Apr 5 - Apr 7, 2018
UCDA Design Summit: Renaissance Designer
Kimpton Solomar Hotel
435 Sixth Avenue
San Diego, CA 92101
United States of America
In your day-to-day work life, you face a variety of challenges. As you navigate the various requirements and preferences on a project, you may find yourself unsure of the best solution to choose. Maybe you have to sell a concept to a difficult client or perhaps you need to find new methods to effectively approach a target audience. This year’s UCDA Design Summit will help boost your skill set to tackle those daily challenges.
The UCDA Design Summit offers a unique environment to attendees. Be prepared to learn from experienced speakers through intimate and focused sessions on key topics and issues that we all face as designers. Join us in San Diego for a mild climate and exciting ideas!
SPONSORS
Thank you to the following UCDA Design Summit Sponsors. Visit with representatives from these companies during the networking reception on Thursday, April 5 or visit their websites below.
CASE: Council for Advancement and Support of Education
Dual Graphics
edu Business Solutions
Halo Branded Solutions
Matthew Lester Photography
Mohawk Fine Papers
Neyenesch Printers
Interested in becoming a sponsor? Contact the UCDA Home Office at 615-459-4559 or info@ucda.com.
LOCATION AND LODGING
Summit Location
The summit will be held in San Diego, California, at the Kimpton Solamar Hotel, located in the heart of East Village and borders Petco Park and the Gaslamp Quarter. This locale offers an attractive array of restaurants, shops, and galleries. You can even use one of the hotel’s bikes to explore the area. It is a great, central location ideal for exploring what San Diego has to offer.
Discounted Hotel Rates
Book your room by calling the Kimpton Solamar Hotel at 1-800-KIMPTON (800-546-7866). Mention that you are attending the UCDA Design Summit to receive the discounted rate of $199 + tax (king deluxe room). You may also book online at tinyurl.com/ucda-ds-kimpton. Room block is good until March 9, 2018, subject to availability.
Take advantage of this rate and extend your stay before or after the UCDA Design Summit. The reduced rate will be honored three days prior and three days after, subject to availability.
Kimpton Solamar Hotel
435 Sixth Avenue
San Diego, CA 92101
619-819-9500
The hotel stay is not included in the conference registration fees. You are responsible for making your own hotel reservations. Room blocks may fill before the hotel deadline and have sold out the last few years, so please make your reservation immediately to ensure the discounted rate and availability.
REGISTRATION FEES
| REGULAR RATES (all prices in USD) |
Regular | Early Bird (by March 1) |
| Non-member/Subscriber | $995 | $895 |
| REDUCED MEMBER RATES |
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| UCDA Partner Member Rate (e.g. RGC or GDC members) | $895 | $795 |
| UCDA Professional, Associate or Faculty Member Rate | $795 | $695 |
| Student Rate | $595 | $495 |
| UCDA Emeritus Member Rate | $400 | $300 |
| SINGLE DAY (Please use PDF registration form or call the UCDA office to register) |
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| Thursday, April 5 | $450 | $400 |
| Friday, April 6 | $450 | $400 |
| Saturday, April 7 | $450 | $400 |
FOUR WAYS TO REGISTER
1. CALL 615-459-4559 with your registration information and your credit card number.
2. FAX 615-459-5229 your completed registration form and payment information (purchase order or credit card numbers).
3. MAIL your completed registration form with payment to:
UCDA Design Summit
199 Enon Springs Road West, Suite 400
Smyrna, Tennessee 37167
4. REGISTER ONLINE
REGISTRATION CONFIRMATION
A confirmation letter will be sent to you after registration is received and processed. Occasionally conferences fill to capacity before the registration cut-off date, so please register early.
REGISTRATION CANCELLATION
See UCDA Cancellation Policies
UCDA Design Summit photographs by Matthew Lester Photography.
SCHEDULE
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4
6 p.m.
Group Dinner (Optional Activity/Add-on)
Join other attendees in an informal dinner experience at a local restaurant. It is as much about the food as it about making new acquaintances. Start the evening at the Upper East Bar at the Solamar hotel. Small groups will then visit different area restaurants. Pre-registration required. Pay as you go (Dutch treat).
