Youth Design 2010 alum Katie Colonna created a winning design which scored her the chance to participate in the first-ever FemaleSneakerFiend Sister 2 Sister sneaker design workshop!

Sister2Sister brought together a talented and diverse group of aspiring female designers, with leading female sneaker design mentors from companies like Converse, Reebok, and Sperry Topsider for an awesome 2 day workshop which challenged the young designers to create a signature sneaker design!  This unique event also featured a panel discussion in which the mentors shared industry-specific educational and professional development advice.

For more event information and pictures check out:  http://femalesneakerfiend.com/events/sister2sister.html

Congrats, Katie!

First Place: Ivan Richiez, Madison Park High SchoolSecond Place: Dimitri Duboisson, Media Tech High School

Third Place: Emily Chang, Boston Latin School

THE ASSIGNMENT: Youth Design students were asked to design a message, image, or combination of message with image that conveyed  their ideas about a topic that is relevant to the world around them. Entries were directed towards a political view, a thought or idea about the community, the state of the environment, education, and beyond.

These designs will be printed on a limited set of T-Shirts that will be sold to support Youth Design.

Congratulations to our top 3 winners!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpiVavtHk7M

Check out our slideshow, featured at the Youth Design graduation, to see what students were up to this summer!

Michaela and the Mannequins

Notes from Michaela: Sara Campbell Ltd. is a small dressmaking company in the South End. We’re in a five-story brick building on Plympton Street. The first floor has the store in the front, and the sample shop in the back. On the second floor is the office. That’s where all the fabric buying, web design, clothing design, and accounting go on. The fourth floor is used for storage and shipping. Because Sara Campbell Ltd. is such a small company, I get to help everyone out. I get to do something different every day. Some days, I man the store and make sales, others I assist in the design room upstairs, and some days I make little bows that get sewn onto coats. I also got to write descriptions for the clothing on the website, like “Nicknamed ‘The Magic Dress’ by our staff, this sleek shift does wonders for anyone’s figure! Comes in wisteria, mustard, pumpkin, and brown.” I’m learning a lot about what it takes to make a business work, especially one that sells clothing. And I’m definitely coming back to buy some clothes!

Emily Discussing her Time to Design Entry

Notes from Emily: I have been at Continuum for seven weeks now, and the wisdom and grace with which everyone here acts do not cease to amaze me. Continuum is a global design consultancy, meaning it works with businesses and organizations to develop strategies, products, and environments that connect with people on a human level. Through my experience here, I have grown to understand and appreciate the sundry aspects of design and design thinking.

My (awesome) mentor, Emily Elwell, and the other Continuum mentor, Jeremy Zietz, schedule meetings and expertise sessions for Dimitri Duboisson, the other Youth Design intern at Continuum, and me with folks who work in all sectors of the design business. I’ve also been in meetings where financial and functional details of Continuum were discussed, and here I recognized that it takes more than just great designers to keep a business like Continuum running – a great design firm requires entrepreneurial and structural solidity to sustain any enterprise. Emily also has me sitting in on project meetings, and I’ve learned so much about ethnography, interviewing, and the technical aspects of design just through osmosis.

Yet my tenure here at Continuum has not been purely observational. I’ve learned much through first-hand experience. For example, I am getting very familiar with Adobe InDesign and Macs in general. Also, working with Emily, Peter Strutt (another Continuum designer with ties to Youth Design), and a few other folks at Continuum, I am using design thinking to prototype a solution to a problem we’ve identified with the National Junior Classical League Convention. I’ll finish the prototype by the end of this week, and perhaps I’ll even send my idea in to the NJCL Committee – who knows, maybe they’ll use it to improve next year’s convention experience!

However, the values that designers hold close to their hearts are vastly more important than any technical trick. The people here are incredibly committed to designing products and services that actually help people. Emily, Peter, Tara Whitla (who once worked with Denise at Korn Design), Jeremy, and everyone else at Continuum have made me understand that one can design something totally cool that nobody uses, simply because the item does not resonate with their core values, or because it serves no purpose. Yet aesthetics are also important, and design is that happy marriage of the two elements: a person’s needs with his or her wants.

