Creativity and Community At The Inaugural Los Angeles Design Weekend

With a grassroots coalition of creatives as its driving force, the inaugural Los Angeles Design Weekend was a neighbourhood-focused celebration of the city’s makers, brands and designers.

Los Angeles faces a unique problem when it comes to celebrating its thriving design community: how to create events that unite a vast, sprawling city not renowned for its public transport? A group of like-minded creatives came up with a novel solution: a design event that honed in on distinct neighbourhoods, easily discoverable by foot, bike, scooter and carpool. The inaugural Los Angeles Design Weekend, held in June, was a success by every measure, spotlighting more than 140 brands, makers, designers, architects and creatives and celebrating the collaborative nature of the city’s design milieu.

“Our goal was to make the weekend digestible, where people would be excited to explore a very focused part of LA.”

Holland Denvir, of creative sales agency Denvir Enterprises and the founder of the weekend, initially found inspiration for the event at a festival in Mexico. “After attending Guadalajara Art Weekend, I felt that its decentralised, grassroots approach was the perfect jumping-off point for us to create an event using the same ethos,” they say. “With its mixture of activations, interactive art features and non-competing events that progressed naturally throughout the day, I was inspired to bring this vision to LA.”

The Los Angeles Design Weekend revolved around neighbourhood-centric events in the city’s north-east and downtown districts, both with a significant history of design and manufacturing. The organising group, which also comprised a large contingent of volunteers, chose to focus on the city’s east as it often competes for events with Hollywood and neighbourhoods in the west. “The weekend centred around the city and what it has to offer, celebrating the beating heart of Los Angeles as much as the design that comes out of it,” says Denvir. “Our goal was to make it digestible, where people would be excited to explore a very focused part of LA.”

“The weekend sought to level the playing field and highlight both polished and experimental as well as professional and student work.”

Over three days, visitors explored dozens of events, where both established and heritage brands rubbed shoulders with emerging and independent designers and makers, all in the spirit of discovery. “The weekend sought to level the playing field and highlight both polished and experimental as well as professional and student work. I think it also served the city up to attendees on a silver platter, making it approachable and friendly, while bringing together various industries like design, food and fashion.”

The communal, collaborative essence of the weekend was reflected in the myriad group shows that kicked off the event. Denvir Enterprises teamed with design and architecture practice LAUN Studio to present ‘Mind Meld’, where nine artists were paired with nine product designers and brands to see what creative sparks could be ignited. Textile artist Anton Nazarko of ANZA studio reinterpreted a chair by Cuff Studio while painter and designer Hopie Stockman Hill created a new iteration of a piece by Kalon Studios. At ‘Object Permanence’, artisans like sculptor Cindy Hsu Zell and ceramicist and lighting designer Jonathan Entler were asked to interpret a specific prompt: in this case, the humble cookie jar.

“I think the weekend really served to highlight the intersection of Los Angeles’s geography, history and people in a unique event that celebrated and responded to its locality.”

Open studios and pop-ups were another highlight, and allowed attendees to experience first-hand the creative processes of a clutch of the city’s makers, studios and brands. The creatives came from an incredibly wide range of disciplines, from zero-waste fashion designer Francisco Alcazar and ceramic sculptor Beverly Morrison to architecture practice West of West and design outfit Estudio Persona, which works with glass, timber and glass.  Workshops gave visitors the opportunity to discover their own creativity, and included mural making at Block Shop in Atwater and paper pattern mosaics at LAMAG in Los Feliz.

For Denvir and their co-collaborators, and the dedicated army of volunteers, the inaugural weekend was the perfect encapsulation of what the city’s design community has to offer. “I think it really served to highlight the intersection of Los Angeles’s geography, history and people in a unique event that celebrated and responded to its locality.”