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http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/video-gala-2009-millman

The 2009 AIGA Design Legends Gala took place on Thursday, September 17, at The Waldorf-Astoria in New York City, and honored the 2009 recipients of the AIGA Medal, the AIGA Corporate Leadership Award, the AIGA Fellow Award and the Worldstudio AIGA Scholarships. At the event, AIGA President Debbie Millman reinforced the importance of the design profession's continuing recognition of great design and designers, and placed both the event and design's role in the context of challenging economic times. Below are Millman's remarks reprinted in full.

Posted by saltlakecity | October 20, 2009

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Fall is here and with it an exciting time for the Salt Lake City chapter of the AIGA.
We have a full new board, new programs, new initiatives and community events, and a new driving force in promoting design and creativity.

It all started in June when I was able to attend the 2009 AIGA Leadership Retreat in Portland Oregon along with fellow AIGA Salt Lake City board members Dallas Graham and Thy Doan. The Leadership retreat is an annual conference for AIGA leaders across the country. The retreats are always inspiring and leave us energized, but this one was decidedly different. There was an added excitement that is hard to explain.

This conference marked as a turning point in AIGA's history to becoming not just the professional association for design, but a global design movement. An organization that relies not on a 'national authority', but on it's members, driven from the bottom up.

The ideas and inspiration are part of the Mandate of 2014 voted on during the retreat. This is where we, AIGA, are moving to mark our one hundredth year. The ideas behind the mandate were born out of the members of AIGA through our annual membership roundtables in Salt Lake City and across the country. At the Constitutional Convention, we gathered to consider and ratify the Mandate from the findings. One by one, the representatives from 64 chapters were called upon to declare or deny their support for the Mandate. After listening to our members and the data compiled, I was proud to declare "On behalf of AIGA Salt Lake City, we support this mandate." Each of us will be hearing soon about the details of this Mandate and where we are headed together.

Overall, there was truly a different vibe during the retreat, a shift, where it was the local chapters leading the discussion instead of the national leadership. And there also seemed to be a greater sense of community, more willingness to share than in past retreats, a yearning to connect to a greater degree. How appropriate that our new national president of AIGA, Debbie Millman stated in her acceptance speech that 'connectivity' would be the focus of her term.

Upon return from the national retreat, we held our Salt Lake City board of directors retreat at Alta Lodge. This is where we framed important questions like "Who will our Members be in 5 years?" "What can the SLC chapter do to serve our unique population?" and "How do we keep AIGA relevant in an ever changing profession?" At the retreat, we developed 5 keywords that represent our values and ideals of AIGA SLC.

Connectivity, Visibility, Passion, Excellence, and Fun.

With these in mind, we developed our programming for the season. Each representing the diversity in our audience and establishing value by doing valuable things.

If you have been following us recently, you've seen our Revinylize vinyl bag project, the members Gelato Social, our Adobe CS4 Flash workshop, the introduction of the Create Don't Hate mentoring program and our Film Series. On top of all this we have a great lineup of guest lecture speakers including Brian Singer, Brad Weed, and the national AIGA president, Debbie Millman. Coming in Spring will be our annual events including the Student Portfolio Review, the AIGA 100 Show and our second annual Revinylize project at the Utah Arts Festival.

It's an exciting time for AIGA in Salt Lake City and the credit is due to not only our members but also to our strong new dedicated board of directors who offer their time and energy to help run AIGA events and programs. Please reach out to them, meet them, share thoughts with them, and let us know what you'd like to see from AIGA. Also remember to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Thanks for making our us a strong chapter and we look forward to seeing each of you throughout the year!

Posted by saltlakecity in News | October 19, 2009

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Check back soon for blog entries from local designers. If you would like to participate and write a blog entry please contact Jim Killian.

Posted by System | September 30, 2009

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