Millions of Americans oppose SOPA and PIPA because these bills would censor the Internet and slow economic growth in the U.S.

Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and PIPA.

The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Please let them know how you feel. Sign this petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late.

Visiting Artist Lecture by Zurich-based experimental designer and printmaker, Dafi Kuehne, a program supported by the Swiss Consulate of Chicago and Pro Helvetia.  

A reception will follow the talk.

October 27th, 2011
6–8 p.m.
Center for Book and Paper Arts,
1104 S Wabash, 2nd Floor

It has a ton of great advice on how to prepare your portfolio, identify your intangible assets and conduct yourself during the interview. It’s a comprehensive article and definitely worth a read.

You should also read the first article in the series What Employers Look For #1 contributed by Eric Karjaluoto, partner and creative director at Vancouver-based smashLAB.

Event Overview

AIGA is pleased to present Paul Shaw in our next installment of Designer as Author, an ongoing series devoted to discussing written works with the designer-authors who create them.

The story of signage on the New York City Subway System is both a long and fascinating tale. Once a bewildering hodgepodge of lettering styles, sizes, shapes, materials, colors, and messages, the signs began a radical transition in the mid-1960s. In the hands of design firm Unimark International, the system’s mess gave way to the clarity that reigns today, with station names, directions, and instructions in crisp Helvetica. Ultimately, order triumphed over chaos—but the journey was anything but easy.

New York design historian and lettering artist Paul Shaw knows the story better than anyone, and he’ll be on hand to share it with us on November 16. In a presentation structured after his acclaimed book, Helvetica and the New York City Subway System, he’ll regale us with the ins and outs of how the subway system acquired the distinctive look it has today. Join us for an insightful talk with the author, and buy a book and t-shirt on the way out.

About Paul Shaw

PAUL SHAW, a design historian and lettering artist in New York City, teaches at Parsons School of Design and the School of Visual Arts. He is the recipient of fellowships for his scholarship from the American Academy in Rome, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas, and the American Printing History Association. His design work has won awards from AIGA, the Type Directors Club; and Print, Baseline and Letter Arts Review magazines. He is the co-author of Blackletter: Type and National Identity and writes about design history, typography, lettering and calligraphy in the blog Blue Pencil. He recently co-taught a course at Parsons devoted to the redesign of the New York City subway map.

November 16, 2011
Getty Images
122 S. Michigan Avenue
Suite 900
Chicago, IL 60603
6-6:30pm Registration
6:30-8:30pm Presentation

Event Overview

AIGA Chicago Small Talks are designed to be intimately scaled events that offer attendees the opportunity to learn about business practices, view work, and experience environments to local studios and firms first-hand. Join us for our sixth Small Talk of 2011 with a visit to Froeter Design Co.

About Froeter Design Co.

As a group we are curious about the way things work. We love process, collecting data and understanding how people think. We are a group of problem-solvers, innovators, builders and content-generators. Through print, web, motion and environmental installations, we tell genuine stories based on a lot of listening. We believe that design is a differentiator – a long-term strategy that secures brand awareness – but it takes an open mind and broad knowledge of a variety of things to make it happen. We thrive on inspiration outside of design, anything from beer brewing and boat building to psychology and economic philosophies. We are a lucky group; we are paid to analyze data, think freely, write stories and create something new, every day. What could possibly be better?

November 08, 2011
Froeter Design Co.
954 West Washington
Fifth Floor
Chicago, IL 60607
6pm Registration
6:30-8pm Presentation

Register at AIGA Chicago
Member: $20.00
Non-member: $40.00
Student: $10.00

Get ready. Get inspired. Get FUELED.

In the design community, we’re trained to find inspiration all around us. But often, we get the most inspiration from each other—and that’s precisely the goal of our upcoming FUELED event.

