THE Professional Association for Design
I recently attended a leadership retreat for members of the board of directors of the AIGA - the professional association for design. I am on the board of the San Francisco chapter and have been for about four years now and have attended three of these retreats. Let me tell you, there's a lot to be proud of not only in being a member of the AIGA, but also in being a part of the design world, in general.
This retreat (of which there are about 250 attendees of the 56 chapters of the AIGA across the US) was held in San Francisco and was hosted by our chapter this year. Of course, that made it special for us, but what comes out of these weekend retreats keeps building from the previous year and attempts to keep up with the atmosphere and needs of the graphic design world and entire AIGA membership.
Not only is the AIGA rebranding itself as the professional association for design, we are actually attempting to live it.
There are many communities of interest in our community such as Experience Design, Design Education, and Cross-cultural Design and there are AIGA Inititives like Inequality Matters and AIGA Disaster Relief which go deeper into the overall world of design and the actual people involved. As board members, we gather to talk about these things and more and try to move them forward as well as begin new projects to serve our members which we represent.
Believe me, it's not all hug-hug/kiss-kiss and patting ourselves on the back. It's very far from that, in my view. We work very hard over those two-and-a-half days and produce a lot of data, information, and "homework" to take back to our chapters. Of course, there's a lot of fun and bonding time, not to mention a few opportunities to throw a few back, but the overall focus is to continue (the retreat theme this year was "Continuum") what has been started from past retreats and to keep it going.
The AIGA has gained a reputation in recent years as being stodgy and a stuffy, almost "white-men's" club. I don't know how that came about, but that's so not the case. Maybe since the design profession in itself has a reputation of being snooty and high-brow, it sort of naturally trickled through to get pinned on this association. From top to bottom, this organization is so friendly, helpful, and resourceful and all of the members that I come in contact with are great and always willing to assist, I just have to say that this moniker is old and out-of-date.
So, we all left San Francisco, except my board, of course, and took all of our new ideas and tasks back to our respective memberships. In my experience, it doesn't stop there. As leaders and folks passionate about the art and profession of graphic design, seeing these ideas and tasks get carried through is all part of the commitment. If you're reading this and are a member of the AIGA, thank you! If you've never been, or think there's nothing in it for you, please consider or reconsider it. The AIGA has definitely made a difference in my professional and personal life, so I hope it can do the same for you. Get ready for the things to come!
It's good to here that the AIGA is having some measure of success with this campaign, but I to am of the opinion that they are a 'gentlemen's club' pretty much because they don't really do much for what is paid to them in dues. Events are usually to expensive for non-members to consider, and then being a member the event costs are still high. AIGA can real in students for a nice low fee of 60 dollars, but once you go professional it's 300 a year. This is a very hard commitment for first year designers who already live on a shoestring budget.
I also havent seen much out of the AIGA in regards to ethics in the field, places like Logoworks having issues of taking art from other places, lacking the QC to check for this. And lack of support for the NO Spec crusade when it had first launched. They instead seem to be pushing more for the political reforms and social reforms, ignoring issues within our industry.
Things may have changed on the inside, but they really need to show it externally.
I'm of a similar opinion myself. While it no doubt is beneficial to have a group you can associate with professionally, the price is too expensive when you're a starving artist. It reeks of fraternity qualities when you're paying to network with like-minded people, when many would argue that if art is to be free and for everyone, why shouldn't its organizations be also?
Even a modest price would be more ideal and allow a great influx of people to join and associate with one another. For example, many professional computer guilds and associations have membership fees, but are more or less under 50 dollars (roughly the price for dinner and a movie). Other professional trades are completely free and run off of donations from corporations or the members themselves. A few minutes with Google and you start to see a common trend with many groups, which is "get out to the masses, get known, and get everyone knowing everyone else as cheaply as possible."
On the flipside, the art profession (in general that is) tends to recoil and draw inward more, and this could explain AIGA's restrictive pricing (or do they only consider people who make over a certain wage bracket to be "professional"?). Is it to keep elements out of the institute? Is it fear of regular folks being as good at design as those trained? Let's face it...we're designers, we're artists, and we're all professionals. We aren't however doing brain surgery or working for NASA, and it's time to step off the pedestal some.
