Via planes, trains & automobiles -a gaggle of designers descends on Seattle

I'm sitting in my high-rise hotel room in Seattle, staring out beyond the bay to the snow-covered Olympic Mountains, getting prepared for a fun and incredible weekend. Chinese President Hu has left the Queen City and, in the spring sunshine, the city has settled back to a dull roar. That will soon change. Cat Morley - of Katz-i Design, Creative Latitude, Proscodi, NO!SPEC and Designers Who Blog fame - has flown into Washington from Thailand to visit family. I first "met" Cat on the About.com Graphic Design Forum in late 1998 and we seemed to bond immediately. Others in the profession also connected with Cat in a big way on the About.com, at the HOW Design Forum, and elsewhere in cyberspace.

So, this weekend, a gaggle of designers will descend on Seattle to finally meet Cat - and each other - in person. From Florida comes Dawn Burgess, owner of Advertising by Design. (I recently met Dawn while on a trip to Orlando). Neil Tortorella - another Creative Latitude founder, principle of Tortorella Design and writer of the blog Inside the Marketing Mind - will be jetting in from Ohio. Creative Latitude editor Derald Schultz, of the Atlanta-based firm Mediarail Design, will also be joining the gang. Alina Hagen, another of the Creative Latitude crew, will be arriving from Los Angeles. Driving up from Eugene, OR will be my friend Danita Reynolds of Creative Expertise. Illustrator extraordinaire Von R. Glitschka of Glitschka Studios, and founder of Bad Design Kills and the 3 Thumbs Up Award will be joining us all - via Amtrak - from Salem, OR. (If possible, catch Von's presentation at the Art Institute of Seattle next week).

Others joining in on the fun will be About.com forum members artist Celia Martin from Walla Walla, WA and Mount Vernon, WA resident Dana Chrysler. HOWies (those frequenting the HOW Design Forum) participating from the Seattle area will include my old friend Jason Holland, Curt Hanks of Archie McPhee, designer/copywriter Maria G, Sarah Beals, and Jonathan Spier of Brown Sugar Design.

It's going to be a great weekend of getting to know each other, sharing design ideas, playing tourists and having too much fun. I'll post photos, and some tales of our adventures, later.

© 2006 Jeff Fisher LogoMotives