Held in a relaxed coffee shop environment, the event is designed to foster conversation with your fellow creatives. Following a brief, rousing presentation from Bud Rodecker of Thirst, we’ll interact with one another about what inspires us, engage in an inspiration “speed dating” exercise, and make sense of it all in a group discussion. The end result will be an energetic and inspiring evening for all.

Best of all, it’s free! Just bring along something that inspires you, which you’ll discuss during the group exercise.

About Bud Rodecker

Bud Rodecker is a graphic designer, photographer, artist, thinker, talker, and jokester. He collaborates with John Pobojewski, Tinne Van Loon and Rick Valicenti at Thirst. Mulitidisciplinary, and often experimental, Bud’s work is unified by an emphasis on typography and strong graphics.

Register today and get ready to get FUELED.
November, 10 2011
Swim Cafe
1357 West Chicago Avenue
Chicago, IL 60642
6-7 Registration
7-8:30pm Presentations

AIGA Chicago thanks event chairs and chapter members, Allison Strauss and Meli Marquez, for planning our Fueled event.

Event Overview
Design is always changing. It continually transforms how we engage with each other and our world in new and exciting ways. New processes, strategies and technologies are invented. Historical precedents are reevaluated and critiqued. Innovative storytelling and narrative techniques are formed.
Design Thinking is a biannual lecture series devoted to those who are driving this constant process of change. It features design leaders, educators, curators, and authors who are actively reshaping the creative process, directing currents in contemporary culture, and redefining the meaning of design.

About Alice Twemlow
Alice Twemlow is a British-born writer and educator based in New York. She is chair and co-founder of the Design Criticism MFA program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City and also a PhD candidate in Design History at the Royal College of Art in London. Alice is a contributor to Design Observer and writes about design for publications including Eye, Design & Culture and the New York Times Magazine. She is the author of What is Design For? (Rotovision) and of essays for books such as The Barnbrook Bible and 60 Innovators: Shaping Our Creative Futures (Thames and Hudson), and the catalogue for “Graphic Design Worlds” at La Triennale Design Museum. She often serves on design and architecture juries and editorial boards, and moderates conferences such as the AIGA Educators Conference 2010 at North Carolina State University, the Tasmeem Doha Conference 2011 at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar, the College Art Association Conference 2011 Conference in New York, and Abstract: The Future of Design in Media Conference in Portland Maine. Alice has recently spoken at the 2009 ICOGRADA conference in Beijing and at the QT series at MoMA.

27 October 2011
Morningstar
22 West Washington St., Chicago, IL 60602
Time: 5:30-7pm Reception, 7-8pm Presentation
Date: 10.27.2011

Ticket Options
Member: $10.00
Non-member: $20.00
Student: $5.00

Event Overview
Everyone in the creative community can benefit from positive cultural change—and a recently developed framework is intended to catalyze just that. The Living Principles for Design distills the four streams of sustainability – environment, people, economy, and culture – into a roadmap that is understandable, integrated, and most importantly, actionable. Designers, business leaders, and educators can use The Living Principles to guide every decision, every day.

On October 20, join us for an open discussion led by local sustainability-focused design professionals who have incorporated the Living Principles into their practice. Participants can share their thoughts, have their questions answered, and learn how their efforts and The Living Principles can help move our culture toward a sustainable society.

The event will feature speakers who will share everyday actions that attendees can implement in their own practices. Presentations will be short but impactful, leaving ample time for dialogue and participation. As the event draws nearer, registered participants will have the chance to post questions in advance, allowing presenters to prepare for the dialogue to come.

About The Living Principles
Developed under the guidance of the AIGA Center for Sustainable Design, The Living Principles were officially unveiled at the AIGA Design Conference in Memphis in October 2009. In June 2010, a new online community was launched at www.livingprinciples.org to provide members of the global creative community with a place to co-create, share and showcase best practices. Its ongoing development is dependent on the contributions of the design community at large.

