AIGA 2008
Dear DFW Communications Community:
It is the start of another year and this year is the most exciting I’ve been a part of as a board member of AIGA DFW. Last year, I sent an open letter to establish where we were going for the year and I thought it a good idea to do the same this year. However, this year will be an ongoing monthly communiqué about aspects of our mission and how we will be accomplishing those goals.
Operationally, the DFW board has decided to focus on four core areas: design leadership, innovation, community, and advocacy. All of our programs and initiatives must meet at least one (if not more) of these criteria. For example out business lunch series fit the leadership category (business development), innovation (we were the first design organization in DFW to offer business based lunch programming) and community (we leveraged speakers with ties to the community). Our partnership with Adobe is another one of those areas. AIGA’s national partnership with Adobe allowed us to be the first to offer a preview of CS3 and continues to allow us to develop custom programs to meet the needs of the community that no other organization can offer. In addition, our Adobe partnership allows for 15% of each purchase of Adobe products for members of AIGA. Our programming and initiatives will continue to innovate and meet more and more of these criteria. This first letter will focus on advocacy for the profession. Each month will preview programming and initiatives that will have a big impact. Please do not hesitate to give me feedback, ideas, etc. This is a community organization; it is your chapter.
Advocacy and Design Awareness
There’s an old joke that circulates amongst designers that “my parents don’t even get what I do.� We all sort of chuckle and laugh but in the end, the time of this being funny has passed. I’m by no means a seasoned veteran but, I heard that joke at my very first job out of college, 10 years ago. I look at the various other design disciplines such as interior design, architecture and space planning, industrial design and even related fields such as interactive and new media design and they have better understanding by the business populus than graphic or communication design.
Does anyone else find it ironic that in a profession who’s core is communication, we have failed to communicate what we do and the value of our profession? That begs the question, who’s responsibility is to change that trend and what would the long term effects of that be?
The answer is the professional organization. Each and every one of us as individuals has enough on our plate and the companies for which we work have a mission to generate business and commerce to keep the doors open. The professional organization is the one that has taken the mantle of supporting the community’s professional development and to promote the job or discipline for whom they represent.
This is one of the core principles by which the AIGA DFW will operate this year. While we make a commitment to you to provide excellent programming for professional development purposes, we have also devised a series of initiatives and integrated programming for both communications professionals and the larger business community. Why? To expose them to what communication design is, the value of our services and, in the end, create value for the profession. This has an effect over time of curbing the eroding rates designers currently receive, creates respect for our profession as a viable and necessary business tool and ensures the long term health and well-being of design.
Our plan for this process will unfold over time but one of the hallmark events will be the spring and will involve one of the AIGA’s national board members, Bennett Peji. Bennett is currently owns a design firm in San Diego but has become minister of cultural affairs for the city by way of winning a city planning contract that was approached from a branding perspective.
With the amount of growth the metroplex is incurring, an intentional and brand based perspective on population growth, district branding and city planning is ripe for the business community to hear and internalize. We are very excited about this event and look forward to many designer’s attendance. We also are excited about the feedback we have gotten from businesses, development companies, city governments, real estate firms, etc. and we already know many of them will be attending.
To round out this conversation, I’d like to reinforce that during my involvement in AIGA over the last five years, we have never asked for anyone to join. We realized that in order to ask, we had to be able to answer the fundamental question, “What’s my benefit?� There are many national benefits to being and AIGA member but we felt as thought there needed to be more that translated to the local level. I do, now, feel comfortable in saying that there are distinct benefits to being a member. One of those is that we will be building value for your profession at the local level. You money for membership will go directly toward initiatives to increase the value and esteem for your profession. I’d invite you all to consider membership over the course of this year and I will be discussing the value of membership in future monthly emails. In the meantime, if you have any questions, comments, feedback or concerns you can email me at prez@aigadfw.org or any of our other board members and we’ll get back to you promptly.
Sincerely,
Bo Parker
AIGA DFW President
Posted by dallas in Board Posting | October 15, 2007