What’s next for Design in the 2020s? This year’s Design 50 highlights Chicago’s creatives—those who give us boundary-pushing work, immersive experiences and all-around impeccable design across all realms. But in the light of the new decade we also posed an important question: What’s next for the transdisciplinary ever-evolving Chicago design scene? Their informed predictions, guesses, thoughts and ideas reflect some widely held desires, hopes and fears for where the design world is headed. It is also further proof that those fifty creatives are without a doubt among the city’s shining stars—the ones to bring in high hopes, hard work and positive change. Here’s what the landscape of design will look like in 2020 according to the fifty most innovative Chicago designers. (Vasia Rigou)
Design 50 2020 is written by Vasia Rigou with additional contributions by Olivia Canny, Brittany Garrett, Isa Giallorenzo and Cat Strain.
All photos by Nathan Keay on location at Facility.
The Hall of Fame These folks, or the roles they inhabit, are so well-established and foundational to the design world of Chicago that they are always near the top of the list.
Greek-born Vasia Rigou is a Chicago-based art critic and pop culture journalist, largely on the subjects of contemporary art, design, and fashion. She moved to Chicago in 2013 to study Arts Journalism at the School of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC,) where she was awarded the New Artist Society Merit Scholarship. She grew up to appreciate art after years of carefully planned, culture-filled travel itineraries and museum-hopping around Europe with her family. During this time, she received a bachelor’s in English Literature, in her native Athens; a master’s in Media, in Nottingham, UK; and studied foreign languages—English, German, and Spanish at the University of Salamanca, Spain. Her writing—reviewing museum exhibitions, gallery shows, art fairs, fashion shows, and music festivals among others—has been published nationally and internationally both in print and online. In 2017, she founded and now serves as editor-in-chief of Rainbowed.—an independently published website focused on the visual and performing arts, digital media, and popular culture. When she’s not writing about art or looking at art—wine in hand, she keeps up with Chicago’s creative entrepreneurial and startup community, makes lists for pretty much everything, drinks immense amounts of coffee and takes cross-country road trips every chance she gets.
Design 50: Who Shapes Chicago 2018 Like a shared urban workspace, ours is a city of communication and collaboration that brings together extraordinary artists, designers, makers and entrepreneurs to help one another grow their creative vision as they elevate the city’s art, design and culture scene.
Design 50: Who Shapes Chicago 2019 Chicago is constantly growing and changing shape. And powerful design has been a driving force in its success.
