Officials announce event name, dates, vision, website & steering committee members
City Hall, NY – Today, City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, along with Council Member Karen Koslowitz, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Robert K. Steel, Cultural Affairs Commissioner Kate D. Levin, NYC & Company CEO George Fertitta, and NYCEDC President Seth Pinsky announced that “NYCxDESIGN” (NYC by Design), the City’s first annual city-wide event to showcase and promote design, will be held from Friday, May 10th through Tuesday, May 21st, 2013. This five-borough, multiday event will serve as an annual exposition to celebrate New York City’s contributions to and embrace of design and help leverage the sector’s enormous potential for economic growth.

First announced in Speaker Quinn’s February 2012 State of the City Address, NYCxDESIGN (www.NYCxDESIGN.com) will be bookended by the Frieze Art Fair on Randall’s Island and International Contemporary Furniture Fair at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. Participating design communities will include, but are not limited to, architecture, graphic design, fashion design, product design and manufacturing, industrial design, interior design, interaction design and landscape and urban design. The event is being produced by the City Council in conjunction with a 33-member steering committee (full list below), which includes leaders from major cultural institutions, top design schools and firms, designers and design stakeholders, and government officials. Local interactive design firm Cloudred designed the event website and Base New York created the event identity (logo, branding, mark, visuals and more).

“NYCxDESIGN will help demonstrate that New York City is the design capital of the world,” said Speaker Christine C. Quinn. “All five boroughs are home to a staggering amount of design talent in a wide range of disciplines, and this inaugural, city-wide event will help harness this potential and turn it into a tool for economic growth. I’m thrilled to provide the necessary platform to showcase both emerging and established designers as well as design schools and institutions and look forward to celebrating local design this May.”

According to the Center for an Urban Future, New York City is home to 33 percent more design firms than Los Angeles, the next closet city. NYCxDESIGN seeks to drive economic development through the attraction of even more designers and manufacturers to the city, generate new sales and export opportunities for local designers and increase design-based tourism by industry professionals and design-conscious consumers.

The Steering Committee has helped to create the vision and mission of the event, providing valuable input and feedback on the creation of the event name, identity and web presence. Committee members also serve as ambassadors for the event to the design community and will help to ensure the existence of and create diverse programming that highlights the City’s distinct design sectors and showcases our designers, manufacturers, design events, institutions, and schools, in addition to celebrating the City’s entrepreneurial spirit.

“I am proud to work with Speaker Quinn in launching NYCxDESIGN,” said Council Member Karen Koslowitz. “This 12-day initiative will celebrate and unify the City’s various creative sectors while promoting their further economic growth. New York City has always embraced its reputation as a city at the forefront of art and design and this is on display every day from our grand architecture and stylish fashions, to the celebrations of the rich and diverse cultures across the five boroughs.”

“We are proud to work with the City Council and government officials to launch, NYCxDESIGN, and to celebrate the City’s first-ever week dedicated to highlighting the diversity of design across all five boroughs,” said George Fertitta, CEO of NYC & Company. “We look forward to welcoming the international design community and the opportunity to showcase the City’s talented designers to the world.”

“The Bloomberg Administration is proud to partner with the Council and Speaker Quinn to launch NYC X Design in 2013,” said Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Robert K. Steel. “New York’s robust design community is one of our competitive advantages, and showcasing the depth and breadth of our talent will encourage even more growth in this strategic industry.”

“The NYCxDESIGN initiative will provide a terrific platform to highlight the extraordinary breadth of New York City’s creative community,” said New York City Cultural Affairs Commissioner Kate D. Levin. “We look forward to granting New Yorkers and visitors all new access to the design industries, cultural events, and talented professionals across the five boroughs, for one exciting week.”

New York’s world-class design institutions and designers not only make important creative contributions to our city, they are also a critical engine of economic activity,” said New York City Economic Development Corporation President Seth W. Pinsky. “I want to thank all of our partners in government as well as in the design community for supporting NYC by Design, which will attract new attention to this vibrant community and provide new opportunities to spur economic growth.”

“Our main objective was to create a strong, iconic mark that would be highly recognizable and visible citywide,” said Base New York Creative Director Min Lew. “We chose to make the ‘X’ the focal point of the identity as it represents a crossroads where the City intersects with the design community and a multiplier, reflective of the various design disciplines that will partake in the festival.”

NYCxDESIGN will kick off a diverse slate of year-round design happenings and events in New York City, the world’s largest design capital. The event will showcase the City’s most renowned design institutions, retailers, manufacturers, entrepreneurs, curators, educators, editors, and of course designers. The event will create a platform for cultural and commercial opportunities to elevate established and emerging design practices, and to increase awareness of and appreciation for design by all audiences through events such as exhibitions, trade shows, installations, talks, launches, and open studios. The event capitalizes on the City’s strong and diverse design industry and aims to strengthen and grow this sector of the local economy.

Members of the design community interested in participating should register their event at www.nycxdesign.com. The desktop, tablet and mobile-friendly site will host a central events calendar and information about NYCxDESIGN for interested design stakeholders, residents and visitors.

NYCxDESIGN Steering Committee Members:

Paola Antonelli, Museum of Modern Art, Senior Curator, Department of Architecture & Design
Caroline Baumann, Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Acting Director
Rick Bell, American Institute of Architects, New York Chapter Executive Director
Scott Belsky, Behance LLC, Chief Executive Officer
David Burney, NYC Department of Design and Construction, Commissioner
Keri Butler, Public Design Commission of the City of New York
Susan Chin, Design Trust for Public Space, Executive Director
Allan Chochinov, Core77, Inc. Editor-in-Chief, Core77
Miquela Craytor, NYC Economic Development Corporation, Vice President, Industrial Initiatives
Chad Dickerson, Etsy, Inc., CEO
James Druckman, New York Design Center, President & CEO
Wendy Feuer, NYC Department of Transportation, Assistant Commissioner for Urban Design & Art
Rosalie Genevro, Architectural League of New York, Executive Director
Abe Gurko, Abe NYC, Inc., Principal
Chris Hacker, Johnson & Johnson, Chief Design Officer
Rachel Haot, NYC Digital, Chief Digital Officer
Holly Hotchner, Museum of Arts and Design, Director
Karen Koslowitz, New York City Council City, Council Member
Kate D. Levin, Department of Cultural Affairs, Commissioner
Fern Mallis, Fern Mallis, LLC, President
Kiel Mead, American Design Club, Principal
Michelle Mullineaux, DesigNYC, Co-Founder
Elizabeth O’Donnell, The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union, Associate Dean
Eddie Opara, Pentagram, Design Partner
Leighton Pierce, Pratt Institute, School of Art & Design, Acting Dean
Christine C. Quinn, New York City Council, Speaker
Ed Schlossberg, ESI Design, President & CEO
Bradford Shellhammer, Fab.com, Founder & Chief Design Officer
David Stark, David Stark Design and Production, President and Creative Director
Robert Steel, NYC Deputy Mayor for Economic Development
Kara Tobin, Tobin and Tucker, Principal
Joel Towers, Parsons The New School For Design, Dean
Willy Wong, NYC & Company, Chief Creative Officer and AIGA/NY President

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