The forecast is relatively sunny in Seattle for the final two days of the first-ever US-hosted Icograda Design Week. Vesna Petrovic, an active member of the Cross Cultural Design community over at AIGA, sent us this report, although she admits she hasn't strayed much from the "Everyday Design: Great Finds from around the World" exhibition she's heading up:

From July 9-12 they had a student conference and workshops for students. The students created some really great posters. They were all divided into different groups, some were dealing with HIV awareness, malaria problems, child abuse, environmental issues, gender equality--designing for social issues really made them think. The awards were given to two students from each group (Adobe CS suite) and one best designer got a trip to Italy from Fabrica (sweet).

July 13 was the Over the Fence seminar--dealing with the issues that are shaping design today. They had a number of speakers from around the world that talked about their practices and what is it that they are working on: Tarek Artisi, Christina Chiappini, Omar Vulpinari, Cang Sik Kim, Andrea Marks, Halim Choueiry, Henk Van Assen, Maurice Woods, Alejandro Quinto & Lorraine Gauthier, Saki Mafundikwa.

Christina Chiappini is an Italian designer from Rome--she presented her independent book project that is dealing with the psychological issues of mutilation called Roses of Flesh. It was amazing to see how such a serious and complex issue can be presented with so much wit. She built a book printed on clear sheets that each have images of illustrated parts of female and male genitalia. She did all these comparisons on different levels between female and male parts and she dissected both and made them fit within each other.

More to come, I have to go to listen to an interesting speaker.

Chiappini's site is definitely worth visiting, her Roses of Flesh project link is mid-page. An interview with Design Taxi is here.