"Better than Berlin

...Even a quick tour of the festival's "Design Genome" exhibit is bound to leave even the toughest critics of Stumptown a little impressed. ...

The "Design Genome" exhibit - itself buoyantly designed by Stuart Emmons and Randy Higgins and on view at the Pacific Northwest College of Art offers everything from Nike's sleek Triax watches to an urban design plan for the Roseway neighborhood to the international award-winning Saleen 7 hot-rod car. ...

The range, level and consistency were amazing (not to wave the provincial flag too strenuously, but I attended Berlin's first citywide design festival, and Portland's is more impressive by several-fold). ...

Notably, Katz expanded her annual Mayor's Design Award beyond architecture for the first design festival, bestowing it on media designers deepPlay Interactive. Katz said she thought the company's Web site for All Steel furniture was "elegant and functional." But she clearly wanted to underline her embrace of the young creatives at the heart of the design community as she noted the company "was started just two year ago by young people who moved to Portland in the '90s." Not surprisingly, Nike swept all the footwear and most of the computer products and ready-to-wear fashion awards, the sexy irony of Anisa Makhoul's "Apocalypse Skirt" offering one of the few exceptions. Nike designer Scott Wilson contributed to his company's winning product designs and also nabbed top prizes as a freelancer for his inventive "Group Seating System" developed for Rem Koolhaas' Seattle Library design and his concept for the "Purity Rocking Chair." "

The Oregonian, September 14, 2003

Author: Randy Gragg