After six extremely tiring but absolutely amazing days we were finally given a free day to explore the city and enjoy each other’s company. Everyone was starting to get the itch to see what our next project would be, but it was obvious that everyone was really looking forward to spending the day out and about just hanging out. Oh… we also got to sleep in a bit later than normal too, and let me tell you, it was much needed. So after a later breakfast we were off.

There were a couple different groups that broke off to explore. A couple local campers stopped by their homes to give their pets some loving attention, and another couple of campers attended a service at the City Church followed by lunch with some friends (and a past camper) at a Chicago favorite, Publican Quality Meats. The rest of us decided to hit up some recommendations from our camp counselors and to go see the highly acclaimed CHGO DSGN exhibit at the Chicago Cultural Center. We decided to use Divvy, Chicago’s bike share system designed by Firebelly and IDEO, to ride up to Wicker Park to grab a cold brew coffee from La Colombe before popping in Quimby’s Bookstore, which is a designer’s dream. There were so many books, magazines, zines and postcards to look at and flip through, and I think we all dropped a bit more cash than we originally planned – some of us checking out multiple times after finding another treasure. We all left feeling a bit more inspired to create, and we even found some pieces that we had a hand in making along with some of our friends’ work. I will definitely be making a trip back in the near future!

After grabbing some chips and guacamole and a couple tacos from the walk-up window and Big Star, we heading downtown to check out the CHGO DSGN exhibit curated by Rick Valicenti. If anyone in Chicago hasn’t seen it, you should really check it out! The work is amazing and covers such a range of projects from many of Chicago’s greatest designers, including some new mentors and friends that we have met this week. It definitely does not lack in style and taste, and the exhibit really shows off the innovative work of these local designers. We then found our way to wandering around Millennium Park taking selfies at the bean and enjoying the sunshine.

At dinner, another meal of some delicious tacos and margaritas at Takito Kitchen, we met our workshop leaders, but under Dawn’s contract they too were keeping the surprise for after dinner. Once we got back to the studio, we were thrown right back into it… there ain’t no messing around here at camp! But we were all so excited to see what we would be working on next. Megan Deal and Kate Creason from Tomorrow Today, based in Cincinnati, OH, would be leading us on a workshop in designing and deploying a civic intervention in the next 36 hours. We were all randomly assigned a partner, an objective, a color, a letter (which would limit our typeface choices), a mystery budget, and a buzzword to get us started. We got right to work and have been brainstorming all night. Tomorrow we present our ideas to the group and then go out into the world to make it happen. It should be a fun ride and I absolutely cannot wait to see what comes from it all!

I guess we will all just have to wait and see!