choosing using an image from the Flickr Book Archive and the typeface Futura for any text. The project sounded like so much fun, I didn't hesitate to accept the offer.

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Around the Studio Melissa Balkon Around the Studio Melissa Balkon

The story of Strong Design

Strong Design was conceived in a small bedroom in Grand Rapids, Michigan back in 2001. The original concept behind our studio was to create concept-based design that performs with the strength of a weightlifter. Since that time, we've went through a heck of an evolution. This is our story.

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