There are three categories of recognition:

Above and Beyond Award
Recognizes Atlanta members who have served the chapter and the community with extra effort and effectiveness, typically for more than 5 years. Any member may nominate another member. Above and Beyond Awards honorees will be recognized at the Big Night event in July, and on AIGA-Atl.org. This is a new award for Atlanta’s chapter.

AIGA Fellow Award
The Fellow award program recognizes AIGA members who have made a outstanding contribution to raising the standards of excellence in practice and conduct within their local or regional design community as well as in their local AIGA chapter throughout their careers. The areas of education, writing, leadership and reputation, as well as the practice of design are given equal consideration in measuring significant contribution. Fellow Awards are nominated at the chapter level and awarded by AIGA national.

AIGA Medalist
This is AIGA’s ‘lifetime achievement’ award for outstanding creative careers. Nominations for this go through the AIGA National Office. Information and nomination for AIGA Medalists.

Thanks for your participation in AIGA-Atlanta! Hope to see you soon.
Questions? Email David@AIGA-atl.org

membership drive, it’ll be even sweeter than ever.

During this limited time you will not only receive all of the benefits

of your AIGA membership, we will also send you a special gift to

express our gratitude, and enter your name for a chance to win one of

our sweet prizes.

Join, renew or upgrade today!

Up until just 30 years ago when the desktop computer debuted, this whole process would have been primarily done by hand, and with the aide of fascinating machines that used a variety of ways to get type and image on to the printed page.

Mad Men gives us viewers small glimpses into this detail-oriented, time-consuming process—but working as a commercial/graphic artist in the pre-desktop computer era entailed a lot more than marker comps for client meetings. Graphic Means will explore these methods and the skilled people who used them.

LEARN MORE

I’m pleased to announce an exciting and groundbreaking new program called

AIGA Innovate.

The idea is to leverage the tremendous creativity of AIGA’s national membership by providing funding ideas for new, original, and impactful programs or activities that might otherwise never happen.

Any AIGA member can submit a request for funding by downloading the forms from the web, registering it with their AIGA chapter, and then submitting on line.

The innovation fund is purposefully broad in scope- so as not to rule out any ‘outlier’ ideas. They can be in any area in which design affects business, society, culture.

A FEW IMPORTANT NOTES:

• Deadline for submissions is February 19– however the application process is streamlined-it’s all about great ideas and good teams!

• Your program needs to include an AIGA-Atlanta board member in the application process—We’re all here and excited to help you. If you have questions or would like to talk to a member of the local board about sponsoring your idea, just email (addresses available in the link above)

• While Innovate AIGA is open to all sorts of ideas, project ideas that demonstrate support the strategic framework of AIGA have the best chance of getting funded

For details, program guidelines, grant sizes, and how to apply, please visit

<http://www.aiga.org/aiga-innovate/>

Let’s make the Atlanta community a leader in this program—bring forward your bold,  innovative ideas to use design for something impactful and exciting.

David Laufer

Who is Jared Spool?

A software developer and programmer, Jared founded User Interface Engineering in 1988. He has more than 15 years of experience conducting usability evaluations on a variety of products, and is an expert in low-fidelity prototyping techniques.

Jared is on the faculty of the Tufts University Gordon Institute and teaches seminars on product usability. He is a member of SIGCHI, the Usability Professionals Association, the Association for Computing Machinery, and the IEEE. Jared is a recognized authority on user interface design and human factors in computing. He is a regular tutorial speaker at the annual CHI conference and Society for Technical Communications conferences around the country.

You can follow his musings on Twitter and read his UX insights on the UIE blog.

This event is also the Grand Opening of PolygonATL! Join us for food, fun, and festivities! This will be one event you won’t want to miss. 

This Event is Brought to You by: 

Polygon is the new tech, web, & creative event space in Midtown Atlanta. It’s the perfect spot for meetups, hackathons, workshops, and plenty more. We can hold up to 150 people in a theater setting, are close to 17 delicious restaurants, right around the corner from the Twelve Hotel, and are close to any other amenity you might need.  Since we are in Atlantic Station, we have plenty of parking and valet. Our rates are affordable too! Check out the site and get the full scoop here:http://polygonatl.com

We also offer sponsorship packages to put your brand in front of hundreds and hundreds of Atlanta’s smartest people every month. Put your logo on the wall and get their attention! We look forward to seeing you at Polygon soon!

