THAT’S Y
Twelve years ago, the San Diego chapter of AIGA took on a challenge remarkably bold for a group of its size: It started its own design conference. With the sobriquet “The Little Conference That Could,” the Y Conference has become a standard for regional designers seeking inspiration—the name is indeed a coyly worded jab at another inquisitively named conference. But now even folks from outside the area are making the creative pilgrimage. Last year, the conference reached its capacity so quickly that an additional lounge was added where attendees could view the speakers via video feed. This year the theme “Push” has attracted a roster that would make even national conference planners envious: Stefan Sagmeister, Mirko Ilic´, Hillman Curtis and more, March 30 and 31. www.y-conference.com

SHADOW PLAY
The signature cut-paper style of artist Kara Walker is graphically mesmerizing, if only for the way it brilliantly adapts such a traditional medium. Yet her work is deceiving in its simplicity—these silhouettes conceal weighty themes of violence, racism and oppression. By utilizing imagery and subject matter drawn from plantation life in the American South, Walker’s exploration of stereotypes helps to retell the story of slavery. Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love, the first large-scale American museum survey of Walker’s work, features her black paper cutouts as well as animated installations and over 100 additional works on paper. The exhibition is currently on show at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis through May 13, and will then travel to the Whitney Museum in New York and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.

CUSTOM RECLINERS
Dismayed with both the affordable-yet-flimsy choices at places like Ikea and outrageously overpriced imports, Ryan Schultz, Travis Nagle and Alex Contreras set out to “break” the furniture system. They conjured up Viesso, a place where quality furnishings fit modern lifestyles, good design rules and everything is 100-percent customizable. A simple web application allows you to build your ideal sofa online, choosing everything from what goes in it to what goes on it. And because the pieces are manufactured at Viesso’s factory in downtown Los Angeles, the turnaround can be as quick as a few weeks. The trio—who are all under 30, by the way—also made sure to locate Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood and recycled textiles, making their personalized products some of the greenest on the market.

YOUR TYPE OF FILM
The typeface Helvetica would probably have celebrated its 50th birthday all by its sans-serif self were it not for the incredible foresight of film director Gary Huswit. Reflecting upon the font’s half-century and a serious cultural void when it came to movies about graphic design, the award-winning filmmaker decided to fill it with the feature-length documentary Helvetica. The world’s most ubiquitous typeface receives top billing as part of a larger discussion about technology, branding and our daily interactions with design. Costarring an incredible cast of designers including Matthew Carter, Massimo Vignelli, Hermann Zapf, Neville Brody, Stefan Sagmeister, Michael Bierut, David Carson, Paula Scher, Jonathan Hoefler, Tobias Frere-Jones and Experimental Jetset.

TEACHERS’ LOUNGE
Perhaps as an example for attending teachers to follow, the biennial design educators’ conference Schools of Thought is veering far, far away from the talking-heads format. “We decided this year to take a dive off the deep end in order to examine our assumptions and models about what graphic design is today and what graphic designers need to know,” says Louise Sandhaus, who, along with Petrula Vrontikis and Denise Gonzales Crisp, organized this year’s conference, which takes place March 9–11 in Pasadena, Calif. To extract those answers, the content will take a slightly different tack—six different presenters will each be asked the question “Where is the discipline heading, and in what contexts will graphic designers be working?” In concordance with the theme, the conversation will continue, even among those who can’t be there “live,” via discussion boards set up on the conference site.