Fast Company June Calendar

June

Week 1

Wed, June 02
NAVIGATE
Designing Change, Changing Design

Ever wonder who designs store layouts? Museum exhibit spaces? Subway info posts? "People say, 'You do that for a job? I didn't even know that was a job,' " says Cybelle Jones, chair of the Society for Environmental Graphic Design. "It's the silent branch of design." In D.C., 500 of these "silent designers" will discuss what makes a space navigable, informative, or just plain fun. (McDonald's McVillage, a trippy farm playground, won merit last year.) Next time you find an airport gate quickly, or note a store's intuitive scheme, give credit to the unsung designer. -- LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM

Fri, June 04
FROST
National Doughnut Day

America runs on Dunkin' ... and Krispy Kreme and the corner bakery. We eat almost 10 billion doughnuts a year -- nearly 35 per person. "Doughnuts are resolutely democratic," says John T. Edge, author of Donuts: An American Passion. "It's the food on the corner, of cops and construction workers, of the generous person in the office who shows up with two-dozen glazed." And during the Depression, it was the food of the Salvation Army, which sold sugary fried dough to raise dough for the needy. Many bakers still mark the day by offering freebies. We suggest old-fashioned. -- AUSTIN CARR

Sun, June 06
REHAB
International Bridge Conference

Like a bunch of sex-crazed celebrities, bridge builders are talking rehab -- the kind that repairs a crumbling infrastructure. Stingy banks and a teetering economy have slowed new projects in the U.S., but there are plenty of bridges desperate for a fix. Some 26% of the country's 600,905 bridges are structurally deficient, the American Society of Civil Engineers reports, and most others are approaching their prime. The engineers and policy players at this Pittsburgh conference will strategize how to reduce that number to 15% in the next three years. In the meantime, cross your fingers while crossing. -- DAMIAN JOSEPH

Sun, June 06
E-READ
How Design Conference

Forget bookworms -- graphic designers are the real victims of e-publishing. According to conference host Bryn Mooth, new gadgets like the Kindle and iPad pose a big question to these ink-and-paper pioneers: "How does this emerging platform of reading and interacting in a digital space change what it means to be a book designer?" To help answer that, the Denver conference -- the largest graphic-design gathering in the U.S. -- is going interactive itself: e-book-designing workshops, digital portfolio critiques, and a DIY crafts lounge. "It's like being 8 years old with a coloring book all over again," Mooth says. Better make that an iColoringBook. -- LC

Week 2

Tue, June 08
READ
Broke U.S.A.

While most of the focus on financial innovation gone awry has been on Wall Street wheeler-dealers, the multibillion-dollar boom in "alternative financing" for the working poor is more fascinating. Gary Rivlin rivets readers with the characters who cooked up what he calls "Poverty Inc." -- and the activists who've fought them. "There seemed to be no shortage of ways entrepreneurs had devised for getting rich working the easy-credit landscape," he writes, but Rivlin pays close attention to the $8 billion payday lending business. Arguments boil down to useful service versus usury, but in the end, as one pro-regulation Republican said, "you can't hear the stories without having it tug at your heart." Free enterprise is no match for a lady who borrowed $500 and ended up paying $10,000 in fees and losing her house. -- DAVID LIDSKY

Wed, June 09
CATCH
Aquaculture 2010

If fish had origin stickers, there's a good chance dinner would read "made in China." "Almost 50% of the fish we eat now is farmed," says Simon Wilkinson of the Network of Aquaculture Centers in Asia-Pacific -- and China produces about two-thirds of these hydro-critters. Advances in genetic modification and deep-sea ranching have made aquaculture one of the fastest-growing agricultural sectors in China, but a number of questions have also surfaced. Sustainability and food safety are big topics at this Bangkok conference. "It's not a very high-profile industry," says Wilkinson, "and a lot of the publicity it does get is bad publicity from environmental groups." Not that he's fishing for compliments. -- LC