THE EVOLVING ROLE OF AIGA, THE PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR DESIGN
Jacques Lange recently asked Ric Grefe, AIGA executive director and Icograda board member, to place AIGA's initiatives in reaching out to international communities and other disciplines in perspective, given AIGA's deep roots in graphic design and its only occasional involvement in Icograda. This article is drawn from Ric Grefe's letter to Jacques, who had expressed an interest based on the curiosity of earlier champions of Icograda.
After nearly a century representing a mainly print-focused, US-based group of designers, AIGA has spent the past several years revising its strategy to serve an increasingly diverse membership. This is represented in AIGA's new mission statement: to advance designing as a professional craft, a strategic tool and a global cultural force.
A
number of messages are contained in this mission. "Designing"
recognises that the value designers create is often based on the way
they think and solve problems, not the things that they make. Yet we
still acknowledge the craft of design: the need for it to have the
ethos of a profession; its role in business strategy; and the role of
its meaning, beauty and effectiveness in civic society and culture.
Our
greatest challenge has been to assure that designers are understood and
valued in a rapidly changing world. Our greatest concern has been that
designers and professional associations of designers could become
irrelevant in a global economy or community that is changing faster
than we are.
As we looked at the challenges facing our
predominantly US-based constituency of designers, we saw the importance
of helping US designers to understand better the needs of improving
communication across cultures. This may have always been evident to
designers from other countries, but the sheer size of the US economy
allowed US designers to work in isolation from many of the cultural
differences that distinguish the world's communities. We believe all
designers in the world must now understand better what is distinct
about divergent cultures, as a matter of cultural relevance and
economic necessity.
At the same time, the evolution of
graphic design practice from the making of two-dimensional artifacts to
the means of communicating messages through multi-dimensional,
strategic, conceptual experiences resulted in AIGA's belief that only
designers value the modifying adjectives of design disciplines (like
graphic design, or environmental graphic design, or exhibition design).
Clients seek "designers," broadly defined, and the highest and best use
of a designer's talent depends on the way he or she solves complex
problems, not bounded by the medium of the outcomes. This is also why
we changed the name of AIGA from the American Institute of Graphic Arts
to AIGA, the professional association for design. We discovered more of
our members described themselves as something other than "graphic
designer" (despite their training in graphic design) than by "graphic
designer," although there was no clear and dominant new name for the
profession as it is practised.
Finally, designers are
concerned, universally, that they are not given the leadership roles
they deserve, whether on collaborative teams or in society as a whole.
Our
members reminded us that the most important contribution AIGA can play
as an association is communicating the role and value of design to
external audiences effectively. A critical element in our program to
increase understanding of design's value is in our strategy to
"demonstrate the value of design by doing valuable things."
When
we considered all of these challenges, we realised that a professional
association could best serve its members by becoming a voice for design
and designing, regardless of discipline. We now welcome designers from
many disciplines although those who find our services and functions
most appropriate are those that consider themselves in the business of
communication design or design thinking. This adaptation to the
evolution of design is not new; it has been decades since the
organisation solely represented the printers and publishers who founded
AIGA in 1914. And it is not different from the observations that have
led to IDA.
In order to address the issue of
cross-cultural understanding, it was important for channels to be
created for US designers to learn more about other cultures and,
probably, the other way around. This led to AIGA's membership in
Icograda and also its interest in opening means of discovery in other
countries not to influence, but to look and listen. Where a liaison
office is opened, it is with a local partner who has encouraged AIGA s
participation.
In China, AIGA is working in
partnership with the Central Academy of Fine Arts, working with Min
Wang, to help to share experiences and knowledge from US educational
institutions with the rapidly growing number of design education
faculties and students in China. This will involve helping to
interconnect the institutions and students and offering information
that might be useful in preparing students for the global design
economy, including the professional standards expected of designers.
The AIGA China office will also facilitate contacts between US
designers and educators with their colleagues in China and will create
links among the US educational community and Chinese educators, at
their initiative, aimed at developing curricula that will help to
prepare Chinese students for the global design economy. This office
will be directed by Amy Gendler, a design educator, fluent in Mandarin,
who will also be teaching at CAFA.
Incidentally, as we
develop contacts with the faculties and listen to what their needs
might be, we will encourage them to become part of the Icograda
Education Network (IEN) as a source of invaluable connections and help.
AIGA's application for consultative NGO status with the
United Nations was motivated more by demonstrating the potential value
of designers' contribution to complex and important social problems,
well beyond the stereotypical perceptions of design's aesthetic
contribution, than by greater international exposure. This role is an
effort, on behalf of all designers, to seek a higher platform to herald
the value of design thinking in ways that are important to other
segments of society. As our members develop positions on issues on the
UN agenda, we will share them with Icograda.
In each
of these cases, AIGA reflects what it believes are the shared interests
of Icograda and its members: to share knowledge and success, to
encourage the development of the design profession locally and
globally, and to raise respect for the contribution designers can make
to society. AIGA's members believe this can be accomplished best by
reducing the barriers that separate us to reveal the leadership
potential of designers, design and design thinking in every form and
society.
About Richarc Grefe
Richard Grefe
Executive director, AIGA
Icograda Vice President 2005>2007
E:
August 2006
About AIGA
AIGA is a professional member of Icograda. For more information visit: www.aiga.org
About CAFA
The Central Academy of Fine Art (CAFA) is a member of the Icograda Education Network. For more information visit: http://www.cafa.com.cn/asp/index.asp