Quick: Which states in the country have the highest percentage of creative sector jobs in the U.S.?
If you said California and New York, you’d be barking up the right tree. But! Don’t forget about Rhode Island, which rounds out the third spot.
I’ll say it again a bit louder for the people in the back: “Rhode Island has the third largest percentage of creative sector jobs in the country, after New York and California.”
That’s an impressive and somewhat off-the-wall stat. One that Lisa Carnevale, founder and executive director of DesignxRI, didn’t want to just stay that way, two-dimensional and static.
Finding and connecting the names behind that number was the impetus for the aforementioned DesignxRI, a nonprofit economic development organization which looks to both foster a design network that represents all disciplines and create opportunity for those within it. “As the only statewide organization for design in Rhode Island, we build value in the sector by investing in Rhode Island design talent, increasing strategic assets in the field, and connecting this talent to key opportunities,” its website states.
We have a statistic: that 75 percent of designers export their [work] outside Rhode Island.
The idea first came to Carnevale when she was working for another arts-focused organization. “[We were] watching the design industry grow in Rhode Island [and] getting studies that said there was an increase [of artists and the arts], and anecdotally, I got a sense of much more activity in design,” she said. “This was probably in the middle 2000s.”
Carnevale noticed an interesting disconnect between what she was reading and experiencing. “While I was finding there was a lot of design here, we couldn’t actually find a designer if you wanted to find them,” she said. That was a problem.
“We needed design to show up, to help it get organized,” she continued. “[After a] few years of collecting people around that thought … we had the opportunity.”
Said opportunity was in 2013, when Carnevale and her team went to the Rhode Island Foundation’s Make It Happen conference to pitch DesignxRI in the pursuit of seed funding. Said pitch was simple: DesignxRI would “coalesce the design mass that is here, no matter the discipline, [and] spotlight that talent that’s been humming below the surface for decades,” she said.
The team got the funding they needed that year, becoming a more defined entity in 2014, when they had their first program. “Since then, we’ve really coalesced the energy and built the presence,” Carnevale said. For example, its website boasts a comprehensive database of Ocean State designers. It gives users "a place to actually go touch design, and meet design.”
Their next big step as an organization? Design investment. It's Design Forward RI program provides grants to help artists develop stronger skills for the workforce. “We’re spinning out, hopefully soon, a related program: an investing program," Carnevale said.
DesignxRI has measured growth and success not just through its programs, but also the expansion of its events. Its initial Clambake event, where two designers speak a month, began as a more intimate affair of 35 attendees, and now boasts upwards of 100 guests. “It’s packed, every month,” Carnevale said. “There are different people every time.”
Which is a metric that matters. “One of our goals is not to just talk to ourselves,” she explained. “We have a statistic: that 75 percent of designers export their [work] outside Rhode Island. Part of our mission is to tell people outside of here that talent’s here, and [that there’s] interest from outside that are attending these events.”
This is especially pertinent for its (now) behemoth flagship event: Design Week, a 13-day extravaganza that looks to “spotlight the talent, innovation, and influence of the Rhode Island design community,” according to its website. This year, there are more than 55 organizations participating and a host of community sponsors bolstering the event, with activities ranging from prestigious guest speakers to lunch-and-learns, scavenger hunts and panel discussions. It 2017 run kicks off September 13 and runs through the 24th.
Ultimately though, DesignWeek and everything the organization does is to serve that one goal: “to show the world that design is in Rhode Island,” Carnevale said. “It took us a year and half to get there … and what it has done is created a project to help people get together."