THURSDAY, APRIL 5
8 a.m.
Onsite Registration
Ongoing
Literature Exchange (Optional Activity/Add-on)
Share examples of your work with your colleagues and gather new ideas to bring back to your institution. Bring samples with you, or mail them to yourself at the hotel to arrive when you do.
8:30-10:15 a.m.
Welcome, Continental Breakfast, and
1. The True Art in Art Direction
DJ Stout
There are many talented designers out there but the skill that separates the pros from the amateurs in graphic design is the ability to sell. A great conceptual idea will never see the light of day if a designer isn’t able to persuade the client to give it a try. DJ Stout will talk about the art of promotion in regards to editorial art direction and provide useful tips and entertaining war stories based on his experience designing magazines for over 35 years.
10:45 a.m.-12 noon
2. Five Ways to Not Make Mediocre Design—Design that Drives Success
Shelly Jackman
Stuck on auto-design and tired of making things “look pretty?” Look, we all know the basics of design, but let’s get back to the basics of why we design. Let’s put the purpose back into your day-to-day work and look at the humanity of design that drives success.
12 noon-2 p.m.
Lunch on Your Own
2-3:15 p.m.
3. Science Meets Art (Part 1): The Role of Research in Informing and Measuring Your Impact
Jason Simon and Mike Roe
There’s no question that higher education is in the midst of its most challenging time. Changes to demographics, funding models, delivery and more have left much of the public questioning the role and value of higher education. And institutions have done themselves little favor by continuing to present themselves as places of profound enlightenment without real-world relevance.
How can we routinely provide the fuel designers and copywriters require to creatively bring a university’s brand to life? This session focuses on the basics of market research, including qualitative and quantitative research methods and the key questions and benchmarks that inform and inspire the creative process. Additionally, ways that data can be used to measure and refine a brand’s success over time will be discussed.
3:45-5 p.m.
4. Design and the Greater Good
MaeLin and Amy Levine
As a partner in the design firm, Visual Asylum, and President of the Board of Trustees of Urban Discovery Academy (UDA), a K-12 group of highly successful charter schools, MaeLin will present a compelling case for how, where, and why design and designers can make a difference as it relates to The Greater Good.
This unique learning environment integrates the creative DNA of Visual Asylum into UDA’s curriculum and character development programs.
5:30-7:30 p.m.
Networking Reception (Optional Activity/Add-on)
Enjoy light appetizers and a cash bar as you meet your fellow summit attendees and visit with reception sponsors.
FRIDAY, APRIL 6
8 a.m.
Breakfast on Your Own
9:45-11 a.m.
5. Art Meets Science (Part 2): Leveraging Insight as a Springboard to Creative Success
Jason Simon and Mike Roe
How can 125 PowerPoint slides full of tiny data points be inspiring to a designer or copywriter? This session focuses on leveraging data to glean key direction to guide your team’s creative efforts, as well as the role that designers and writers play in ensuring research questions and methodologies are delivering useful information. Real case examples of how data led directly to ideas will be shared.
11:30 a.m.-1:15 p.m.
Lunch and
6. The Savvy Presenter’s Toolkit
Petrula Vrontikis
For many of us, presentations can generate significant anxiety. This session will empower you and keep you organized and calm by showing you methods for crafting a great message, understanding persuasion, developing visuals, delivering with confidence, and, ultimately, getting approval. The goal is to provide you with a deeper level of understanding of the structure, relevance, delivery, and preparation needed for persuasive and compelling presentations.
Presenting well can advance your career and is now a requirement for effective leaders. Takeaways include giving you, solo or in a team, what you need to be able to craft effective presentations to large and small audiences, in virtual, or physical spaces.
You’ll learn what nervousness does to your body, breathing techniques, the importance of focusing your energy outward, and being the facilitator to their solutions. Switching your perspective from yourself to your audience is a winning mindset for your next presentation.
