Alphabet City

“Designers are geeks for type,” admits Elysia Syriac of AIGA Colorado, the local chapter of the national graphic-design organization. And that’s really the only explanation she can give for how a group of the professional compatriots came up with the idea of an urban-adventure scavenger hunt in search of, well, typography. That’s the whole idea behind Terminal Velocity, a downtown-Denver challenge for teams of two to four people hunting down an elusive alphabet hiding in plain sight across the urban vista.

Merging Denver’s beloved bike culture with a little bit of designer geekdom, the race will send teams, Instagram-ready smartphones in hand, racing around downtown to find the alphabet, using thirteen photo clues provided and thirteen open-ended clues. Syriac hopes to see it become an annual event that could perhaps spread to other chapters across the country.

It all begins today at 11 a.m. at the I Heart Denver store on the second level of the Denver Pavilions, 500 16th Street; after the 2 p.m. deadline, everyone will retire to the Matchbox, 2625 Larimer Street, for an after-party with awards. And you know what? It’s not a cloistered event. “You don’t have to be a type geek” to participate, Syriac says. You just have to love your bike and your city…and have a good eye. Registration is $10 per person (which includes a beautiful hand-printed poster by the letterpress geniuses at Matter); go to bit.ly/LDKUap to RSVP.

Sat., June 23, 11 a.m.-2 p.m., 2012