Posts
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| New Orleans Streetcar - Note the LED Headlight |
The IALD Enlighten Annual meeting is one of my favorite yearly events. It is one of the few times in the year where designers and manufacturers with a love of lighting design gather together to talk about light, period, no sales, no products. Just fantastic discussions with wonderful people.
This year the meeting took place in New Orleans, a city I somehow have never managed to visit before.
The four days at the conference were filled with a wide array of experiences and topics, a few of the highlights:
This year there was a large group of energetic and incredibly bright students attending the meeting. Most of them had at least some of their costs offset by the IALD Education Trust.
I am always blown away by how engaged and excited these students are for the world of lighting. That the industry is attracting such bright people is a real positive sign for its future.
In addition to the students, there was a large contingent of Emerging Designers in attendance. Emerging Designers are people with less than five years in the industry and they too brought a fresh and new perspective to many of the discussions. A real plus in having them there.
With seminar tracks ranging from design, to business principles to marketing there is a wide range of issues covered over the three days, but personally, my favorite event is the Town Hall Meeting held at the end of the last day.
The Town Hall provides an open forum that can cover a huge range of issues that are important to lighting designers. This year’s topics ranged from energy codes, to client relations and collections to having enough “sexiness” in your designs.
It’s a unique opportunity for the exchange of ideas, and provides plenty of chances to laugh, agree with and disagree with your colleagues.
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| Corn Stalk Fence in the Garden District |
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| Very crowded tomb in the Garden District |
As for New Orleans itself, my brief three day experience presented a study in contrasts in my perspective on the city.
On the one hand there was the elegance of the grand homes in the Garden District, the nostalgic experience of riding an open air trolley across town, the history and architectural interest in the tombs in the cemetery I visited and the wide array of art found in the galleries of the French Quarter.
However, the charm and interest of these areas was often contrasted by the obvious poverty and decay on display all over town. With down and out individuals around every turn, it was sometimes hard to believe you were in a city in the U.S., never mind one so important to developing so many aspects of our music and culture.
The city certainly still needs the attention of the rest of the country in order to return to its grander days. Perhaps as the economy turns and opportunities for new projects and infrastructure emerge, New Orleans will benefit from some much needed attention.
For me, overall, it was a fun, productive and educational three days in the Big Easy. Very much worth the visit.
