AIGA’s “Next” Conference Looks to the Future of Design, October 11–14 in Denver, CO

NEW YORK, June 5, 2007. AIGA, the professional association for design, will explore the future of design in its 12th biennial design conference. The “Next” conference will be held October 11-14 in Denver, CO. More than 2,500 leading designers will converge for this edition of what has become the leading gathering of visual communication designers. Here the design community discovers and sets the trends and innovations that define design, the dynamics of its future in the hands of young designers and the issues that will determine the relevance of design’s role in creating value and advancing the quality of life.

“As designers, visual thinkers and innovative creators, we shape the future every day,” commented Richard Grefé, executive director of AIGA. “Our goal for the Denver conference is to give our members and guests the opportunity to expand ways of thinking about design, to experience new directions in design and to discover what’s on the horizon, by hearing from inspired voices on the evolution of design.”

The program will consist of general sessions involving all participants and a wide variety of parallel sessions, in which leading practitioners will explore practical issues of the design business; the need for sensitivity to cultural differences in design; opportunities for socially responsible projects; the pursuit of sustainable design solutions; the evolution of the K-12 design curriculum; the characteristics of the millennial generation; and the increasing use of “anthro-design.”

Presentations will take a variety of forms, including presentations before the entire audience, smaller sessions that involve greater audience participation, panel discussions and workshops. The presenters and the audience will reflect a broad range of disciplines from within design and from around the world.

A select list of presenters’ bios is highlighted below.

Additional programs
The debut of the design-challenge “reality show” Command X: One yet-to-be-discovered designer will be selected by a panel of judges from among a group of young competitors; each will be presented with a series of design problems to be solved during the conference, with regular opportunities to benefit publicly from the critique of the noted jurors. The competitors’ results will be presented on the main stage in front of an audience of 2,500 peers, heroes and potential employers. Michael Bierut, partner at Pentagram and a 2006 AIGA medalist, will serve as the emcee.

20/20: The millennial vision of “Next”: AIGA continues a tradition of selecting 20 designers to each present 60-second vignettes for a total of 20 minutes, this year on the subject of “next.” These young designers will be chosen as the “best of the next” by a number of design icons.

Works in progress by leading designers: To understand how other designers are pursuing what is next, works in progress will be presented by a dozen designers. 

About the AIGA Design Conference
Since 1985, the biennial AIGA Design Conference has gathered designers from around the world who are interested in confronting and discussing the most compelling issues facing design—its relevance, its creativity and its effectiveness. The conference has become a much-anticipated, provocative platform for discussion and critical thinking.

About AIGA
AIGA, the professional association for design, is the oldest and largest membership association for design professionals engaged in the discipline, practice and culture of designing. Its mission is to advance designing as a professional craft, strategic tool and vital cultural force. The organization was founded as the American Institute of Graphic Arts in 1914. Since then, it has become the preeminent professional association for communication designers, broadly defined. AIGA now represents more than 19,000 designers of all disciplines through national activities and local programs developed by more than 55 chapters and 200 student groups. AIGA supports the interests of professionals, educators and students who are engaged in the process of designing. The association is committed to stimulating thinking about design, demonstrating the value of design and empowering success for designers throughout the arc of their careers.

AIGA Design Conference Presenters

Kurt Andersen: A leading critical voice on issues of design, urbanism and society, Kurt Andersen, co-founder of Spy magazine, is the radio host of “Studio 360,” columnist for New York magazine and author of the newly published Heyday and best-selling Turn of the Century. Andersen will moderate the community sessions.

Marian Bantjes: Complex, structured, sometimes funny and always obsessive, Marian Bantjes’ illustrations have appeared in magazines such as Eye, STEP, Wallpaper, Wired, Print and Communication Arts. Although based on a small island near Vancouver, Canada, she works with an array of collaborators and clients that includes Stefan Sagmeister, Michael Bierut, Saks Fifth Avenue and Young & Rubicam.

Janine Benyus: Janine Benyus is a scientist and writer specializing in Biomimicry—an emerging discipline that studies nature’s best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems. Author of six books, including Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, Benyus’ work—through workshops, research reports, biological consulting and field excursions—helps innovators learn from and emulate natural models, with the goal of creating products, processes and policies that create conditions conducive to life.

Shoshana Berger: Shoshana Berger, editor-in-chief and co-founder of ReadyMade magazine, is a long-time advocate for merging great design with sustainability and a do-it-yourself approach. She is a co-author of ReadyMade: How to Make [Almost] Everything: A Do-It-Yourself Primer, included in the 2006 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Triennial. Berger’s commitment to sustainable solutions taps one of the next imperatives.

