DesignInquiry board meeting

I’m in New York City, in the last day of a three-day board retreat for DesignInquiry, a non-profit design research & thinking organization that stages a series of events each year centered on a design-related topic.

Front door to Anita Cooney's home, hosting the DI board.

I’m heavily involved in helping DesignInquiry integrate its public website, the DesignInquiry journal website, and archives from as far back  as 2004. In addition, we’ve been working on figuring out our board structure and exploring the future of the organization.

It’s crazy to think about the course DesignInquiry has taken over the past couple of years. I joined the board in 2007, having attended in 2005 and 2006. The organization grew out of the Maine Summer Institute of Graphic Design; in 2005, DesignInquiry was like a miniature grad school with “faculty” including Elliott Earls, Doug Scott, Marlene McCarty, Rick Valicenti and others.

The experience at the time was so amazing for me that I described to friends my emergence on the other side of DesignInquiry as awakening from a “design depression” – something I didn’t even know I was experiencing. It changed the way I thought about design. And in subsequent years, as the structure changed to flat heirarchy, it not only helped me to remember that my particular voice was valuable in design but that intimate collaboration with others can be transformative in the way we think about design and life.

Years later I still benefit from that first DesignInquiry. I believe so much in the work the organization does as it has focused its purpose on creating and disseminating design thought. We have a lot of work to do to figure out where this is going long term, and it’s exciting to be involved.