Bordo Bello 2011

Cliché as it might sound, it’s hard for us to believe that another year has gone by, and that our second Bordo Bello experience is already in the rear view mirror. While we seriously enjoyed ourselves at last year’s event, the event coordinators really outdid themselves this year. The four hours we spent at BB ’11 flew by in no time.

This year’s event was held at the much more spacious Redline Gallery (24th and Arapahoe), which gave us plenty of room to mill about, and also provided plenty of wall space for this year’s entries. We can’t be sure, but it felt like there were more boards on display this year (and the overall quality of submissions was definitely a step above 2010′s).

This year’s theme was centered around old school arcade games. Regretfully, I was too busy perusing the boards and placing bids to enjoy the awesome arcade action (Donkey Kong? Are you kidding me?), but I noticed plenty of other participants enjoying the free fun.

Other big pluses included with the ticket price:

• Plenty of free Sobe and Izze (thoughtful, non-alcoholic choices for those disinclined to cash in their drink tickets for Odell’s tasty beer)
• Three slices of pizza by the talented folks at Basic Kneads Pizza
• A cool letterpress poster commemorating the event (which we forgot to pick up…drat)
• Endless amounts of Popchips
• Breakdancing performances by Streetside Dance
• An unexpected marriage proposal (she said yes)

Cell phones (not really) optional

AIGA Colorado (the event’s coordinators) introduced QR codes and online bidding through eBay for many of this year’s entries. This was a neat concept that made the event more interactive; however, it had a few drawbacks that we feel are worth mentioning:

• Those without smart phones (admittedly a small and shrinking percentage of people) couldn’t bid on the internet-only boards
• An eBay account was required for online bidding.
• To see the current bid, you had to scan the board’s QR code. If you’re tracking multiple internet only boards, this means constantly scanning codes and waiting for eBay to load; much slower than reading a bid sheet.
• Using a phone to place a bid is more cumbersome than pencil and paper. I actually lost out on a board because of this.

All that being said, I liked the idea of QR codes and think Bordo Bello should consider bringing them back next year.

Our submissions

In our previous post, we previewed the two boards we were having printed for this year’s event. Here are shots of both hanging on the wall:

The booty

I don’t know if our winning bids are technically “booty” (since we didn’t pirate them from Her Majesty’s Navy), but we think they’re fantastic.

Wrap up

If you missed this year’s event, you can live vicariously by visiting the Bordo Bello 2011 Flickr page. We’ll certainly be back for next year’s event, and really look forward to seeing how it evolves and improves in 2012.