Last Thursday [September 12, 2013], several members of our team headed down the road to the City of Oaks for AIGA’s annual studio tour in Raleigh. A dozen of Raleigh’s best design firms opened their doors for a tour of their space and a chance to mingle with other creative minds. We weren’t able to visit them all, but we did get a chance to visit Redhat, Coalmarch, Three Ships, Myriad Media, and French West Vaughan.
The AIGA encouraged visitors to vote for the best places in several categories. The first was for “Best Space,” and while everyone had a great space, we’ll admit our favorite was Three Ships1 – they had such a well-executed nautical theme in their office, complete with a “guess how many goldfish crackers are in this jar” contest. (Still waiting to see if we won.) The giant model ships on the wall, the conference rooms named for explorers, and the vintage map decals on the windows all made the space very memorable, and everyone we spoke with was super friendly.
In the “Best Experience” category – we voted for Myriad Media, hands down. Their orange-saturated party theme included glass bottles of orange soda, striped paper straws with mustaches, a hairstylist on hand to hook folks up with a sweet new ‘do, and orange cakepops decorated with “Super Ordinary Haircuts” – their theme for the evening. As if that wasn’t enough, they had the Sweet Water Ices Italian ice cart inside their office, where we sampled some delicious peanut butter ice. And to show off their favorite new piece of equipment, they set up an HD, slow-motion camera in one room so folks could record a short video to post on the Myriad Media website – which they say they’ll post soon. We can’t wait to see all the slow-mo juggling, bubblegum popping, and raspberry-blowing.
It was a great night, and we really enjoyed seeing some familiar faces and meeting some new colleagues. It’s always great to see what other firms are up to in the Triangle, and inspiring to see what collectively we are capable of creating. And like any great night out in Raleigh, it ended with a rickshaw ride back to the car. Of course.
Looking forward to next year’s tour, and hoping we can get involved the next time they have one in Durham!
Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared on the Cuberis Blog on 9.16.2013.
1 This is the opinion of the author, see the official poll results here.
Lydia Kuekes is a senior designer at Cuberis, where she has practiced since 2009. She strives to create work that is concept-driven and visually engaging, while creating custom solutions for each client’s unique functionality needs and today’s various devices.