Last week Tim and I (Alix) went to the "Inventor's Forum" meeting. We didn't really know what to expect but in the end we were glad to have gone.

There are two types of monthly meetings, one for members and one for non-members. We went to the first non-member meeting of the year, where a lawyer explained the process (quite well) of patenting and licensing products.

There were a lot of people there who had ideas and wanted to take them to market. They would sign up as a member and attend the member only meetings, which is a smaller group, and where they go over each other's projects, like a design critique. There, professionals help out with manufacturing and legal issues.
After a year, the "inventor" has one or several patents out there, and is ready to launch their product.
They said that every year they have success stories, where people actually do go the full way and take their product to market.

We found an opportunity here, and decided to stop by at the next member's meeting.

for more info, http://www.inventorsforum.org/

More websites they gave us:
www.score114.org (Retired Executives consulting site)
www.sba.gov (Small Businesses Association)

Pacific Design & Manufacturing Today at the Anaheim Convention Center
Get your business cards and game face together.
More posts to come.

Design Revolution came to Art Center on Tuesday night and a good sized group of CSULB ID majors were there to see the products, talk to the organizers and eat the food.
Emily Pilloton, founder of Project H Design, is on a road trip with an airstream trailer filled with 80 design examples to inform and inspire. The event at Art Center was organized with the good people from Good Magazine.
The Long Beach Crew missed the 1:00pm talk because of class but we got to see the speeches made by president of Art Center Lorne Buchman and Emily Pilloton. The Trailer was a great chance to get our hands on a lot of award-winning designs that we have only been able to see in blogs or in magazines like Good.

Check out Design Revolution

ALSO if you are kicking yourself for missing a great chance to see Art Center and enjoy some top-notch hors d'oeuvres email us and keep an eye on the IDSA board!

So we've been hiding out a bit these past weeks, but it's for a good reason! We made enough money selling books on half.com believe it or not, and so we went and got some materials to design and screen print our own accessories!

We bought a screen printing kit at Art Supply Warehouse, then stopped by at JoAnn's fabrics, but decided that was way too expensive (1 zipper $2.00?!) so we went to LA's fabric market! I actually loved that place, it reminded me of China!

There, we found zippers for 10c each, snap fit buttons, elastic string, canvas fabric...

Back home, we met again with our friend at Human Being Inspired who gave us another design for our re-thought set of accessories.
I (Alix) am in charge of sewing, so I prepped the sewing by cutting out all the patterns, ready for printing!
It took Tim a few days to prep the screen printing, but guess what, he's at it right now!
He's going to finish all of one accessory tonight, we'll let it dry, and while I sew that together, he's going to start the design on another accessory...

I'll get some photos of that process in just a little moment...in the meantime, here is what we're screen printing, from Human Being Inspired.

Also, as a reminder, why are we selling these?

We are selling these because
1. it's something we made out of our own ability, and with the kindness of our heart, for our dear csulb comrades. It's creative, involves friends, students, alumni and working in groups.
2. It's a challenge, we've never done it before.
3. We are raising money to put into general fund to promote participation to events such as the Western District Conference, the Inventors Forum, the CES show, 5D conference. When such events have a fee to attend, we want to contribute the money towards that event to help students get out there and network.
Why is that important? Well, exposure is super important. If you want to succeed, in anything, you need to get out and meet your competition, your peers, the ones hiring you, the future generation, etc.
It will help you gain awareness of what you need to do to prep your portfolio and succeed in life.

We want to help YOU, specifically CSULB students, to attend conferences and events that can help you in your professional life.