Detroit Design Festival, September 23-28

I have been remiss in not mentioning the upcoming Detroit Design Festival, which was launched in 2011 and is managed by the Detroit Creative Corridor Center, an organization tasked with developing and extending the city's creative business sectors.

The event builds off and highlights various creative economy businesses and anchors in the Greater Downtown, including the College for Creative Studies, a design school with undergraduate and graduate programs (also known for automotive design studies).

There will be 20+ events, including a tour of various creative venues in and around Eastern Market.

This year, the event will be held in association with Dlectricity, a night-time light art exhibition, which will show 35 works on Friday September 26th and Saturday September 27th--one of the events being a night-time parade of lighted bicycles (2012 event pictured at right).

Design Week events.  For more on the general movement of "Design Week" events in various cities (particularly prominent events are in London and Toronto), see "Design Week Movement" from Dwell Magazine.

American Institute of Graphic Arts, chapter sponsorship of Design Weeks. This organization, focused on the graphic arts, also sponsors Design Weeks. The Richmond Virginia Design Week is being held Spetember 17th to 20th.

Design Districts.  And on design districts see "Avenues of Art and Design. How Design Districts Work" and work by John Montgomery ("Cultural Quarters as Mechanisms for Urban Regeneration. Part 1: Conceptualising Cultural Quarters" and "Cultural quarters as mechanisms for urban regeneration. Part 2: a review of four cultural quarters in the UK, Ireland and Australia."

Although I have come to believe that the next generation of creative clusters-arts districts-design districts are evolving more broadly into "knowledge clusters" (something else I am remiss on writing about).