Tarragon pink pepper & rosemary from il laboratorio del gelato, my Manhattan center of gravity. Thank you, Miss Eva.
Pistachio cardamom from Penny Licks in Williamsburg.
Wasabi & taro root from Sundaes and Cones, with my new friend Bronwyn (she opted for classic chocolate & vanilla).
Who knew when you combined the OXO vegetable peeler, farfalle pasta and a rump roast it would create a fragrant bouillabaisse infused with literary delight? Last night was the latest of SVA’s D-Crit design criticism reading nights at KGB, presided over by the program chair—and my dear friend—Alice Twemlow. (You can read more about Alice and D-Crit in a new interview at Subtraction.)
Akiko Busch almost brought me to tears with her touching meditation on the OXO vegetable peeler, which she says was created out of an act of tenderness from a industrial designer to his potato-peeling wife. Then the adorable Paola Antonelli read her deconstruction of pasta design, in which she revealed the true beauty of such readings: You can revert to the original version of your piece, without the “nasty edits.” And then Paul Lukas brought down the house with his survey of butcher charts, which included two changes of costume (one, his Meats shirt above; later, a shirt of a cow slicing itself into perfect t-bones) and a packet of expressly prohibited visuals, which included this gem I like to call Meathattan:
I must admit got a little googly eyed being in the room with so many famous design writers. I sat across from the lovely Karrie Jacobs, met Ralph Caplan, saw hot pants-wearing Emilie Baltz from Core77, was surprised to see one of my editors from Fast Company, David Lidsky, and ran into Keira Alexandra (who I first met in Hawaii, of all places). Not to mention all my old and equally famous good friends. Maybe this is just how New York is; a constant state of googly eyes?
Predictably starving, and craving some kind of beef pasta with exquisitely shaved vegetables, we settled on Congee Village where heaping plates of most of the above cost less per-person than some drinks I’ve purchased in Manhattan. From our spoken word appetizers to watermelon wedge desserts laid over a rice-flecked table: It was an extremely satiating night. But I almost debated stopping here on the way home. Burgers Gelato? Talk about a marriage of food and design!
February is the perfect month. A nice, round, easily-divisible 28 days. It’s like you took a regular month and stripped it down to the basics; exactly four blissfully-complete weeks.
Except for this February. This February, we get an extra day. Think about that for a minute. It’s a whole extra day! We celebrate boring old regularly-scheduled days all year round, but no one really knows what to do with this bonus day, this created-out-of-thin-air day, that only comes around every four years, no strings of tradition attached. What if someone came up to you on the street and was like, Hey, buddy, I’ve got this free, extra day here, and you can use it to do whatever you want. I mean, you’d take it, right?
Yet we don’t even celebrate Leap Day. I say, this day is too special to not commemorate. This month is special. This whole year is special. So I propose doing something special on February 29: Taking a creative leap.
February—beautiful, symmetrical February—has it all set up for you. Right there in the middle of the month is a day dedicated to love. So by February 14, all you have to do is figure out what you love. By February 29, figure out what you’re going to do. And on Leap Day, take your creative leap. The good news is, you only have to do it every four years!
Four years ago in February, completely by coincidence, I decided to take a trip that forever changed my life. Here I am four years later, it’s that time of year, and again, just by coincidence, it’s time for a big, life-rattling change. A huge leap for a Leap Year. I’ll be back here on Leap Day, ready to share my creative leap with the world. I hope you’ll do the same.
My name is Alissa Walker and I’m a design writer who can often be found in Hollywood, California.
In 2004, after a failed career in advertising, 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. Mostly, that’s been as the editor of UnBeige, the design blog where, from 2006-2008 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.”
You can find my design writing at Good, Wired, Fast Company, ReadyMade, I.D., Print, LA Weekly, Dwell, Metropolis, Design Observer, 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. I’m the assistant editor for the California Architect’s Newspaper, where I write a gossip column. My favorite stories I’ve written so far are about designers helping people in Alabama, a Southern California desert road trip, 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. I edit the DnA calendar, almost certainly the best compilation of design events in town.
I like speaking, and I like it even more when there are people around to listen. Recently, I moderated a discussion sponsored by Fast Company that featured four food and sustainability gurus including Stonyfield Farm’s Gary Hirshberg. I spoke at Art Center about design writing and at the Portfolio Center about following your creative path (where I showed this video of myself at age 3). I moderated the student symposium at the 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?). And I moderated part of Designism 2.0, an evening of socially-responsible design, at the Art Directors Club in December.
I won’t judge you, but I’d be happy to judge your next competition. I sat on the panel for 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’m currently judging 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 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 my favorite local blog, 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 6 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.