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- June 18, 2026
- News and Announcements
Design in Community: Seattle Design Nerds at SAM Remix
Since Seattle Design Festival began in 2011, we’ve been fortunate to have a design partner from the very beginning: Seattle Design Nerds, a group of designers come together to create public interest projects working towards “making Seattle a little more awesome.”
They’ve designed many memorable Built Installations at SDF, from a large inflatable ‘monster’ in 2014 that attendees could walk through while wearing inflatable green suits, to their take on ping pong (“Whirly Pong”), and last year’s “Shredded Ego” installation. Seattle Design Nerd Trevor Dykstra is instrumental in the Festival’s success each year, overseeing Built Installations as an SDF Planning Team member, photographing the Festival over the years, and so much more.
We were excited to see Seattle Design Nerds’ latest project, unveiled at the Seattle Art Museum’s REMIX party a few months back.
SAM Remix - March 2026
A few months ago, the Seattle Design Nerds designed an interactive call board, titled “Cold Calls,” for the Seattle Art Museum’s REMIX party. The installation was inspired by a conversation about the Seattle Freeze and how it’s similar to a frustration with impenetrable bureaucracies. The group imagined six government institutions established to regulate the causes of the freeze and deputized our audience as temporary agents of:
- The Dept of Polite Indifference
- Bureau of Ambient Belonging
- Office of Acceptable Proximity
- Administration for Minimal Engagement
- Division of Conditional Invitations
- Commission on Deferred Enthusiasm.
Participants (“agents”) were tasked to pick up their phone and interview a stranger using questions from their dialogue issuance device (a hacked receipt printer) and record those responses using the tools we gave them (air clay, stickers, or office stamps) on vague “forms”.
"We anticipated folks would engage with the off balance world we created but were overwhelmed with how deep and lengthy conversations got, more than one friendship was formed."
— The Seattle Design Nerds
We’re happy to celebrate design in community by sharing Seattle Design Nerds’ work, which continues to draw excitement, joy, and fun in art and design spaces across the city.
We can’t wait to see what they create for the Block Party this year, centered around the theme IN[FLUX]! The lineup goes live on Wednesday, June 24 – stay tuned.
