Monthly news and updates for AIGA members
April 2001
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Contents
News and information
Register by April 30 and save
$150--Voice: AIGA National
Design Conference
Watch for 365: AIGA Year in Design, the new
AIGA annual
New board of directors elected
Sign up for your AIGA affinity card
Currently in the AIGA gallery
Propaganda! Cuban political and film posters
Advocacy updates
AIGA takes on advocacy issues
AIGA prevails in California Supreme Court sales tax
case
AIGA joins brief before U.S. Supreme Court on designers'
rights
Coming soon
AIGA publishes professional issues brochures
"Exposure" is theme of second issue of
Trace
AIGA|Aquent Survey of Design Salaries 2001
Opportunities to get involved
Participate in AIGA's membership survey
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Welcome to Communiqué
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Welcome to the first issue of AIGA's new e-mail newsletter!
Members have told us repeatedly that they want more information
about AIGA activities. Although we have been able to provide
an increasing amount of current information about AIGA on www.aiga.org,
members have continued to ask us to push information their way.
Communiqué, previously our news section in the AIGA Journal,
is now a monthly e-mail. Each month, we'll let you know about
important and interesting things that are happening and provide
you with links to more information.
We welcome comments that will help us make Communiqué as useful as possible to you (send e-mail to communique@aiga.org).
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News and information
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Register by April 30 and save $150--Voice: AIGA National Design
Conference
September 23-26, 2000, Marriott Wardman Park Hotel,
Washington, D.C.
AIGA's ninth biennial national design conference will celebrate
design, bring together our community and explore ways in which
designers can use their voices to make a difference to society
now and in the future. How and through what channels do designers
speak? How are they heard? And what kinds of meaningful things
do they have to say? It is time for the profession to take its
place in public discourse and we need your help.
This year's conference promises to be an especially magnificent one--with a closing party in the majestic lobby of the Library of Congress; Peabody award-winning journalist John Hockenberry (back by popular demand) moderating two and a half days of stimulating presentations and discussions with the best thinkers and makers in the USA and beyond; and the chance for attendees to learn how to give "voice" to the profession's interests through lobbying activity.
The dates are September 23-26, 2001 and the place is Washington, D.C. What better location to examine the intersection of social responsibility, politics and design?
Confirmed speakers include:
Stefan Sagmeister, Dave Eggers, Alfredo Jaar, Luba Lukova, Kalle
Lasn and Mike Simons, David Isay, Ken Garland, Sylvia Harris,
James Nachtwey, Golan Levin, Natalie Jeremijenko, Jonathan Barnbrook,
Teal Triggs and Sian Cook, Shawn Wolfe, Ben Rubin, Carin Goldberg,
Paula Scher, Samuel Antupit, Sue Coe, WorldStudio, Saki Mafundikwa,
Steven Heller, Michael Bierut, Clement Mok and Maxey Andress.
In breakout sessions, you'll get practical tools and strategies for instigating change at a grassroots or global level and for integrating social and political engagement in everyday working practice. Breakout session topics include: sound design, motion graphics, typography, editorial design, professional practices.
Other activities: There will be D.C. design studio tours and
special behind-the-scenes visits to Washington's finest museums.
Advisory committee: Milton Glaser, Chris Dixon, James Victore,
Emily Oberman, Mark Randall, Nicholas Blechman, Sylvia Harris,
Michael Worthington, Janet Abrams, Katherine McCoy, Steven Heller
and AIGA president Michael Bierut.
For more information and to register, visit the AIGA website.
Watch for 365: AIGA Year in Design,
the new AIGA annual
This year's annual, 365: AIGA Year in Design, has
been printed and bound, and is now shipping from the mailing
house. All professional members who joined prior to December
31, 2000 will receive a copy by third-class mail, in early to
mid-May. This year's volume heralds a new era in which the annual
will be a memorable artifact. This year's was designed by Jennifer
Sterling, Jennifer Sterling Design, San Francisco, with a full
spread for most selections, serving designers' inherent respect
for both scope and fetishist detail.
Professional members who joined on or after January 1, 2001 will receive the annual for this year's competitions, which will come out early next year, rather than the one that is currently being mailed.
New board of directors elected
For the first time, professional members voted online
for this year's slate of nominees for the national board of directors.
The following slate of nominees was approved by the membership,
and takes office July 1, 2001 for three years, except where noted.
Biographical
information about the nominees is available on the AIGA website.
Dana Arnett, VSA Partners, Chicago
John Chuang, Aquent, Boston
Nigel Holmes, Westport, Connecticut
Terry Irwin, MetaDesign, San Francisco
Clement Mok, Sapient, San Francisco
Terry Swack, Boston
Gong Szeto, Rare Medium, New York
Margaret Youngblood, Landor Associates, San Francisco
Current members of the national board continuing their service are:
Marc English, Marc English: Design, Austin, TX
Peter Girardi, Funny Garbage, New York
Bill Grant, Grant Design Collaborative, Atlanta
John Maeda, MIT, Cambridge
Jennifer Morla, Morla Design, San Francisco
Sam Shelton, KINETIK Communication Graphics, Washington, D.C.
