my comment. still awaiting moderation.

As the outgoing president of the Pittsburgh chapter of AIGA, our regional competition was re-tooled years ago along these lines. Initially renamed “CONTEXT”, the competition asked designers to define the objectives, audience and challenges in creating submitted pieces. We still use these criteria today, even as the competition evolves.

The idea was that the show had grown stagnant, with judges selecting the same kind of work year after year, often seeing the sames firms and clients represented. These works were beautifully designed, of course. Many of them served the purpose the clients requested innovatively and creatively. But there is more to design than beauty. There is also effectiveness. Our chapter’s competition today seeks to recognize work that is “effective, meaningful, and beautiful” because we are convicted that good design can be more than just beautiful.

AIGA, like the design profession, is going through some major changes; as an organization, AIGA is trying many new things in response to feedback we receive from members and non-members alike. I do not speak for AIGA in any official capacity. But I can tell you that from the chapter level up to the national staff and board of directors, the organzation is asking a lot of questions about the future of design and what it means to be a graphic designer in the 21st century. This means trying new things. Sometimes it means letting old things go. But I personally believe that AIGA represents our best opportunity as designers for advocacy and visibility outside of our profession, and that the leadership of AIGA is working hard to ensure the position of our industry well into the future.

Paula, I think the points you raise here are valid and worth discussion; but I also believe AIGA is still committed to showcasing “beauty, creativity, surprise, innovation, and inspiration” in design via Design Envy and through other channels. And I think the comment that “The AIGA membership never believes that their clients respect them” is unfair because many of us – myself included – experience respect, appreciation and admiration every day from our clients. I think the comment is editorially powerful, but if you really believe that, I can point you to throngs of AIGA members I know personally who would disagree. I also take issue with the idea that we, as designers, can learn nothing from the results of this competition. It seems premature to call the contest before we’ve seen its outcome, and I imagine that we’ll be surprised with the number of beautiful, innovative and creative solutions that are selected as part of this show.

The call for AIGA to recognize beauty, creativity, surprise, innovation, and inspiration is critical, and it will continue to be. This shift does not mean a departure from these things, it means that AIGA is looking to show us something different and new, in response to feedback from people like you and others in our community of design. I think it’s fair to say that someone in your position of leadership within design should speak out when they feel that our preeminent professional association is making a mistake; I’m glad that you have and I hope that this esay can be a starting place for dialogue on this matter. I believe that good design takes many forms. And I believe that the history of AIGA competitions was not an exhaustive survey of the state of design, just as this competition will not be. But I also believe that the changes the organization is making come from the right place with an eye on the right future.

If you have thoughts on this topic, head over to imprint to check out the original contribution and add your voice.

Front door to Anita Cooney's home, hosting the DI board.

I’m heavily involved in helping DesignInquiry integrate its public website, the DesignInquiry journal website, and archives from as far back  as 2004. In addition, we’ve been working on figuring out our board structure and exploring the future of the organization.

It’s crazy to think about the course DesignInquiry has taken over the past couple of years. I joined the board in 2007, having attended in 2005 and 2006. The organization grew out of the Maine Summer Institute of Graphic Design; in 2005, DesignInquiry was like a miniature grad school with “faculty” including Elliott Earls, Doug Scott, Marlene McCarty, Rick Valicenti and others.

The experience at the time was so amazing for me that I described to friends my emergence on the other side of DesignInquiry as awakening from a “design depression” – something I didn’t even know I was experiencing. It changed the way I thought about design. And in subsequent years, as the structure changed to flat heirarchy, it not only helped me to remember that my particular voice was valuable in design but that intimate collaboration with others can be transformative in the way we think about design and life.

Years later I still benefit from that first DesignInquiry. I believe so much in the work the organization does as it has focused its purpose on creating and disseminating design thought. We have a lot of work to do to figure out where this is going long term, and it’s exciting to be involved.

An improvement, yes?

Beveryl Hsu was an intern of mine over the summer of 2008 and graduated from CMU in 2009.

