ICOGRADA Design Week, held in Vancouver from April 26-30 at the Vancouver Convention Centre, followed in the footsteps of the appropriately-timed GDC National Annual General Meeting.

Design Week officially kicked off on Tuesday evening with Dave Mason pulling MC duties (and honoured as the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada's newest FGDC before the keynote) and a keynote panel presentation by Helen Walters, Don Ryun Chang and Cameron Sinclair. The first full day of DW2010 started with an eight-in-the-morning presentation by Mark Sackett. Highly accomplished, an award-winning designer/director/producer with over 30 years of experience, over one thousand awards to his credit, Mark’s presentation – entitled Why Sitting is Not an Option – was entertaining and inspiring. I had the opportunity to have drinks with Mark, and he seems like a truly passionate and fearless individual.

The morning's remaining presentations were equally informative and inspiring. The work that Cameron Sinclair is doing with the NPO Architecture for Humanity/Open Source Architecture is truly remarkable; Oscar Pena’s presentation was equal parts eye-candy and aspirational (solar lamps for city streets that move with the day like sunflowers, and solar-charged night-lights for soccer in undeveloped countries...).

Following the lunch break, the conference resumed with a group exercise. Tables discussed amongst themselves the "value of design" before presenting their consensus to the audience. The afternoon’s sessions started off with an eye-opening presentation by Ashiwini Deshpande, speaking to the challenges and successes of design in India, one of the world’s most populous and diverse nations. Martin Maruka was beamed in via Skype for his presentation titled Passion for the Brand, centered around the design and branding of his country, Kenya (Mr. Maruka was waylaid by the volcano erupting in Iceland). Debbie Millman’s presentation Why We Brand, Why We Buy was one-part history lesson and one-part infomercial, and all well-delivered and well-received. The final presentation for the day was given by Brian Collins and his colleague, entitled Changing Design, in which he tried to make the point that "design is an apprenticeship to archetypes" and instead of ‘design thinking’ we should look to ‘design mythinking.’ It was a very full day with plenty of insight and words of wisdom. Inspiration was in the air.

The final day of the conference started early with a breakfast presentation by Adobe – featuring a peak at some of the upcoming features of CS5 – and followed by an engaging presentation, The Value of the Brand, by Ronald Kapaz (from Brazil) and Heather Fraser. Ronald’s presentation was memorable, and easily digestible, featuring scads of drawings, quotes and points for reflection – easily one of my highlights of the conference. Following was a presentation by my friend – and design heroine – Marian Bantjes, introduced as one of Canada’s national design treasures (amongst other equally-worthy titles). Her talk was a refreshing departure from what everyone was saying.

After a short coffee break, Ian Grais (of Rethink, the team responsible for the DW2010 design/promotion work) led a polished presentation showing examples of their work and the thinking and process behind them – followed by a great presentation by American Frank Chimero, expounding on his design theory that "design should delight.” Wonderful!

After lunch, the audience was captivated by Ali Gardner and Ben Hulse from the VANOC design team. Patriotic pride was overflowing from the room when they finished!

Panel discussions followed, and by this time my head was spinning with design inspiration and ideas. As the event wound to a close, Dave Mason summed up the event beautifully.

An amazing experience to say the least. And exhausting. I wish I could do it all over again.

The final word from ICOGRADA Design Week comes from Red River College graphic design instructor Frank Reimer, who also left the Left Coast inspired: "As an educator of design it is extremely important to attend event like Design Week. ICOGRADA and the GDC did an excellent job in bringing together a diverse lineup of speakers. I left the conference feeling inspired, informed and motivated. One of the key messages that I took away from the event was that design has no boundaries, that more then ever before, designers have opportunities – as well as obligations that can impact the culture we live in a positive way. This is the message I will be expressing to my students."

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Discover more of what you missed (or witnessed) as the world convened in Vancouver this past April through the informative DW2010 blog. And if pictures are worth a thousand words, grab a comfy chair and visit the DW2010 Flickr photo pool in all of its visual glory.