The AIGA No Longer Stands for Anything
The AIGA is no longer American Institute of Graphic Arts. (Thanks to Darrel for the tip)
Early in my career, I paid close attention to what the AIGA was doing. I was eager for their Experience Design initiative to make the organization relevant in this new more-than-print design world. As part of that kick-off I enjoyed a great pep rally led by then AIGA President Clement Mok at 37Signals‘ office. It was inspiring, but that nothing else happened – at least for the next 3 years I was in Chicago.
I’ve had some involvement with the local AIGA-MN chapter, especially with their student Portfolio One-on-One event. I’ve also helped out with their website and a couple other events. Each one leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth.
A half-decade after Mok’s Experience Design roadshow – the AIGA is in a more dire position. Its voice is fading, relevance to a working designer barely worth membership fees. Rather than encouraging the “Experience Designers” to take over and bring the organization into the 21st century, members at both the local and national levels have squandered opportunity after opportunity, tripping over themselves, while disenfranchising the same people it was trying to attract.
This name change feels like an inexperienced designer declaring all their client’s problems will be solved with a new logo design.
We all still know the F in KFC stands for fried.
Elsewhere: 25 Apr 2007
6 Comments
What bothers me the most about the new name is the complete ownership of the term ‘design’. It’s either a bold, aggressive step saying that the AIGA is really about design as a whole, but, in reality, it just smells of desperation.
If they needed a new name, I was always partial to the magazine ‘Communication Arts’. Seemed to sum up the profession a bit better than ‘graphic arts’.
Even though I’ve been a long time member for the AIGA, I’m trying to decide if the name change really effects me or better yet if I really care. Surprisingly enough I rarely find myself in a position where I need to “explain” the AIGA.
My mother is still grappling with what it is that I do/how designers actually make money so explaining what AIGA represents won’t get me anywhere. Also I’m not sure about anyone else, but the last job interview I had where the “design director” didn’t know what the AIGA was didn’t prompt an explanation. Instead he received a simple “thank you for your time but I don’t think this position will be a very good fit for me.”
So I guess the question is… Who are we worried about not understanding an acronym? The general design/communication industry already knows about the AIGA and it seems that the general public would be better served with a generic explanation of design than a dialogue about the name of a professional organization.
I don’t have much experience with the AIGA but I can relate.
I remember when Clement Mok came to town a couple of years ago. I attended his AIGA luncheon with a small contingent from U.S. Bank. This was probably the same pep rally you attended in Chicago. At the time, he had good things to say about experience design and I felt hopeful that the AIGA was starting to reclaim lost ground to the usability testing folks who were venturing deep into the field(s) of interaction and experience design.
Why do you think Clement failed to attract a critical mass of experience design professionals and evolve the organization? After all, he was heading the organization back then so you can’t wholly blame institutional inertia. The answer is much larger than the AIGA of course (art & design colleges are part of the equation, for example) but I think it was in part due to a relative lack of UXP people to the core established membership of print designers. I’m sure it’s the same situation today.
I’m new to the AIGA, thanks to my new employer footing the hefty dues, and am interested in lending a hand to change things. I probably won’t be able to change anything myself but I will be able to affect those I work with. When I volunteered for the Portfolio One-on-One event two years ago, I had a number of conversations with older design professionals who were trying to figure out this whole experience design thing. This is how change happens.
The most difficult aspect of change is the rate of change. For most, it’s too fast, for a few, it’s too slow.
While attending an AIGA event in ’97, specifically a web design session, one of the points the speaker made was that “The web still needs to be designed.” What seemed like a fairly inspiring call to action in retrospect is a direct contributor to the mess we currently call web design. Naturally, instead of focusing on info architecture, quick and easy delivery of content, and intuitive GUI, print designers everywhere decided to masturbate all over the web.
The AIGA is wonderful in theory. In reality, well, er, I don’t have the time to go into it. Let’s just say that for the second time in my 8 year career I’m letting my membership die.
“Why do you think Clement failed to attract a critical mass of experience design professionals and evolve the organization?”
Too little, too late, IMHO. By the time he took the reigns, I think interactive designers had already found their own networking groups locally and online.
I share your feelings and that’s why I never bothered to join based on advice I received from a design teacher. That’s why I admire what behance is doing these days. I even went to a partner-up event with the AIGA chapter in Los Angeles which was not bad, but still very AIGA in feeling. I think that if the AIGA took a stranger stand on teaching and mentoring the newer generations and inspiring more innovative thinking, things would be better.