Sherwin David - Mauk Design Trip

Mauk Design, located in San Francisco, is a highly recognized design firm withing the industry specializing in trade shows and exhibitions. Mitchell Mauk, founder of Mauk Design, with a graphic design background is an award winning designer helped develop the graphic image of the early days of Apple as well as Sun Microsystems' identity. Mauk Design's past and present clienteles include Herman Miller, HP, Levis, McDonalds, Microsoft, Pixar, Sony Computer Entertainment and Walt Disney World.

The trip to Mauk Design was a pleasant experience. Mauk gave us an inside look in his studio, designs he is currently developing, his process, and some useful and insightful tips and pointers on how to put on a show. Mauk emphasized on making show or rather exhibitions to be fun and interactive. Motion or incorporating same form of motion completes and makes for a more lasting experience for the visitors or spectators. Mauk also likes to incorporate objects that hang from ceilings, but reiterates that you don't need all of the object to obstruct your sight line but only a small portion of it. I am sure that we will have many objects hanging from ceilings, whether it be a display or a student's work. Hanging objects fills up a room and make for a more interesting exhibit that I feel will reinforce the name and ideas behind this year's DAI student exhibition.

I found Mauk's portfolio to be impressive and his clienteles to be diverse. His last project, a way finding system for a the newly built airport in Doha, Qatar, was impressive especially the materials used for the signages. The celophane construction for the McDonald's exhibit was eye catching. It was also exciting to see a glimpse of the future by getting sneak peak look of what the McDonald's restaurants will look like.