This spring, the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA), in partnership with Portfolio Center, presents an exhibition honoring history and design through the medium of the chair. Stories in Form: Chair Design by the Portfolio Center runs February 5 through June 3, 2012.

The works featured in Stories in Form are created as part of Portfolio Center’s nationally acclaimed course “Modernism: History, Criticism and Theory,” which explores design history as a catalyst for new design ideas. While learning about Modernism, the history of design and the development of critical thinking skills, students in the course create chairs by means of a design process that combines inspiration from a historical period with personal experience.  This exercise in design is recognized nationwide for the challenge it presents to students, for it compels students to go beyond perfunctory design solutions and to balance old and new, conservative and eccentric, safe and dangerous as they design chairs that re-imagine their personal histories as three-dimensional objects.

Portfolio Center’s groundbreaking class has also been featured in the new book Design School Confidential: Extraordinary Class Projects From the International Design Schools, Colleges, and Institutes by Steven Heller and Lita Talarico. This book features fifty real-world class assignments from top design programs at universities around the world, and examines the resulting student projects.

Each chair on display at MODA will be accompanied by the story of its creation. In addition to demonstrating the step-by-step design process that brings these chairs into being, the exhibition will highlight the ways in which design objects tell stories of design history and personal experience.

The South: home to numerous design talents, both emerging and seasoned. The Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA) thinks it’s time to prove it. This fall, the museum will present The South’s Next Wave: Design Challenge, part exhibition, part competition; the exhibition will pair designers of interior spaces with object designers who together will create currently unimaginable vignettes throughout the museum.

To kick off the preparation, curators David Goodrowe and Tim Hobby co-founders of Aesthetic Identity Design™ firm Goodrowe | Hobby™ have announced a call for submissions from emerging product designers from across the southeastern United States. The team is looking for 20 unique and innovative product designers in fields from furniture to fashion, from jewelry and home accessories to industrial design, who exemplify the myriad new directions the Southern aesthetic has taken.

There is much more to The South’s Next Wave: Design Challenge than simply pairing two designers and showing off a room. Each vignette designer will also create a chandelier, which will be auctioned off during a benefit for the museum. The exhibition will include two parties, and during the run, MODA visitors will be asked to choose their favorite vignette and object. Winning earns the designer more than bragging rights – there is a cash prize, and the winning vignette will be featured in an Atlanta lifestyle magazine.

“We envision each vignette as a distinct environment with many layers that will be capable of maintaining the viewer’s attention for 10 to 15 minutes,” says curator Hobby. Each vignette will be technologically enabled in such a way as to allow the viewer to access facts and video about the designers and the vignette installation process.

Southeastern object designers interested in submitting work should send a bio, artist statement and medium resolution (150 dpi) images of objects they have designed todesignchallengeMODA@gmail.com. Submissions are due by June 15. A jury of design professionals will select the interior designers who will be paired with the selected object designers.

The South’s Next Wave: Design Challenge will run September 29 through January 6, 2013.

Join us for Design Conversation on Sunday, May 20 at 2-4 pm, as Dave Holston presents The Strategic Designer Workshop

The Strategic Designer Workshop is an activity-based workshop that targets designers at all levels who want to find new ways to spark creativity and engage clients and audiences on a deeper level.

For more information about what you will learn and how you will benefit, click here.

Just a few months ago, MODA added a design shop to the lobby of the Museum.

Our new shop, Switch Modern MODA,  is a collaboration between the Museum of Design Atlanta and Switch Modern, the premiere modern furniture and accessories showroom in Atlanta, Georgia.

Focused on design objects, Switch Modern MODA raises the bar on modern design by uniting two of the city’s most progressive entities.  The goal of Switch Modern is to present a collection that is highly curated and includes only classic items and/or the most progressive products available.  Select items have information cards describing their provenance in hopes that shopping at Switch Modern MODA will be informative and fun, in keeping with the mission of MODA.

For more information about Switch Modern MODA, please click here.

Join us for a very special Drink in Design on Thursday, May 31 from 6-9pm.  Yes, you’ll need an extra hour for this event!

Are you looking to learn a new skill?  Do you have questions about particular hobby?  Love talking to people who spend their time doing fascinating things?  Then, this is the event for you!

During Tricks of the Trade, MODA will create a non-traditional learning environment.  Our galleries will be filled with local artists, designers, and craftspeople eager to share the tricks of their trades as they answer questions about their areas of expertise.

Your evening will include a wide variety of learning opportunities, not least of which are the following:

• Are you tired of drinking boring beers?  Maybe you should start brewing your own.  A representative from Hop City will be here to help you get started.
• Do you have more flowers in your garden than you know what to do with?  Elaine Jo will demonstrate Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement.
• Do you envy all of those fabulous folks wearing super cute scarves and beanies?  That could be you.  The Atlanta Knitting Guild can answer all of your knitting questions.
• If you are looking for a unique gift for a friend or loved one, how about making some jewelry.  Khatia Esartia, Atlanta based jewelry designer, will demonstrate how to create your own fashion jewelry.
• Could you benefit from basic sketching skills to get idea across to your colleagues or win that game of Pictionary?  Mindy Spritz of the Spruill Center for the Arts will teach patrons the basics of sketching a still life.
• And many more!

So, join us in the galleries for a glass of wine and the opportunity to meet local creatives and to be inspired by their work.

Want your child to do something unique and absolutely cool?  How about building and designing robots using LEGOs?

At campMODA, students 6-14 years old learn basic robotic engineering, programming principals, and science, technology, engineering and math concepts while having fun!

Your child’s natural curiosity and ingenuity will help them envision possibilities and develop innovative solutions to difficult technology problems.

For more information about Saturday camps, Home School camps, and Summer camps, click here.

Skate It or Hang It!? will be held at the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA) from June 16, 2012 to September 16, 2012.

The exhibition will examine the visual aspects skateboarding, a sport important to contemporary youth culture since the 1970s, by presenting a broad range of styles, imagery, and visual expression in skateboard art.

With a broad focus on skateboard graphics—in particular the styles and methods used to embellish skateboard decks—the exhibition will appeal to a broad range of skateboarders, designers, artists and to Atlanta’s youth in general.

For more information about the exhibition and associated events, click here.