About a year ago she created some Helvetica cookie cutters which are all over the design blogs right now.

Congrats, Beverly, on the coverage! Now get those cookie cutters into production and make some, uh, dough, while the getting’s good.

You can see Beverly’s Helvetica cookie cutters here.

I downloaded the PDF this morning and it’s a worthy read. Get it here.

• Laminating paper makes it hard (and by hard I mean impossible, because who is going to have the time to peel laminate from chipboard) to recycle.
• Why would a non-recyclable plastic or plastic without a recyclable content indicator be used when recyclable content plastic is no more expensive?
• Did you really choose foamcore as part of your packaging plan?
• Have you considered the environmental implication of every single piece of packaging involved in your custom mold-injected plastic and polystyrene clamshell?

A few weeks ago a bought a candle at Target and was disappointed that the box the candle came in, though about 99% paper, had some kind of plastic – something like transparent tape – holding together the corners. The problem was that this was inside the layers of paper used to build the box, so it wasn’t on the surface and could not be easily removed.

This leaves the consumer with few options: do they recycle the paper & chipboard with the plastic in place, do they throw out the box? For me, it makes me wonder about the choices that were made in creating this box. Did Target even know this was involved in the production of the box? Did they spec it?

I feel constant disappointment with big business that make bad decisions in these respects. I feel like “being green” is commonplace enough that I would expect businesses like Target and others that are progressive with respect to other social issues to be progressive on the environmental front.

What also annoys me is that I thought I was buying a item packaged in a 100% paper carton. I’m not sure if this is a case of “fool me once, shame on you” or “fool me twice, shame on me”. Either way, it serves as a reminder that a little skepticism or cynicism may have prevented this experience.

Go check out:
Pavement Shoes

Lauren Zurchin Studios

Susan Caplan

There are some really obvious decisions one can make when planning print collateral including whether or not the paper we print on is recycled or is sourced through environmentally friendly means, or inks and finishes are low impact (water or soy based). We can look at the print vendor we’re using: are they located thousands of miles from our door and is the shipping from the plant to our threshold offsetting any benefit we might have gained through using other sustainable resources?

I’ve encountered a number of projects recently where the long-term viability of print media is challenged by many factors; changing information is a constant factor in these situations. Companies merge or a rebranding makes collateral obsolete. Hours of operation change, or a major product category is introduced or eliminated.

One of the big things I try to get my clients to consider is sustainability beyond their paper and ink choices. What can we do as a team to help create pieces that will result in little waste, have flexible use, and long-term viability? What are ways that we can make sure that we’re not sending 100 or 1,000 or 100,000 pieces to the recycling bin?

Case in point: One client of mine recently launched a new brand. We had their business cards printed on make-ready stock which actually intervened before scrap was sent to the recycling bin: their job was ganged up on press with another unrelated job. This was an extra step and wasn’t the cheapest option but reduced waste on another company’s project. This was something small that could be applied on a master scale, without a lot of effort, that over thousands or hundreds of thousands of companies could make a really big impact. Virgin stock wasn’t sacrificed in the name of vanity.

It makes me wonder: what other ideas are there for reducing the environmental impact of print pieces and what can be done to improve the sustainability of the pieces that are produced? Ideas, anyone?

What does this mean? That a designer can specify the use of a typeface not on the viewer’s machine!

This has been done before (albeit unreliably) with some technology that Microsoft developed, but this is within a CSS specification which means it’s not a hack! And eventually (at least in theory, even if it’s 5 or 10 years from now), it will work across the board in future browsers.

A few good reads on the topic:
http://hacks.mozilla.org/2009/06/beautiful-fonts-with-font-face/
and
http://craigmod.com/journal/font-face/
(Pardon the dumb punctuation in this 2nd one. While it really doesn’t bother me too much in web typefaces, when I see it in another face it doesn’t look so hot.)

I wonder how long it will take to get all of this working

Thanks to Mike Essl for the links and the info that FF 3.5 is out.

(BTW, Turns out Safari has supported this for a while, since v 3.1. How didn’t I know this?)