The Vision from Here
Building on the rich heritage of 25 years in and of Los Angeles, AIGA/LA is embarked on a new long-term effort to become the hub of the design and creative communities in Los Angeles. We are focused on building a vital, relevant, responsive, engaged organization that connects, inspires, stimulates and supports all design professionals throughout the arc of their careers regardless of geography or sub-discipline.
A couple of things you might notice differently, as we evolve toward this goal:
Digital Content and Community
In the coming months and years, you will see significantly more digital content available live and archived on aigalosangeles.org. We have a webisode series in development, as well as a number of other exciting areas of inspiring and thought provoking content in development. This is one way that we will provide value to you, our design professional community. You will be able to experience significantly more engaging content from wherever you are, on your own schedule.
Micro Programming
The concept is simple. We aim to provide two valuable and relevant experiences to every member, within twenty minutes of home or work. In order to do this, we will have to drastically increase the number of activities and events, and disperse them throughout the L.A. area. We cannot do this for you, however. The plan to accomplish this is to turn over the “keys” to you. This is your professional organization, after all. We invite you to put together intimate gatherings for events and activities that focus on design-related issues of interest to you. You invite your colleagues and friends. We support, fund, and publicize the event. Voila! You will be hearing more about micro-programming in the near future.
Community-Up Approach
Micro programming is one example of a new attitude taking root amongst the chapter leadership. We’ve committed to empowering you to make this organization the true hub of design activity and inspiration in L.A. Our role will be in supporting and encouraging all design-related events, and activities throughout the area, regardless of whether it is initiated by members or not. We are building a communications capacity to support this effort. By the way, did you know that you can share an event that you hear of, that might be of interest to other deisgn professionals? All you need to do is fill out the form here and it will be posted to the aigalosangeles.org website. We hope you’ll use this form often, as you have the ears to the ground, and are our most important source of local information.
Thought Leadership
In the coming months and years, you can expect to see many voices of AIGA in the local media, and at local events. We have recognized the opportunity and the need to provide thought leadership both within and outside of the design communities in the region.
Mandate for 2014
Our mission: to advance designing as a professional craft, strategic tool and vital cultural force, is addressed in our Mandate for 2014, that was unanimously adopted by all AIGA chapters this past June. This roadmap for the entire national organization can be viewed online here. You will notice that it dovetails nicely with the efforts that we here in Los Angeles are working toward.
Participatory Planning
On Saturday August 22, thirty future, current and past members of our community joined together to chart this path in our Strategic Planning Retreat. Below is a sampling of some thoughts from participants of this session:
Wow. I felt really smart by osmosis at the AIGA leadership retreat. I’m reminded what an arsenal of creative thinking we have here in Los Angeles, and that arsenal showed up in force to weigh in on where next to take the LA chapter. Kudos to the board, for harnessing the power of all of these wild talents to make for a really productive session. Guess who’s excited about the next five years?
Chris Varosy
Principle, prmtv.
The AIGA LA board is taking the unanimously-approved mandate to heart, and is actively figuring out how to make itself more relevant and effective in its role to inspire, connect and inform. They pulled together an impressive group of diverse, passionate individuals who spent the day brainstorming and imagining what is possible and what,, when, where, who, and how to make it happen. It was very well coordinated (it even ended 10 minutes early), and was conducted in a format that allowed everyone to participate and be heard. It was an honor to be included, and I enjoyed the discussion; especially from my newly formed perspective as an AIGA national board member. It's great to see a grassroots, all-volunteer organization come together like this on a precious weekend, and put minds together to tackle hard problems. My kind of Saturday!
Lynda Weinman
AIGA National Board member
I've had a long involvement with AIGA. From signing a charter to start the Miami chapter of AIGA 25 years ago, to being invited to the recent AIGA LA Strategic Planning Retreat. I was happy to see a group of enthusiastic and dedicated designers (of varying specialities, outlooks, and ages) come together to tackle the serious issues that the design profession faces. AIGA is now, and always has been, only as good and relevant as those people actively participating in it make it. So I was heartened to see acknowledgment of what isn't working and solid ideas about how to evolve the organization in order to better serves the needs of all designers.
Terry Lee Stone
Design Management Consultant and Writer
I am so happy to be a part of this organization. There are always areas for improvement, but I was happy to see that the solutions for all of them circle around a few specific areas that have heavy and infinite cross-over and are completely addressable.
Alex Maloutas
AIGA/LA Shop Talks producer
Derrick Schultz
Designer-Historian-Programmer, Bustbright
Great retreat, one of the better retreats and I have been to many, many of them over the years. Why was it successful? We included a number of voices beyond the board-disciplines, areas of design expertise; we spanned geography and ages, experience with AIGA, etc., etc.
As with all organizations or businesses we need to align the passion that was shown on Saturday with execution. What I saw that was different was an understanding that the Board should be providing strategy and vision and to try to create an organization of volunteers to carry it out. We are at a stage here in LA with the AIGA that we need to create a bureaucracy-I know horrible word and an anathema to all of us, but what I mean is we need an organization that can continue to carry on tactics of strategy laid out from Board to Board and not be reinventing ourselves every few years.
Nan Faessler
AIGA/LA Fellow
It was a sensational event. Well-planned, executed and fulfilling! I agree with Nan that the diversity of the attendees in their range of life and professional experiences was a huge contribution to the success and value of day. I felt very privileged to have been part of this retreat and to have shared it with so many smart and passionate colleagues. It feels like we're poised for a next generation of the AIGA LA and for an organization with increasing relevance, meaning, and value to many more LA-based design professionals supporting "the profession’s aspirations for relevance, leadership and opportunity" in "business, social and cultural environments."
What particularly struck me was a comment by Derrick who referred to the our changing direction as "open source." I thought this was a fitting and useful analogy in that it suggests an organization available to anyone interested and at the same time an organization furthered, expanded, and made even more valuable by those who participate. "Participate" seems key to me as it suggests active players rather than passive members. We become the sum of everyone's efforts as the potential so elegantly demonstrated in Michael's exercise at the end of the day.
My optimism towards the future of L.A.'s chapter couldn't be greater, and obviously will require the vision and leadership of our remarkable and capable board. I look forward to providing whatever support that I can.
Louise Sandhaus
AIGA Design Educators Community chair, AIGA National Board member
This is an exciting and stimulating time to be engaged with AIGA, the profession, and community. Over the last two years as the national president, I had the honor to serve all 63 chapters, but I missed my time working with AIGA Los Angeles. I was pleased when Jimmy asked me to attend the AIGA Los Angeles Strategic Planning Retreat. Sitting in the back of the room (near the bagels), I couldn't stop thinking of all the criticism I've heard about AIGA: It's elitist, I'm not welcome, it's the same group over and over, and what can it do for me? The people in that room negated every one of these comments. The group was diverse in age, practice, race, media, gender, and location. There were freelance designers, studio owners, in-house designers, students, educators, people just starting their career, and even some of the old guard like me. Each person had something vital to add, and every comment was welcome. And nobody in the room asked "what can AIGA do for me?" They were each far more involved in ideas that served the community, helped individual designers, and moved the profession forward. I left feeling even prouder of our community, completely secure in the strength of its leadership, and energized to keep moving to the next place.
Sean Adams
AIGA past national President
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