THE SWISS ARE COMING! THE SWISS ARE COMING!
Looks like the popular Swiss furniture company, Vitra, made a smart marketing decision when it opened its own museum in 1989. The Frank Gehry-designed building located near its production plant in Weil am Rhein, Germany has become a cultural landmark and, financially, is self-sufficient. Now, the European company/museum that manufactures the work of major designers such as Jean Prouvé, George Nelson, and Charles and Ray Eames is making its American debut at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. Living in Motion: Design and Architecture for Flexible Dwelling is a supple collection of intriguing objects ranging from Eduard Böhtlingk’s hangar tent to Verner Panton’s playful “Phantom” chairs. On view Feb. 1 through May 7.

HEART OF THE CITY
Tina Lauchengco didn’t have to travel far to do market research for her first professional design assignment. Every Wednesday, her client, Heart of the City Farmer’s Market, sets up in San Francisco’s downtown Civic Center, home to The Art Institute of California, where Lauchengco is a student. Participating in the school’s Community Arts Resource Exchange (C.A.R.E.) program, Lauchengco designed a simple but effective landscape poster targeting errand-running riders of the city’s MUNI bus system. Other pro bono clients who’ve taken AIC-SF up on their offer for free logo development, poster design, and other marketing material include Reef Protection International, Saving Tails, and Friends of the Urban Forest, among others. The school is now accepting applications for the spring season from nonprofit organizations in the Bay Area.

RELEASE THE HOUNDS!
Kate Spade’s design director, Alan Dye, is on the hunt for talented young bucks somehow still camouflaged in the field of visual communications. He’s heading up the Art Directors Club’s popular biennial competition, Young Guns 5. Tenderfooted professionals (that’s 30 and under) are encouraged to submit 10 pieces of work across a variety of disciplines including advertising, publishing, graphic design, illustration, photography, film, and video— because if you’re a bona fide Young Gun, you’re probably dabbling in more than one. Dye hand-drew the promotional logo, which cleverly retains the dignity of the legendary ADC logo while submerging it in the silhouette of an antlered animal. “I liked the idea of trophies, of getting new talent up on the wall,” Dye explains. Online submissions are due Feb. 1. Winners will be announced in April, and featured in the exhibition and the book published by Rockport.

MORMONS EMBRACE DESIGN
While professors at Brigham Young University do their best to dismantle the theory of evolution in the classroom, some go as far as to compare intelligent design to astrology. The university’s museum is curiously curating an exhibition to explore how design facilitates and mediates Man’s acceptance of new technologies. Brigham Young University’s Museum of Art is borrowing significant objets d’art to feature in its exhibition, Nostalgia & Technology: Embracing the New Through Art and Design. Key moments in the development of new technologies—from Ferdinando Cospi’s 17th-century cabinet of curiosities to George Eastman’s 1901 Brownie camera to designer Marcel Wanders’ 2001 B.L.O. Light—will be on view until May 2006. A nice break from the slopes, located just 15 minutes away from Robert Redford’s Sundance Ski Resort.