Petrula Vrontikis, Vrontikis Design Office, Los Angeles
The 2001 nominating committee was comprised of:
Ann Willoughby, Kansas City, Missouri (chair)
Lana Rigsby, Houston
Janet DeDonato, Seattle
Sheila Hart, Cleveland
Steve Pattee, Des Moines
Sign up for your AIGA affinity card
Members should have received a direct mail piece about
the new AIGA affinity card. We want to encourage members to use
the card so that the AIGA logo gains visibility as it is handed
across the counter in establishments across the country. To get
the card, call 800 847 7378 and mention priority code AESS. To
learn more, visit the AIGA website.
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Currently in the AIGA gallery
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Propaganda! Cuban political and film posters
April 12-June 29, 2001
AIGA Gallery, 164 Fifth Avenue, New York
The first of its kind in New York, this exhibition will present
original silk-screened political posters dating from the 1950s
to the late 1990s. The exhibition represents the importance of
the Cuban poster both in disseminating political messages and
in demonstrating Cuba's art culture as a thriving international
force.
A special highlight of this show will be a rare collection of film posters designed by Cuban artists for both Cuban and foreign films. To learn more, visit the AIGA website.
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Advocacy updates
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AIGA takes on advocacy issues
The effect of unclear ballot design has given us an
opportunity to advocate forcefully the value of effective information
design for a participatory democracy. We are pursuing this opportunity
aggressively, with the executive director meeting with members
of Congress regularly to persuade them to initiate Guiding Principles
for Federal Information Design. The goal is to implement information
design criteria in Social Security and Medicare reform, immigration
reform and the Internal Revenue Service.
Already, we have begun to make an impact. AIGA was asked to provide the information design expert for FEC hearings on ballot reform in May. Carnegie Foundation, MIT and CalTech, who are working together on voting improvements, are seeking a team of AIGA designers to advise them. A number of Congressional sponsors of legislation are also ready to ask AIGA's assistance if their legislation is enacted.
The advocacy campaign will continue through 2002. Our conference in Washington, D.C., in September will be a midpoint in the campaign, raising clearly the issue of the role design plays in civil society. We are developing a handbook for grassroots advocacy to assist in you in giving voice to your interests locally.
AIGA prevails in California Supreme
Court sales tax case
The California Supreme Court ruled in favor of illustrator,
Heather Preston, in her case, Preston v. State Board of Equalization.
AIGA signed on to an amicus brief in the case and provided financial
support on behalf of designers' rights. Preston challenged California's
right to require that sales tax be collected on the licenses
of reproduction rights to her artwork.
AIGA has commissioned an issue paper based on the resolution of the sales tax issue in New York state and now California for designers to use with tax authorities in all 50 states. It should be available as an issue paper on the website in June.
AIGA joins brief before U.S. Supreme
Court on designers' rights
AIGA has joined the amicus brief of ASMP in the Tasini
case, which seeks to protect the rights of designers who have
allowed the use of visual work created for print from being republished
electronically without further compensation.
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Coming soon
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Be sure to check the dynamic
calendar on our website and local mailings to keep track
of all the chapter activities occurring across the nation.
AIGA publishes professional issues
brochures
Three professional issues brochures will be mailed
to members in May, each designed to reinforce AIGA's role in
promoting professionalism in designer-client relationships. These
brochures are the first in a series we are planning in order
to associate AIGA members with the highest ethical standards
in the profession and to help in promoting with business the
value of using a professional designer (i.e., a member who has
signed onto AIGA's standards for professional practice).
A Client's Guide to Design will help clients understand how to select a designer, how to manage a designer and what role the client should have in offering creative direction.
Business and Ethical Expectations for Professional Designers is a reference on the professional standards a client can expect a professional designer to demonstrate in his or her work with a client.
The Use of Fonts will explain issues related to the use of fonts, specifically when it is necessary to license a font.
Additional brochures in this series, to be published in the fall, will deal with use of illustration and the rights to software. The full series is made possible by Aquent and SMART Papers. The brochure on the use of fonts receives additional support from Agfa Monotype.
"Exposure" is theme of
second issue of Trace
The second issue of Trace: AIGA Journal
of Design, AIGA's reconceived journal, takes on the theme
of "Exposure," examining such diverse design phenomena
as celebrity dolls, stadium stunts and mammoth monographs to
propaganda posters, Hollywood testimonials and teen magazines.
This issue will include a special photo portfolio of "Bollywood"
film studios by Adam Bartos. Members will receive Trace in May.
http://www.aiga.org/trace
AIGA|Aquent Survey of Design Salaries
2001
The 2001 salary survey will be published and mailed
to all professional and associate members in late May. Top-line
data will be available on the AIGA website.
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Opportunities to get involved
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Participate in AIGA's membership survey
For the first time ever, we will be conducting a membership
survey via the web. Sometime after May 1, you will receive an
e-mail message from us with a web link to the survey. Please
take a few moments to complete the survey and let us know what's
going right as well as areas in which you feel improvement is
needed.
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About Communiqué
This newsletter is e-mailed monthly to AIGA members. To unsubscribe,
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AIGA
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Graphic Arts
164 Fifth Avenue New York NY 10010 | 212 807 1990
communique@aiga.org
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about design
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