1:45-3 p.m.
7. Women/Sisters/Educators/Business Owners—Designers Who Mean Business
MaeLin and Amy Levine
MaeLin and Amy Levine—sisters, partners, and collaborators for over 30 years—will talk about the importance of broadening the scope of service and how to make a difference in both a career path and in the community.
3:30-4:45 p.m.
8. Five Ways Not to be a Mediocre Designer—Adding Value to Your Organization
Shelly Jackman
You know the designer stereotypes...from the fresh meat that’s here to solve all the problems to the seasoned veteran that’s literally seen it all. Shelly will discuss how not to fall victim to these stereotypes and how you can add value to your organization.
SATURDAY, APRIL 7
8:30-10:15 a.m.
Continental Breakfast and
9. Understanding and Embracing Millennials—Changing the Design Education Ecology
Petrula Vrontikis
Design education has arrived at that dreaded moment where it is face-to-face with its irrelevance. Millennial students arrive at university or design school having spent the better part of their early years becoming inventive masters of multimedia based on its pervasive presence in every facet of their lives. Then, higher education systematically undermines this familiarity, encouraging them to specialize, compartmentalize, compete and ultimately adjust to hierarchies of achievement that, for all intents and purposes, is dying.
Faced with preparing students for a field that is unlike the one that most of their teachers know very much about, the institutional choice appears to be—stick with the known at all costs. Unfortunately the cost is high.
Petrula will show the new tools, new values, new challenges, and new ways that the millennial generation is creating, communicating, and frankly...conquering. The conclusions can inform college administrators, design leaders, and design educators as to the resilient qualities young people are cultivating to thrive in a landscape with few borders and boundaries.
The goal of this presentation is to help each generation understand and embrace the positive attributes that are unique to millennials.
SPEAKERS
Shelly Jackman, Art Director and Designer, Texas Wesleyan University
Amy Levine, Partner and Design Director, Visual Asylum, and Design Instructor, San Diego City College
MaeLin Levine, Partner and Designer, Visual Asylum, and Design Instructor, San Diego City College
Mike Roe, Creative Director, SimpsonScarborough
Jason Simon, Partner, SimpsonScarborough
DJ Stout, Partner, Pentagram Design, Austin
Petrula Vrontikis, Creative Director and Owner, Vrontikis Design Office, and Professor, ArtCenter College of Design
See bios below.
Featured Speakers
Shelly Jackman is the art director and designer in the Communications Office at Texas Wesleyan University. Shelly has been the primary architect of the university’s bold “Smaller. Smarter.” look and feel, and her strategic work on the university’s integrated marketing efforts have utilized photography, print and digital communications, web design, and video marketing. Since rebranding Texas Wesleyan University in 2012, her art direction has helped the university win over 90 advertising awards and the university has seen the largest gains in perception and awareness of any benchmark school in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
When not designing, Shelly is usually outside on her bike, aimlessly wandering various cities asking strangers for life advice.
Amy Levine is a partner and design director at Visual Asylum. Amy’s noteworthy career spans twenty years and encompasses art direction, design, and production of two- and three-dimensional graphic communication pieces. With a BFA in Design from the prestigious Kansas City Art Institute in Missouri, Levine is a Colorado transplant who now considers San Diego her home.
Amy’s work has been recognized by numerous organizations, including International Typographic Design, International Self Promotion, Print Magazine, How Magazine, Communication Arts Magazine, The American Institute of Graphic Arts, the Type Directors Club, and CASE Studies Magazine.
Serving on the board of directors for the San Diego Chapter of AIGA for over 15 years, Amy is a past president of the organization. During her tenure, she was appointed chair of the AIGA Y Conference in 2013, 2014, 2017. Amy also teaches Advanced Typography at San Diego City College.
MaeLin Levine is a partner and designer at Visual Asylum. Her work has been nationally recognized by multiple organizations. She was also awarded the prestigious AIGA Fellow Award in 2008. Originally from Leadville, Colorado, Levine holds a BFA in Graphic Communications Design from the University of Denver and participated in the AIGA professional program at Harvard Business School.
