Yesterday at the award ceremony for the Phoenix New Times big brain awards, I didn’t win, but I felt just as good as if I had.
SeeSaw Designs took home the award, and I’m insanely glad they did.
Let me explain:
Phoenix Design Week, Phoenix Design Community, Design Culture Coalition, Phoenix Layers, etc etc: All of these things I started or am involved in are not about me doing design, they are about helping create avenues and paths along which the talent in Phoenix can be recognized for being great. I am an okay designer (I’ll concede that point just so people will shut up about it), but I am more excited about the big ideas of making this city better. Most of my passion, what gets me up in the morning, is not in creating pieces of design. It is in creating ways that design can be valued more, especially Phoenix design.
I’ve known the 3 women at SeeSaw for almost 4 years. I’ve had a crush on them all at one point or another. I’ve always thought their work was great. I remember when they told me they were starting their own studio right out of school. I still have their first business card. We have their calendar at Dojo. We love showing their work at galleries, and I’m trying to get them to move their letterpress & sell their work in the future Phoenix Design Museum (they don’t know this part yet). They are among the very best that Phoenix has to offer, and are a key example of why I’m so driven to work hard at the things I am: They need the recognition.
So, when they won last night, I was relieved! It felt like a little piece of all that we’re doing was making progress in Phoenix: great designers being recognized for their great work! They deserve it! If there was an “Awesome event” category, I’d have been pissed, but this was Design. Phoenix Design Week happened because of them and people like them.
So anyway, long story short: I still have a huge crush on SeeSaw. And I hope that they, and many more #phxdc designers, keep getting the credit they deserve.