These days, the once-modest event transforms downtown Raleigh into a weekend-long hive of creative expression, with a pop-up bazaar, runway show with a sprawling City Plaza catwalk, improv comedians, and chalk art that stretches for as far as the eye can see. After the first five hectic, successful years of running it – inventing and designing all the while – the pair relinquished management to the Visual Art Exchange, but not before expanding SPARKcon far beyond fashion to encompass film and technology, food and music, art and commerce. Which is how the couple designed it in 2006, when they began the festival to celebrate Raleigh’s fashion week. “SPARKcon is all open-source and run by the people who organize it, so I had no say whatsoever.”
“We weren’t sure we would get in,” Khalifa says, with a hearty laugh. The couple had that in common with 30 other hopeful applicants, but none of those folks also had “SPARKcon co-founders” on their resumes. Last year at SPARKcon, downtown Raleigh’s annual festival of innovation and creativity, Aly and Beth Khalifa, local designers and entrepreneurs, had to apply to participate. The Designbox team works on sustainability projects, manufacturing and fair trade, and base of pyramid efforts with communities around the world.Aly Khalifa, owner and director of innovation, at Lyf Shoes at Designbox in Raleigh Trailblazing shoe designer They continue to be inspired by everything they learned during that investigation. Through this fellowship, Aly and his wife Beth travelled to Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines to study modern craft in design, creative culture, and on-demand small manufacturing approaches. Designbox has participated in ISPO and Ambiente, two of the largest trade shows in Europe.Īly Khalifa (owner) was named as a 2012 Eisenhower Fellow, which is an international leadership exchange to promote peace through knowledge and understanding. IDEAS showcases trend forecasting at the ISPO tradeshow in Munich Germany each year. We have also been involved with the IDEAS NETWORK, a coalition of international designers who study color and product trends. We have significant ties to Asia in the manufacturing and product development arenas, and have worked with designers throughout Europe. We bloom where we are planted by being inspired by our local community and being involved in its evolution, but we also find inspiration and unique skill sets from traveling and participating around the world. The Designbox mission is built upon a global perspective. It is through this trust in process and release of fear and control that design breakthroughs, new intellectual property, and world-changing impact can happen. The project criteria is to inform the stated objective rather than predetermine the solution. The design and client team is intentionally without hierarchy throughout the initial concept phase in order to promote true innovation and freedom from preconceived worn out paths. In the creative process, the Designbox philosophy always involves exploration and collaboration. These sessions included the design for City Plaza (Raleigh’s downtown center), the initial marketing strategy for the City of Raleigh economic development and it’s new Convention Center, and even planning to deal with excess construction dirt to enhance a natural park instead of destroying it. Results: always unexpected design direction and solutions, powerful consensus building and positive public impact.
Designbox planned the public forums and facilitated a creative process amongst decision makers and the public. Many of these challenges have involved politically or culturally sensitive topics. These beliefs motivated the creation of SPARKcon in 2006, an annual open source creative festival that began with a few hundred people and has continued to grow each year, with 2013 estimated at 50,000 enjoying and participating in it.Īs community leaders, Designbox has enabled solutions to citywide challenges through creative process and ideation facilitation (and some times mediation!).
A core focus for nurturing Inventive Culture is the belief in the power of creative community as both an economic force and a lifestyle enhancement. Over the years, Designbox has been heavily involved in fostering Design Innovation and Inventive Culture in home town, Raleigh NC, and around the world.
0 kommentar(er)
