It’s Design Week in Portland! The week when all of the makers, the tallest and the smallest, get together to talk about the looks they love, the technology they’re using, and the newest concepts and products they're dreaming up. From streetwear to downtown Portland to sporting goods to candy, everything's on the drawing board.
We started out the festival last week with a live "Think Out Loud" show at the Redd, an old industrial building in Southeast Portland that's serving as DWP's headquarters. This week, we're packaging some of those interviews together with new reported stories from the rest of the fest.
University of Portland senior Kaylie Van Loo, at practice.
April Baer / OPB
JavHack: Reimagining Sports Ergonomics - 5:48
You might not think the javelin needs innovation. It worked for 400,000 years of human history, right? But track and field athletes are always pushing the limits. We spoke with record-breaking javelin thrower Tom Petronoff about the need for a new design vision and the time he almost speared Alberto Salazar. You can see videos of some high-class javelin chucking and a vintage clip of Tom Petranoff narrated by Caitlyn Jenner here.
Still from MacGregor Campbell's "They Mostly Come at Night" as a part of AEPDX's "Draems" animation challenge.
Courtesy MacGregor Campbell
Cutting Edge Pixels With The Annual Animation Challenge - 10:04
Jamal Qutub has been in love with animation since he was a kid. For work, he creates animations for clients like Adidas and Intel, but in his spare time, Qutub runs AEPDX, a meetup group for local animators. For the past three years, Qutub has been putting together an animation challenge during Design Week. Local animators submit short films to be viewed and voted on by an audience of their peers and interested DWP spectators.
Check out six of our favorite animations here.
And if you're excited about Portland's booming animation scene, make sure to check out OPB's deep dive on all things Oregon animation on "Oregon Art Beat." It's all about how the local industry grew from a couple of singing raisins sculpted in clay to things like 3-D printed Boxtrolls and samurais.
An aerial image of where the green loop might eventually be in Portland.
Untitled Studio
Portland's Highline? A Proposed Park That Wants To Change How You See The City - 18:04
Last year, Design Week featured a challenge to design a 6-mile linear park circling downtown Portland called the Green Loop. Now the winners, Untitled Studio, are taking the conceptual idea one step further with an interactive exhibit as part of this year's festival. They stop in to tell us about their big dreams and why Portland needs the Green Loop.
You can see Untitled's plans and their life-size mock-up for the Green Loop at the Redd Building until Saturday, April 29 at 2 p.m.
Jami Curl's candy cookbook "Candy is Magic" is chock-full of inventive recipes and dazzling photos.
Photo copyright Maggie Kirkland
QUIN Candy's Magical Confections - 30:42
What could be better at the end of Design Week Portland than dessert? Jami Curl told a sweet story on Friday about how she built two successful companies, QUIN Candy and Saint Cupcake, that stand out in the forest of Portland food brands. We visited her at her QUIN Candy production room this week and heard all about her candy design.
Curl will read from her new candy cookbook, "Candy is Magic," at Powell's City of Books on April 30, and she shared a recipe for shimmery Chocolate Magic Dust with us just for you.
Constructed in 2008, Maya Lin's Bird Blind lies tucked away in the Sandy River Delta. It's one of five completed installations by the Confluence Project.
April Baer / OPB
Design In The Forest: Maya Lin's Bird Blind - 37:33
So many design stories originate on desktops and drafting tables, but we found one that must be experienced with hiking boots on. While Design Week took out a busload of explorers, we headed out to explore the Sandy River Delta with biologist Bill Weiler, Confluence Project member Colin Fogarty and designer Dylan Woock.
In 2004, the Confluence Project kicked off with the goal of connecting people with places in the Columbia Basin. Confluence's renowned artist and designer Maya Lin took on this challenge, and created an elliptical immersive sculpture out of wood and metal that blends effortlessly into the terrain.
You can get directions to the Bird Blind and see photos of it here.
dfrntpigeon designer Dani poses in one of the apparel company's T-shirts.
Courtesy of dfrntpigeon
Portland At-Risk Youth Create Streetwear Label - 43:45
"Don't just rise, take flight" is the tagline of streetwear label dfrntpigeon, which is a collaboration between the non-profit New Avenues for Youth and branding gurus AKQA. Run by marginalized and homeless youth, the agency designs and sells shirts and apparel that are expressive, political, sometimes humorous, and sometimes dark. They've just released their newest line of tees, the Identity Collection, with screen printed shirts like "Humanity," which shows four forearms holding a cigarette, a grenade, an hourglass and a digital clock, surrounded by a ring of flowers.