Strongbox West

Strongbox West is Atlanta’s longest running co-working space. Based in West Midtown, we cater to startups, freelancers, and entrepreneurs and provide fun, affordable, and professional work space. Find out more information here: http://www.strongboxwest.com

As another great benefit to being an AIGA member, your Atlanta chapter bought all of our folks a membership to the Museum of Design Atlanta. Anyone who was an AIGA member as of Jan. 1, 2012 received this gift.

MODA is the only design museum in the southeast, and we are fortunate to have access to such a cultural gem so close by. They bring exhibitions that showcase excellence in many types of design, including graphic, interior, architecture, urban planning, etc.

The current show is called “Skate It or Hang It?” and features the designs of hundreds of unique skateboards, old and new. The exhibit tells the story of how artists are influenced by skater culture, and vice versa. It opened on June 16 and will run through September 16, 2012. Visit here for more details:

Take advantage of this great member benefit and support your design museum!

I had dinner recently with an old friend that I worked with years ago, and we chatted about our various experiences in attending AIGA events.

She mentioned that she didn’t always go to as many as she would like, sometimes simply because she didn’t have anyone to go with her. It struck me as odd that someone who is so successful in her design career and comfortable in every other social situation, would feel a little awkward arriving at a design industry event without someone to meet her.

It occurs to me that we’re people who are comfortable being visually creative every day, but we need to practice being verbally creative as well. It starts by taking the initiative to introduce yourself to someone new. Why do people hate that simple step so much? It can’t be fear of rejection; it’s not like approaching someone in a bar and you know nothing about them and whether they want to meet someone new or not.

At an AIGA event, you’re in a room full of people who are there because they love design just like you do, and who always want to chat and expand their networks — boom, guaranteed conversational success. These people did the exact same thing that you did at work today: trying to figure out if the client’s customer would react better to Pantone 315 or 316, and trying convince another client that building a mobile app that gives drivers on-road eye exams may not be the best solution for their marketing plan.

Use your creative process skills to give you the kickoff that you need. Prep before the pitch: spend a few minutes reading about the event speaker’s background, and you’re armed with instant conversation starters. Once you get going, finding common ground from there is easy.

Steal these ideas:

• Did you see the (speaker’s) recent work for that company?
• Isn’t this (venue) interesting? Have you been to anything here before?
• I’m working on a project that is similar to the (speaker’s) topic tonight, so I want to hear their approach.
• I was reading the event description when I registered and it reminded me that (insert anything).

Even if you are standing alone only because you’re waiting for a friend to arrive, use those moments to make a connection. The person that you introduce yourself to could turn out to be the web developer your company is looking for, a production manager who could recommend a great vendor for your complex folding job, or an information graphics expert who can help you bring your client’s mess of dull data to life (all people that I have met).

And don’t make me remind you about bringing business cards; when it comes to that little (artfully designed) piece of paper, the act of handing it to someone instantly gives the card a lot of value. It carries the weight of your future connection with that new person.

Your AIGA Atlanta board members do our best to grab people who are standing alone at events, and engage them in conversation. We love meeting more of our fellow designers and finding out what interests you in the community. It’s those conversations that help us decide what future events we should produce and spark ideas for campaigns that our chapter should be working on. I encourage you to walk right up and introduce yourself to the board members (look for the word ‘Board’ on our badges); we’d like to connect you with other folks as well.

In all the years I have attended AIGA events, regardless of the venue or the event topic, I have never found anyone whom I approached to be anything but welcoming and glad that I had started the conversation. Think about everything you have to gain from making another connection in our community, and how the skill of being at ease in meeting new people can translate in all kinds of ways in your professional life. Hiring managers often say that a candidate who is relaxed and confident in an interview situation makes a strong impression.

While AIGA has given me a great amount of professional development and career opportunities, it’s really the relationships it helps me create that have proved to be the most valuable benefit of my membership.

Those relationships each began with the tiny efforts I made along the way to talk to new people at industry events. Don’t waste those opportunities!

— Lynn Browder