Eric Benson
Eric Benson is an award-winning designer, educator at the University of Illinois, published author, activist and international speaker on sustainable design theory and practice. Through his work on Re-nourish.com, Benson advocates for increased awareness and action towards sustainable systems thinking in the graphic design community. He believes that by extending the scope of our profession and employing empathy for the people we design with, graphic design will have the power to help create more meaningful economic and social change.

John Harris, Principal, a5

Ticket Proceeds
Ticket proceeds will be donated to The Illinois Chapter of The Nature Conservancy for its work protecting fresh water and to charity: water, a Mohawk Fine Papers partnership to help bring clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations.

We encourage you to visit the Design for a Living World exhibition at The Field Museum and the complementary photo essay in Millennium Park, both on display until November 13.

Getty Images
122 S. Michigan Avenue
Suite 900
Chicago, IL 60603
Date: 10.20.11
Time: 6-7pm Reception, 7-8:30pm Presentations with Q&A

Ticket Options
Member: $10.00
Non-member: $20.00
Student: $5.00

Join AIGA Chicago and director Gary Hustwit for a special preview screening of his latest film Urbanized and post-film discussion on October 9.

Gary Hustwit (Helvetica/Objectified) returns with the final documentary in his design film trilogy. Urbanized focuses on the design of cities and features some of the world’s foremost architects, planners, policymakers, and thinkers, including Sir Norman Foster, Rem Koolhaas, Jan Gehl, Oscar Niemeyer, Amanda Burden, Enrique Peñalosa, Alejandro Aravena, Eduardo Paes, Rahul Mehrotra, Ellen Dunham-Jones, Ricky Burdett, James Corner, Michael Sorkin, Bruce Katz, Candy Chang, Edgar Pieterse, and many more, including extraordinary citizens who have affected change in their cities.

Who is allowed to shape our cities, and how do they do it? And how does the design of our cities affect our lives? By exploring a diverse range of urban design projects in dozens of cities around the world, from massive infrastructure initiatives to temporary interventions, Urbanized frames a global discussion on the future of cities.

For more information about the film please visit urbanizedfilm.com/

To purchase tickets for this event please visit urbanizedfilm.com/chicago-special-screening/

Music Box Theatre
3733 N. Southport Ave. Chicago, IL 60613
Date: 10.09.11
Time: 7-10pm

Event Overview:
Typography on the web has been handcuffed for years. In the online world, designers have been limited to a small number of “web safe” fonts. Achieving true typographic nuance has required a workaround: converting text to graphics, using Flash, or applying another various and sundry technique.

But now, all that is changing—and changing quickly. With most browsers supporting CSS @font-face, any licensed font can be used on a website and downloaded to a user’s device. This use of so-called “web fonts” has begun a revolution in typography on the web.

To get to the bottom of this revolution, we’re assembling an all-star cast of web font specialists, web designers, developers, and type designers. They’ll give an overview of web fonts, providing background on their benefits, the problems they solve, and the various options they offer designers. A panel discussion and audience questions. will follow.

Event Moderator:
Bill Davis, Marketing Programs Mgr, Monotype Imaging
Bill Davis discovered his love of type at an early age, and has spent his career working with type & typography in the design, advertising, publishing and printing industries. At Monotype Imaging, Bill is actively involved in a variety of font technology initiatives including Web fonts. One of his favorite fonts is PMN Caecilia – a robust slab serif that was chosen by Amazon for the Kindle.

Event Panelists:
Erik Vorhes, Senior Developer, VSA Partners
David Demaree, Web Developer, Typekit
Jackson Cavanaugh, Type Designer, Okay Type
Nick Sherman, Typographer, Font Bureau

The McCormick Tribune Campus Center
Illinois Institute of Technology
3201 S State Street
Chicago, IL 60616
Date: 10.06.11
Time: 6-7:10pm Reception, 7:15-8:45pm Presentation

Ticket Options
Member: $10.00
Non-member: $20.00
Student: $5.00