Paul Budnitz: Paul Budnitz is the founder of Kidrobot, makers and retailers of limited-edition toys and apparel. Fusing graffiti, fine art, industrial design, graphic design, illustration and music, Budnitz has turned his obsessions into an art, with three stores/galleries and numerous collaborations with artists of all disciplines. The designer-as-entrepreneur reflects both the enterprising nature of designers looking toward the future and society’s ever-increasing fascination with play.

Ed Fella: The CalArts professor has a half-century’s worth of knowledge and experience and remains influential in contemporary typography and graphic design. His work is in the permanent collections at MoMA and the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. Fella is a recipient of the 2007 AIGA Medal.

Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones: These principals of Hoefler & Frere-Jones, leaders in the field of type design, provide insights into the expectations they address in creating typefaces that endow legacy forms with new attributes. Frere-Jones has designed more than 500 unique typefaces for such institutions as the Whitney Museum of Art as well as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Hoefler was named one of the forty most influential designers in America by I.D. magazine and is included in the permanent collection of the Cooper-Hewitt.

Amy Gendler: Amy Gendler has been active in the design field for more than 20 years on three continents and has had more than 10 years of experience in Greater China. She currently serves as founding director of AIGA China and is a full-time professor at Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts. Gendler will reveal what is coming next from the formidable design dynamics of emerging China.

Stanley Hainsworth: Stanley Hainsworth has served as a creative force among three leading firms that have defined the culture of youth and change. As vice president of global creative for Starbucks, Hainsworth has helped make the company one of the “top five most influential brands in the world” (Brandchannel.com). Previously, he was creative director for Nike, as well as Lego, giving the toy company an overhaul aimed at new relevance that included packaging, web and retail design.

Maira Kalman: Maira Kalman is renowned for her extensive body of work as a designer, painter, writer and editor. Kalman is the remaining principal of M&Co.—the studio co-founded with her late husband, Tibor—and has published many books for children and recently illustrated Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style. Kalman will share her personal creative insights.

Joyce Rutter Kaye: Joyce Rutter Kaye, editor-in-chief of Print magazine since 2003, follows the achievements of countless young designers—many of whom are featured in the annual “New Visual Artists” issue each spring. At “Next,” she will introduce the work of some of those ones to watch—rising talents that are engaged with forms of expression that will prevail tomorrow—and explain why.

Julie Lasky: Julie Lasky, editor-in-chief of I.D.: The International Design Magazine, will present the work of young designers she believes represent the next wave of influential talent, and offer insight into the qualities she recognizes as defining the future of design’s impact.

Daniel Libeskind: Daniel Libeskind is an international force in architectural practice and urban design whose work awakens a sense of the future’s optimism and vision even in the context of what has come before. Libeskind, who was responsible for the master plan for the World Trade Center site, has developed a special affinity for Denver through his design of the new, recently-opened Frederic C. Hamilton Building at the Denver Art Museum.

Ellen Lupton: Ellen Lupton—author, critic, cultural historian and educator—is co-founder of the Design Writing Research lab and is the director of the graphic design M.F.A. program at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore. She is the contemporary design curator at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City, where she has organized numerous exhibitions, including the National Design Triennial series. Lupton is also a recipient of the 2007 AIGA Medal.

Christoph Niemann: Christoph Niemann is an illustrator, animator and graphic designer who has produced numerous covers and illustrations for the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly and BusinessWeek. He has been awarded numerous honors by associations such as AIGA and the Art Directors Club, and is a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale. With his collaborator, Nicholas Blechman, he publishes the artist’s book series, 100%. Niemann has also just published his first children’s book, The Police Cloud.

Bruce Mau: Bruce Mau is a designer of books, complex cultural concepts and entire systems of thinking. Founder of Bruce Mau Design in Toronto and creator behind such large-scale projects as Massive Change and S,M,L,XL, with Rem Koolhaas, Mau is perhaps the original “designer as author.” Also the recipient of the 2007 AIGA Medal, Mau will share his views on what’s coming next for design and the global environment.

Min Wang: Professor Min Wang is dean of the School of Design at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) and also design director for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Committee. Wang, who trained at Yale and is a former creative director at Adobe, is highly influential in the future of design in China, as well as a steward of the visuals that will represent the new China when the Olympics open next year.

Michele Washington: Michele Washington—designer, educator and design historian—has written numerous articles on the contributions of African Americans to design, from the Harlem Renaissance to today. Currently writing a book on Georg Olden, a 2007 AIGA Medalist, Washington will present his pioneering work in the 1950s and ’60s, as well as discuss other designers of color whose legacies have been either underappreciated or under-recognized.

For additional information on AIGA, please visit: www.aiga.org

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