Thank You, Los Angeles for making the 3rd Annual Los Angeles Design Festival the most successful to date. With over forty events spanning 18 days, this year the Festival attracted over 40,000 visitors to events all over the city. As a rule, LADF strives to be inclusive and interdisciplinary, but it also tries to be representative of the unique character of Los Angeles. Like LA, we embrace the high-brow and sophisticated as much as we do the quirky and unexpected. And hopefully the range of LADF events did our creative city justice.
LADF started a few new traditions this year that the organization hopes to continue and grow in years to come. Wiles Magazine created the Julia Morgan ICON Award in collaboration with LADF to honor an outstanding woman for her contributions to the design industry at-large. The inaugural honoree, Sussman/Prejza‘s inimitable doyenne of design Deborah Suss man, attended the opening party in her signature hot pink.
LADF partnered with LA magazine’s Chris Nichols and Lyft to create the first-ever Design Caravan which took guests deep into the Valley to discover hidden gems such as a historical prop house and an abandoned Disney-owned Art Deco airport. The organization also successfully instituted Design Shopping Night which saw shops and studios from Highland Park, DTLA, and West Hollywood to Culver City and Venice stay open late. LADF also partnered with de LaB to host the first-ever Pecha Kucha x Ping Pong Night. Chinatown Design Night continues to grow, taking on a life of its own.
From Pacific Standard Time to Dwell on Design, the Furniture Society to the Design Management Institute; lots of other major design organizations got in on the action hosting a range of events from tours to exhibitions, symposia and film screenings. We loved seeing indie events like Parachute Market, a tour of the recently renovated LA Athletic Club with designer Tracy Beckmann, and the first-ever Downtown Modernism market get such a great response as well.
The Getty Center’s Managing Director of Pacific Standard Time Gloria Gerace, Curator, Author, and KCRW’s Design and Architecture host Frances Anderton, and Dwell Editor-in-Chief Amanda Dameron were named to the the LADF Board of Directors.
In short, June is officially a dizzying month for design lovers. The response has been remarkable and planning for 2014 has already started. So huge thank you to all the participating organizations who hosted events throughout the last month too numerous to name in a single post. And an equally huge thank you to our partners and supporters, also, too numerous to name in a single post. Here’s to a bigger and better Festival in 2014.
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