Despite all of the above, I still think it has potential. Honestly, any social network which can help out the freelancer or wage-slave is a good thing in my opinion. I just think the mentality in the art community is abit skewed sometimes, and perhaps we need to focus on what's really important, the art and the people behind the art. Until then, I'll be sitting in the sidelines with the free groups and dissidents.
Or I'll be making a group of my own.
The AIGA would be more effective if they stopped preaching to the choir and spent more time educating the public on the importance of design in the average person's daily life.
But if you want to get out and about and throw a few back, hey, no better crowd than designers.
SDK
AIGA here in Indianapolis has some nice meet-ups and they did sponsor a student portfolio evaluation which helped the kids just graduating from college quite a bit. But I'm disconcerted about their membership fees.
The price of membership, especially when you're an employee or a one-man-band. They could at least offer a payment plan.
Professional organizations add a needed dimension to a profession. But since I don't have a "Sugar Mama," I can't afford to join. Just doesn't seem right.
I'm a student member in Arkansas and I agree with the guy talking about membership fee's. When I get out of college I don't think i'll be able to afford it... even though I'd love to stay a member.
If you haven't seen any value in being a member of AIGA then you haven't been living in New Orleans. AIGA stepped up in a big way to help us out down here. They sent an ambulance filled with everything you could possibly need as a graphic designer and handed it all out for free to ALL designers in need not just members. They came with computers (macs), monitors, printers, scanners, and office supplies. They furnished some desingers with a whole studio of equipment. Most designers had nothing left and AIGA put them back in buisness. Without them most of us would have been even more out of luck. Check out http://www.displaceddesigner.com/. There you can see photos of the MBulance trip. All I can say is THANK YOU AIGA for doing what was needed at the time it was needed. They got the job done.
A classmate of mine was on that Mbulance, it travelled all the way from NH to New Orleans gathering equipment on the way. I'm glad you mentioned that because it reminded me of some good that they are doing. I suppose I was/am just bitter about the cost of joining the organization. I'm glad they were able to do good for those people that suffered because of Katrina.
Mike here, the author of this blog entry. I thought I'd take a moment to address some of the comments made about the AIGA.
First of all, THANK YOU for reading and posting comments.
OK, now onto the meat.
It seems like most of the comments deal with the price of membership in the AIGA. Student membership pricing is currently at $75 per year, and then, graduating students get to ease-in to the professional rate by getting 50%-off the current Associate member rates (or $105). The Associate member rate of $210 is for professionals in the field with less than 2 years' experience. Once you've practiced for more than 2 years, the $295 Professional fee kicks in. If you're a full-time teacher, the fee is $110. There is also group pricing which saves on membership fees. AND, all of this can be spread out over 4 monthly payments through the year. Are we now clear on that part?
Regarding the supposed high cost of attending events - chapters do their own event planning and admission pricing, so it's really up to the chapters. In the SF chapter, we have student, student-member, member, and non-member pricing.
Most of the events' admission price is between $10-$25. We have many events where student members are admitted free. Events, speakers, etc. can be costly to produce and require funds to run them and bodies to put them together. I've got an idea - why don't you volunteer to be on the events committee of your local chapter and you may be able to get into events free! You can also voice your ideas and concerns on the chapter level.
In terms of the value of the AIGA and getting the message of the importance of design out to the general public and not just the design community, that is occuring all the time and is addressed continuously. The only way, we, as design professionals, can be taken seriously and actually add to the importance of life and business, is to get out there and educate the various communities who don't have a clue about the importance of design or even what design is. Please visit the AIGA website to see the MANY ways in which the AIGA gets out there to do just this. We need a lot of help in doing this, and it cannot be done by one community of designers. We need assistance from all areas of the graphic design community - students, in-house designers, freelance designers, seasoned designers, and retired designers, just to name a few. Don't forget advertising and architectural professionals, as well.
I guess the bottom line is, if you have ideas and comments about the aiga and your local chapter, please get involved and let your voice be heard on the chapter level. Believe me, the chapters and committees need you.
Thank you for allowing my rebuttal and keep on reading!
Mike