2005 news
Gamil launches their own Facepod: December 9, 2005
Following the great success of the Teastick, Gamil has once again entered into the lifestyle products arena with another cutting edge product called the Facepod. Noticing the universal need to protect the screens of the various MP3 players in the market, Gamil designed a case that stretches around a variety of MP3 players and provides attachment points to configure a leash, headphone reels, or other accessories.
Teastick wins Good Design Award : December 6, 2005
The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design has award Gamila a Good Design award for The Teastick. The competition selected the Teastick out of hundreds of submissions ranging "from an airplane to a paperclip." Awards will be posted on the Athenaeum website December 31.
Aly Khalifa Judges Innovations Awards. October 10, 2005
Created by the Consumer Electronics Association, the Innovations Design and Engineering Awards program recognizes the most innovative consumer electronics products in 30 categories. Khalifa, being both an engineer and designer, will be comprehensively evaluating this year's submissions for a variety of categories. Display of the finalists is one of the most popular exhibits at the annual International Consumer Electronics Show.
Gamil Makes it a Decade! October 7, 2005
Started in October 1995 in a spare room of his new house, Aly has been joined by dozens of collaborators to design hundreds of projects. A retrospective is being shown at the Designbox through the month of October, and includes a public launch of The Teastick.
Beth Creates for Smart Commute. September 1, 2005
A new campaign of reducing emissions and congestion in the Triangle was designed and art directed by Beth Khalifa. She also tapped Designbox for a trult collaborative effort, including the photography of Cheryl Gottschall and the copywriting of Janet Mobley. As a result, SmartCommute ran its largest campaign ever. Take the Smart Commute Challenge yourself!
Designbox's Dix Dirt Charrette Gains Attention. July 19, 2005
Richard Stradling reports on the progress of the Convention Center's heap of excavated dirt becoming a city park in Raleigh - all via a design charrette organized and facilitated by Designbox. A lot of the material has already arrived and has been sculpted at the Dix site.
Designbox wins Indy Arts Award. July 13, 2005
Each year the Independent Weekly gives a select few organizations an award to "honor a handful of people and projects [to] illustrate the creative spirit of the Triangle's arts communities." This year Designbox was selected as one of them. See article by Fiona Morgan. We do have a few corrections.
Designbox hosts new brand, "Gamila." July 11, 2005
Ty Beddingfield has moved into Designbox to establish headquarters of Gamila Products, LLC. Beddingfield and Rich Futrell were the founders of The Third Place Coffeehouse in Raleigh. As their highly successful coffee business also grew their sales of fine loose teas, they saw a need in the market for a new tea infuser. After contacting Aly Khalifa [db], they collaborated to create The Teastick. Years later they have sold the coffee house and are doing a national launch of products for the growing gourmet tea market. See the press release.
Gamil Design's Batcage on Lance Armstrong's Bike. July 4, 2005
Lance Armstrong and will be riding in this year's Tour de France with a host of new cutting edge equipment, but he's riding with one accessory for three years in a row: the Trek Batcage. Designed by Aly Khalifa [db] to be the lightest, easiest and best-retention bottle cage on the market, the Batcage has proven itself to perform in the world's most competitive environment. In fact, you'll find two of them on Lance's climbing bike.
Designbox facilitates city leaders on Raleigh's vision. June 14, 2005
Eleven members of Designbox facilitated an energetic 3 hour creative session designed to express the best of what Raleigh has to offer. Hosted by the Raleigh Convention Center, the charrette was attended by a diverse group of about 80 city leaders. Each Designbox member led an 8-person group which was tasked with communicating impressions, stories, and imagery to capture the city's spirit. The work from each group is intended to guide downtown development and marketing efforts in reflecting the city's culture, leveraging the local resources, and establishing an image of Raleigh to present to the rest of the world.
Kirby Derby Show gets press. June 3, 2005
This Designbox exhibit of a local neighborhood parade has garnered attention in the News & Observer's What's Up. The show was also featured in the Raleigh Hatchet with the actual event described as "one of the coolest, and most original events Raleigh has to offer."
Talenti sent to Rome by the NEH. June 1, 2005
Francesca Talenti [db] was awarded a 6 week class at the American Academy in Rome. Funded by the National Endowment for Humanities, Talenti will be learning amongst a league of international scholars at the institution known for its prestigious Rome Prize.
Exhibiting Artist Gretchen McLaren featured on HGTV. May 25, 2005
Designbox will be celebrating the debut of HGTV's "Crafter's Coast to Coast"
which features Gretchen McLaren. Designbox will show the episode in the gallery on the big screen at 7pm on May 25th.
Aly Khalifa featured at IDSA Conference. April 8, 2005
Aly presented "The future of professional creativity and the rise of the creative consortium" at the IDSA Southeast Conference in Memphis TN. On the following day, Khalifa lead an all day workshop on creative techniques. Becky Shankle [db] assisted in facilitating the group to generate their most creative ideas for products and services in international shipping.
Designbox Gets Creative with Dirt at Dorothea Dix. March 21, 2005
Upon hearing that the Dix property was to receive 150,000 tons of dirt from the new convention center project in downtown Raleigh, Aly Khalifa [db], Professor Will Hooker and Councilman Thomas Crowder decided to hold a design charrette to find a creative way to turn this dumping into a unique city feature. Khalifa will lead the creative session with Designbox members facilitating 40 members of the community at the Urban Design Center. Results will be presented to city planning staff with groundbreaking scheduled for this summer. See the results at Designbox or the Convention Center.
"Hellcar" Show Featured as "Best Bet!" March 3, 2005
The "Art of Hellcar" gallery show could be the most amount of art Designbox has ever seen. Featuring the art of the best cartoonists around, frame after frame is up for viewing. See the Independent Weekly's recommendation as a Best Bet to do this Friday.
Designbox Makes News at Duke. Feb 24, 2005
Irie Turner features Designbox in this Duke Chronicle article.
Chris Eselgroth Wins Gold! Feb 19, 2005
In the Direct Mail category, Barefoot Press' new campaign took home the gold at the Ad Club of the Triangle "Addy" Awards. Chris Eselgroth [db] was the Graphic Designer.
Shankle joins Designbox and exhibits at Lily's Pizza. Jan 22, 2005
Our newest member, Becky Shankle, has her work on display at Lily's Pizza in Raleigh through February 28. Her work inlcudes a watercolored line drawing series, "Places More Fun to be than Work."
Khalifas lecture in Education City, Qatar. Jan 6, 2005
Aly & Beth Khalifa gave a week-long series of lectures and workshops in late December to discuss creativity and professional development in product and graphic design. The Khalifas visited with numerous design classes in Education City at the satellite campus of Virginia Commonwealth University located in Doha, Qatar. Press Release.
