As we come up on the the busiest time of the year for most, I wanted to take a minute and talk about what AIGA Idaho has been working on. One of my stated goals when I took office as President is to start an AIGA Idaho design awards competition. I’m happy to announce that we now have a committee laying the framework for that, and you should see a call for entries in the coming months. I believe that we have a responsibility to recognize the great design work that is coming out of our community, judged from an outside perspective. Our friends at the Idaho Advertising Federation have done a great job of recognizing work in the field of marketing and advertising, and it’s our goal to do the same for design. Of course, as with any new initiative, there are myriad unknowns to balance. At the core of it, the real question is “What would our members see value in, in terms of a design competition?” I put that question out to you, and welcome your insight and feedback as we put this into motion. Please feel free to email me directly at president@aigaidaho.org.
The design awards are the only thing we’ve been working on, though. With an organization like this, it is critical to get some protocol in place to pass down to future board members, and for that, I’ve tasked all current AIGA Idaho board members to produce a handbook for their position by the end of their term. Doing this should help alleviate the lag in board change-over and allow our programming and initiatives to flow more seamlessly across the calendar year. Part of that, on the programming side, means building some foundation and recurrance in our events. For example, our social event, Drink 4 Design, will be held on the last Thursday of the month, every month. We are also kicking off a ‘Creative Coffee’ morning meetup, which will focus on topic-driven design banter. That event kicks off on November 4, where we will have special guest Joe Bosack join us at Moon’s Kitchen. This event will also occur monthly on a set schedule, so if you have any feedback about time/date/place, please let us know. Small, free events like this are critical to getting people together, talking about design and our industry and building the community. As well, we will continue the tradition of larger, more involved events such as movie screenings, workshops and guest speakers. Look for these events to fill out the calendar in the near future, as we get them planned out.
As always, I welcome your feedback on this or anything else related to the Idaho design community.
We’ll see you at the next event!
Steve Norell
President, AIGA Idaho
