Metro's Neighborhood Poster series displayed at the PMCA gallery.

The 2010 California Design Biennial exhibition opened this week at the Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA) and features Metro’s Neighborhood Poster series alongside other innovative and high-profile designs like the Apple iPad and Michael Schmidt’s chain-mail fashions adorned by the likes of Lady Gaga and Madonna.

For those of you who don’t know, the California Design Biennial highlights the best in California based design during the last two years in five categories – architecture, fashion design, graphic design, product design and transportation design. Metro’s Neighborhood Poster series – click here for an in depth look at the series – is recognized along with twenty other projects in the graphic design category.

Great design is more than just looking good – it must serve a purpose as well.

The purpose of the series is to increase ridership by highlighting neighborhood locations within the county, encouraging the public to access the Metro system and enjoy traveling to Los Angeles’ many diverse communities.

The Neighborhood Poster series is also featured in the exhibition's promo materials.

The Neighborhood Poster series certainly strikes that delicate balance between form and function. In fact, one of my early posts on The Source looked at the role these posters play in creating a sense of “place” in our often hard-to-define region (also: check out this interview I did with poster artist Shizu Saldamando).

In addition to Metro’s Neighborhood Poster series, there’s some other great designs at the Biennial that would be of interest to those inclined to alternative modes of transport and sustainability. Projects that caught my eye: a folding electric bike from IZIP, Google Maps for Bikes, signage from the Better Bikeways Project and James Rojas’ model of California made from recycled elements.

I’ve listed the 2010 Californai Biennial in this weekend’s Go Metro roundup as PMCA is just a short walk from the Memorial Park Gold Line Station – but if you can’t make it this weekend the exhibition runs through the end of October.

California Design Biennial 2010 at PMCA
See the best in California design, including Metro’s Neighborhood Poster series.
Website: http://pmcaonline.org/
When: 12-5pm (event runs to October 31)
Price: $7
Where: Pasadena Museum of California Art, 490 East Union Street
Nearby Metro Rail: Gold Line Memorial Park Station
Nearby Metro Bus Stops: Los Robles/Union (264/267, 686/687), Colorado/Oakland (180/181, 256, 686/687)