I have learned that design is not simply a profession. It is not even just an art form. It is, I think, in its marvelous entirety, a philosophy, a very way of life. Design is that uniquely human ability to transform a problem into a solution, and to do so beautifully, in a way that evokes the human heart – nothing more, nothing less. The industries, enterprises, and institutions that have arisen surrounding design are cognizant of its true nature. So are the designers themselves (or at least the good ones.) Design has the power to unite a nation, to decimate a people, and to enchant a child; I think it is rather like magic.

To Emily Elwell, to Tara Whitla, to Peter Strutt, to Jeremy Zietz, to Denise Korn, to Amy Draybuck, to Michael Estabrook, to Ms. Esteve, and to the other folks at Youth Design and Continuum, I owe my understanding and appreciation of design. Thank you so much for guiding me through this process. I hope to one day claim my slice of the cake whose crust you allowed me to sample.

Lynne from Kirkwood and Teisha

Notes from Teisha: My Name is Teisha Hills and this summer I had the privilege of interning at Merida Meridian through Youth Design Boston. I recently graduated from Boston Latin School and this fall I will be attending Boston Architectural College. This internship has been a perfect fit for me especially since I will be majoring in Interior Design, and Merida Meridian‘s prime vision is “to become the sustainable design leader in the home interior space.”

Working at Merida, I gained a lot of skills and knowledge that I am sure will be useful during my time in college and beyond. Throughout the summer I did a lot of photo editing for the website, putting together and sending out samples of rugs and flooring to different interior companies, created spread sheets with important information, worked at the front desk for the company, and even designed the front waiting area. Each day I learned something new and also got to contribute my own personal skills to the team.

This summer has by far been the best summer I have had, thanks to Youth Design. Being apart of this program has been an ultimate great experience and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. One of the things that I find the most moving for me from this summer is visiting the different organizations in Boston on our Professional Development days. Each site that we visited was very inspirational and really opened my eyes to what Boston has to offer. I am really thankful for the experience and the internship was amazing!

Dimitri getting feedback on his "Time to Design" Competition Entry

Notes from Dimitri: During the past 4 years in high school I’ve been really into art. As I have matured artistically, I have been focusing more specifically on graphic design. This summer I’ve been given the opportunity to intern at one of the most influential design firms, Continuum. In my time working there I’ve learned so much about product design, graphic design and industrial design. Youth Design has been such a great experience that I believe will benefit me in the future and its a stepping stone to my future. I’ve been included on a number of projects for many different clients and I’ve also been working on a special design to teach children to eat more healthily and also enable them to take the initiative to learn more on what they eat and how they can eat better dietary foods. A lot of the designers such as Peter Strut, Delroy Dennisur, Emily Elwell, and especially my mentor Jeremy Zietz as well as many others who have inspired me to become a designer. Interning at Continuum is definitely the highlight of my summer and I am grateful for everything that I’ve learned.

Angela at the Boston Ballet

Notes from Angela: Before this summer the only ballet productions I had been familiar with were The Nutcracker and a few others from “Great Performances” on PBS. I had always noticed the ads for the Boston Ballet on passing buses from Giselle to Cinderella and heard the announcements on the radio, but to be able to see and be of help during the design process has been amazing. There is so much more to designing than the obvious; so many jobs from marketing to advertising are intertwined to promote and produce unique productions. I’ve been to so many fascinating meetings thanks to my mentor, Kristin, on topics ranging from the quantity of posters to produce to outdoing the competition.

This summer I’ve helped in the costume shop recording measurements and organizing fabric swatches, worked at the retail shop and researched potential merchandise, photographed merchandise to make ready for the web and even took a stab at designing a shirt. I’m also pretty sure that I have seen every Boston Ballet design for countless productions and mail dating back to the 80s while helping to organize for the move during the ongoing renovation. I’ve been immersed into such a creative environment for the past weeks and loved it: seeing so many potential jobs related to design, dancers on each floor and music playing all day long. I feel like I have a better understanding of all the work that goes into Boston Ballet from its productions to advertisements to marketing and an even better understanding of what it’s like to be a designer. Best internship ever!