My name is Alissa Walker and I’m a writer who can often be found in Los Angeles, California.
In 2004, after a failed career in advertising (and a brief, enlightening one in music videos), I embarked on a two-month self-seeking adventure through Europe. Prior to that, I had never left North America, traveled solo, or slept in a hotel room alone—at 26!—plus I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life—also at 26! But I brought along my iBook with the firm intention to write, a proposition that became more painfully daunting the longer I was away from home.
When I got to Italy, I walked directly off the train and into a gelateria, where a single serving of pistachio and stracciatella con brioche changed my life. The more gelato I ate, the more stories poured out of my fingers and into my laptop. Coincidence? I think not. I returned to LA knowing two things I didn’t know before: I really wanted to be a writer and I really loved gelato. Gelatobaby came to represent that warm feeling in your belly when you’re incubating creative ideas or digesting good food, sensations I have a hard time differentiating from one another. Both feel like you’re doing what you love.
Since that trip, I’ve been lucky enough to do what I love every day, which usually involves some combination of walking, writing and consuming gelato. Last summer I spent two incredible months pounding the pavement in New York while researching and writing the first of a new series of walking guides, City Walks Architecture: New York, which was published by the fine people at Chronicle Books in 2009.
You can find my writing at Good, Wired, Fast Company, ReadyMade, I.D., Eye, Print, LA Weekly, Dwell, Metropolis, Design Observer, Core77, Coudal, The Architect’s Newspaper, HOW, and STEP Inside Design. I’ve also written for the Los Angeles Times, but it wasn’t about design, it was about Star Wars. From time to time, I’ve been tapped to pinch-hit for the restaurant and nightlife blog Eater LA.
My favorite stories I’ve written so far are about designers helping people in Alabama, the film Objectified, urban agriculture, John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s War is Over campaign, Pinkberry, Why Scientology is good for Hollywood and my brother, Luke Sky Walker.
I’m the associate producer of the popular public radio show DnA: Design and Architecture hosted by the fabulous Frances Anderton. Sometimes I get to report on-air, like when I covered the redesign of LA’s bus system, or when I interviewed people on the street about a mural at the corner of Wilshire and Vermont, also in LA. In December of 2008, I read a poem “rapping up” the year’s shows. In December 2009, I shared my design book recommendations for the year. I also edit the DnA calendar, almost certainly the best compilation of design events in town.
From 2006-2008 I was editor of the design blog UnBeige, where I blogged about design industry news, gossip and events daily. People who I never thought I’d have the chance to meet said incredibly nice things about UnBeige, but I’d have to say the quintessential OMG moment was when Newsweek named us as one of 12 sites that “define cool.”
I like speaking, and I like it even more when there are people around to listen. I moderated the SF event Designing Obama featuring campaign designers Sol Sender and Scott Thomas where I showed a history of campaign graphics from 1960 to the present. I spoke to students at the Portfolio Center about following your creative path (where I showed this video of myself at age 3). I spoke to freelancers about giving up on their dream jobs at the inaugural gathering of the Uncompany Collective. At Art Center, I talked about the role of design writers in culture. I moderated the student symposium at the 2007 AIGA national design conference, where I also sat on panels about design writing and blogging (that last one is extremely entertaining, if you like design blogs, and who doesn’t?). I’ve sat on panels about design and blogging for Design Trends Seattle and Portera Doors. I moderated a discussion sponsored by Fast Company that featured four food and sustainability gurus including Stonyfield Farm’s Gary Hirshberg. And I moderated part of Designism 2.0, an evening of socially-responsible design, at the Art Directors Club in December 2007.
I love getting people together, especially when free booze is invited. Since late 2007, my dear friends Haily Zaki, Marissa Gluck and I have co-hosted de LaB, or design east of La Brea, a monthly-ish party that takes place in a designer’s “lab” somewhere east of La Brea. During December 2008, I was a community curator for GOOD December, which included curating and hosting the design events City Listening and GOOD Design: LA, where we assigned local designers urban problems to solve. Since that event we’ve taken GOOD Design to many other cities, including a program at Art Center in Pasadena, CEOs for Cities‘ annual meeting in San Diego, San Francisco and New York.
I won’t judge you, but I’d be happy to judge your next competition. I served as the 2008 judge for the Far West region of Print’s Regional Design Annual. I sat on the panel for my favorite local blog Curbed LA’s Ugliest Building Contest where I was the only juror who didn’t give top/bottom honors to Hollywood & Highland (seriously, I think there were worse offenders). I judged Logo Design Love’s blog logo contest. And while not exactly judging, I provided play-by-play commentary for a pixel-biting match of Coudal’s Layer Tennis.
You may have seen my house on the HGTV show Small Space, Big Style, where I proudly display my collection of suction cups and say noteworthy things like “If something’s all yellow in a pile, it doesn’t look like clutter, it looks like an interesting collection of yellow items.” Somehow the producers from the show were impressed with my supposed knowledge of decorating and invited me to appear as a guest expert on the show. You can catch all the episodes fairly regularly in reruns (303, 401, 402, 404, 405). My craft closet was featured in ReadyMade under the best headline ever: Undercover Craft.
Many people find the fact that I don’t have a car in Los Angeles fascinating. I ride the bus everywhere, sometimes dressed as Princess Leia. I have a presentation on taking public transportation in LA which includes tips and my “survival kit” of products and tools to make the journey more enjoyable. I wrote about the excellent design of LA’s Metro system in Fast Company and few months later, I was interviewed about smart growth by Warren Olney on the KCRW show Which Way, LA? I was so positive about my public transit experience that it prompted a commenter on Curbed LA to call me “Pollyanna.” I love that movie!
I was born in Denver, grew up in St. Louis, and spent 3.5 and 2 years at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Portfolio Center in Atlanta, respectively. I moved to LA on a whim 8 years ago and it continues to surprise and delight me every single day. I usually take a photo when this happens. Miss my old website? Me, too. But don’t worry, you can always visit it right over here. Gelatobaby will be with you, always.
