Here is an AIGA conference you really need to check out. It’s worth every penny of the $350 student registration fee. I’m also posting a video of last year’s Command X design competition (see below). During the competition design students and recent graduates are given a series of design challenges that they need to complete in 24hrs or less! Lat year’s winner Nichelle and runner up Kelly both had job offers across the country before they left the stage so it’s a good idea to look into entering the competition. Also look in volunteering for the conference. Your registration fee gets waived and you get to sit back stage with designers like Debbie Millman and Michael Bierut of Pentagram and pick their brains.
We are pleased to announce that Project M is coming to Winterhouse from August 15-30, 2009. Twelve select individuals will get to participate in a unique collaborative enterprise to create a single design project of lasting value in a rural community. This project is sponsored by William Drenttel and Jessica Helfand of Winterhouse, with the active participation of John Bielenberg, the founder of Project M. Design Observer will provide an interesting array of visiting critics and will publish the project. Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation will provide input and serve as an advisor. Application deadline is June 15 with notification of selected participants by June 30.
Cost is $1500 plus travel and expenses.
Here is a site worth checking out from your friends at the design firm Rule 29. You can find all sorts of insightful information, creative inspiration or the just plain silly. Please, do yourself a favor, stop by designersobriety.com and poke around. You’ll be glad that you did!
- Go to “Wikipedia” and hit “Random” or follow this link. The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
- Go to “Random Quotations” on the Quotations Page web site or follow this link. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
- Go to Flickr and click on “Explore the Last Seven Days” or follow this link. Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
- Layout the Album cover in the program of your choice in proportions no smaller than 520 pixels x 520 pixels in RGB Color mode at 72 dpi and save as a jpg.
- Email the Album cover to newuser@useaconcept.com and I’ll post your cover. Include an email address or web site if you want your image to link to if interested!
You can see my album cover after the jump. I’ll post any submitted album covers here as well.
One piece of design writing could win you $1,000
The fourth annual Winterhouse Awards for Design Writing & Criticism will give one $1,000 Education Award to a student whose writing demonstrates the greatest evidence of eloquence, analysis, perspective, insight and original thinking that furthers a public understanding of design in contemporary culture.
The education award is for a single work of student writing addressing any design discipline or form, including but not limited to: architectural, environmental, fashion, graphic, industrial, information, interactive, product and strategic.
Students may be from any academic discipline, as long as the subject of the work is design. Students must be currently enrolled or have graduated within the year, and must be either a U.S. citizen or resident of at least three years.
The deadline to enter is June 1, 2009.
To submit your work, learn more and read the winning selections from previous years, visit www.aiga.org/writingawards.
I wanted to bring this article from the Associated Press to everyone’s attention. The article basically covers the hardships that most Americans are now facing due to the global economic downturn and how they are trying to overcome. The part of the article I wanted to highlight is as follows:
“Places have hiring freezes. And they have cutbacks. And they have layoffs. There are a lot more people in the job market,” said 32-year-old Ana Arrendell, who has been searching for work since August.
At first, she was looking only for a job in her field, graphic design. But as the months have gone by, Arrendell has lowered her expectations. “Right now, I’ll take anything,” she said Friday as she left a New York City-run office that offers resume-writing assistance and interview training.
With companies laying off workers and slashing budgets the likes which haven’t been seen since the early 1980’s or the Great Depression, Graphic Designers are the first in line to take a hit as advertising and marketing budgets are cut as companies try to stay solvent.
With the field of Graphic Design already being one of the most competitive where nearly 40,000 design students enter the work force annually to compete for a position in an industry that only employs 260,000 workers according to the US Department of Labor, you need to do everything in your power to set yourself apart from the other 39,999 students who are doing everything in their power to get the job that you want. Also remember that those 260,000 are currently filled with employee’s who are very unlikely to change positions or open their own design firms until the economy recovers.
A FREE (the last time I checked) design contest that you would be NUTS not to enter. Just follow this link to the Adobe website to find out more details.
Enter your work in HOW magazine’s Interactive Design Competition. All
winning entries will be featured in HOW’s April 2010 Design Annual and
will receive a $100 discount toward registration for the 2010 HOW
Design Conference. One Best of Show winner will be prominently featured
in the April 2010 Design Annual and will be our guest at the 2010 HOW
Conference (round-trip airfare within the U.S., hotel and registration
paid by HOW) .
DEADLINE
All entries must be postmarked no later than July 15, 2009. Entries
postmarked after July 15 require a late fee of $25 per entry. Entries
postmarked after July 31, 2009, will not be accepted.
JUDGING CRITERIA
Your entry will be judged using the following criteria:
- How well does the entry achieve its client’s mission?
- How well does the entry communicate?
- How easy is it to navigate the entry?
- How strong is the entry aesthetically?
- How strong is the entry technically?
For more information go to the HOW Magazine Web Site
The winning entries will be published in the April 2010 issue of Print. Designers should pick a global problem and create a cover design that shows how design might solve that problem, such as sustainability, human rights, or the future of food.
The designer should also include a headline, a subhead, and three proposed cover lines for possible stories supporting their theme in their design. The covers will be judged on both the strength of the concept and the execution. Have fun!
DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES IS JUNE 30, 2009