“The thing that’s most to be feared,” says Paula Scher, “is doing the same thing over and over again.”

As designers, we’re asked to rethink our clients’ environments—and our approaches to designing in and around them—every day. Staying fresh in this visually saturated world, achieving clarity despite a million distractions, requires constant reflection and rejuvenation.

But when do we get the chance to recharge and rethink design and our own place in it? The 2007 SEGD Annual Conference and Expo is the place to begin!

Come to Boston, a city that is rethinking itself—and design—on a grand scale. The dramatic new Institute of Contemporary Art, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, is the jewel of Boston’s unfolding harborfront master plan. The historic Peabody Essex Museum in nearby Salem has leapt to world-class museum status thanks to a coherent, “emotionally minimal” addition designed by Moshe Safdie Associates. Frank Gehry’s controversial design and Bruce Mau’s graphics mirror the daring approaches bred at MIT’s Stata Center for Computational Sciences. And perhaps the biggest rethinking project of all, the Big Dig, has moved miles of elevated highway into underground tunnels, opening a curtain that divided the city for decades and freeing up generous swathes of green space.

The MIT Media Lab, Harvard University School of Design, and the Design Management Institute keep Boston at the epicenter of design thinking. And SEGD itself was born near Boston in 1973, when a small band of forward-thinkers established a fledgling organization devoted to graphic design in the built environment.

So put on your rethinking cap and head for Boston. Retool and recharge as you hear rethinking strategies from the likes of Paula Scher, Brian Collins, Sohrab Vossoughi, Kyle Cooper, and the creative teams of Michael Donovan/Nancye Green and Chris Calori/David Vanden-Eynden. Jumpstart your creativity through tours of Boston design jewels, Workshops on Wheels, tech sessions, and professional practice seminars.

Come to the 2007 SEGD Annual Conference & Expo. See for yourself how Boston has reinvented itself. Examine your own design past and present, and start rethinking your design future.

Michele Phelan
Sasaki Associates
Conference Chair

Jean-Pierre Lacroix
Shikatani Lacroix Brandesign
Conference Advisor