MaeLin served on the board of the San Diego Chapter of AIGA for sixteen years and was president for four years. In that role she was part of the team that envisioned and launched the Y Conference, now in its 23rd year, and developed the first ever international chapter of the organization.
More recently Levine has turned her attention toward a new passion project as President of the Board of Directors of the Urban Discovery Academy (UDA) – a highly successful K-8 charter school. This unique learning environment integrates the creative DNA of Visual Asylum into its curriculum and character development programs. Levine is also a design instructor at San Diego City College, where she has served as an adjunct faculty member for nearly twenty years.
Mike Roe is an award-winning creative director and copywriter at SimpsonScarborough with over 20 years’ experience. He started his career in Los Angeles, where he created copy and concepts for movie posters and theatrical trailers.
Since 2010, he has worked almost exclusively in higher education, writing and concepting print, web, and video campaigns for educational institutions including the College of William & Mary, Lehigh University, and the University of Arizona, to name a few. In 2016, his work was awarded Best at Show at the American Advertising Awards/AAF Columbus.
Jason Simon leads brand strategy and creative engagements with clients. Before joining SimpsonScarborough, Jason was the executive director of Marketing Communications for the University of California and, prior to that, he held a similar position at North Carolina State University.
Earlier in his career, he served in brand strategist roles supporting corporate and consumer brands, and was honored as the American Marketing Association’s Higher Education Marketer of the Year in 2013.
DJ Stout is a fifth generation Texan born in the small west Texas town of Alpine.
During his thirteen-year tenure at Texas Monthly the prestigious regional magazine was nominated for twelve National Magazine awards and was the recipient of the award in the categories of best photography and general excellence.
DJ is a partner in Pentagram Design in the Austin, Texas, office where he specializes in the areas of publication design, magazine redesign, books, and editorial consultation as well as a wide range of projects including catalogs, branding, identity, annual reports, package design, interactive media, sales and marketing promotions, and exhibition design. He has been awarded numerous medals and awards from national and international graphic design organizations including the Art Directors Club of New York, the Society of Publication Designers, AIGA, and the Society of Illustrators. He has also won over 30 awards from UCDA.
Over the last 20 years, other recognition includes: American Photography Magazine selected DJ as one of the “100 Most Important People in Photography;” I.D. magazine profiled DJ as one of its “Fifty American Designers;” The Society of Illustrators awarded him the national Richard Gangel Art Director Award, an annual designation that honors art directors who have supported and advanced the art of illustration; and AIGA recognized DJ as a Fellow Award recipient for his exceptional contributions to the field of graphic design.
DJ is the author of three books: The Pictures of Texas Monthly: Twenty-Five Years; The Amazing Tale of Mr. Herbert and His Fabulous Alpine Cowboys Baseball Club: An Illustrated History of the Best Little Semipro Baseball Team in Texas; and Variations on a Rectangle, a retrospective of DJ’s over thirty-year design career.
Petrula Vrontikis is a leading influence in graphic design. Her current work includes research, writing, consulting, creating brand communication strategies, training, and coaching. She is creative director and owner of Vrontikis Design Office, and a professor at ArtCenter College of Design where she teaches graphic design, career development, and professional practice courses.
Her professional practice gives her role as a teacher an important authenticity. She encourages students to explore their potential as designers and as a catalyst for change in the larger creative community. Her recent research has been focused on how the millennial generation learns differently from previous generations. She uses this information to most effectively guide her students into successful careers. This research is also being used by older generations to understand the most effective ways to work with young creative staff.
Petrula has authored four online courses for Lynda.com and LinkedIn related to running a graphic design business and managing creative staff. She has received an AIGA Fellows Award honoring her as essential in raising the understanding of design within the industry and among the business and cultural communities of Los Angeles.
Event Files
Speaker Files
Date and Time
Thu, Apr 5 - Sat, Apr 7, 2018
Location
Kimpton Solomar Hotel
435 Sixth Avenue
San Diego, CA 92101
United States of America
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