Nerd Alert: Comic Con Meets Design

If you have never attended Comic Con (an annual culture convention held in San Diego every summer), then you are surely missing out.

For example, having never been to Comic Con, you would not know about the number of people who flock from all over to attend this annual event, a number that usually surpasses the maximum capacity limit set in the San Diego Convention Center.

You also would not know about the hundreds of panels that are organized for each of the event’s days, all of which usually discuss upcoming attractions in various entertainment industries.

And finally, having not been to Comic Con, you would not know that among the many attendees present at this event for panel discussions, a majority of them look a little something like the guy in the middle:

…Yup.

Hopefully these first few sentences have not caused you to make any prejudgments about this convention. But if you are guilty of this, no worries. It’s a common mistake for those who have never experienced all that is Comic Con.

For many, Comic Con is a beacon of nerdiness and geekdom—a place where comic fanatics or internet addicts gather to discuss the many aspects of pop culture that rock their cyber world. But this is not the case, for Comic Con is so much more than that. What started out as a small annual gathering to share one’s love for comics and graphic art soon grew to be a popular event that explores many realms of entertainment outside of the comic book scope. And in recent years, Comic Con has come to be a place that embodies design.

Yup, you heard correctly. Comic Con is a place of design. How, you may ask? To answer this question, one would simply need to look around at the people attending this event. Not only is this convention made up of hundreds of attendees that are artists of all media (comic books, websites, printmaking, etc.), but also of fans who bring their love for pop culture to life.

Looking back at the picture above, we see a small taste of how fans express their love for pop culture through the art of design. Some may express this love through costume-making and role-playing (making a costume and becoming a character in media). Others may express it through the selling of artwork or other forms of design. And for those who are not familiar with any of these forms, they may just attend to experience these types of design firsthand.

Sometimes design is found in the oddest (and nerdiest) of places. But if you take the time to immerse yourself within them, you may find something incredible and never before experienced—like a giant cardboard robot costume. Who knows? Design has a funny way of surprising you like that.