AIGA Leadership Retreat 2010 promo graphic

AIGA Leadership Retreat 2010

  • When? 6.2.10 @ 4:00pm
  • Where? Chattanooga, Tennessee directions
  • Type? AIGA National Event
  • Cost? Invite-only

Engage

The annual leadership retreat is an important opportunity for the organization’s leaders to meet together, celebrate the year past and prepare for the year ahead.

“Engage”, the 2010 retreat, will be held June 3–5 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Designers have demonstrated the power of their creative and technical skills. The most frequent issue raised by members now is, “How do I gain understanding for the value of my contribution to problem solving, respect for my role, and the opportunity to provide my creative talent to a higher level of problem?”

One of the problems for designers is that they are seen as being on the fringe of society, business and the community, rather than in the mainstream. This is partially due to designers’ pride in being different; yet it results in designers not being considered central to solving community problems.

A critical goal of AIGA is to demonstrate the value of design, and we have discovered that one of the best ways to demonstrate that value is to do valuable things that allow others to discover how important our contribution to their world is. This is the premise behind Design for Democracy, for instance. And it is also behind “Engage.”

If AIGA can help members become engaged in the community, it can move designers toward the center of the community, where designers will be asked to help solve more complex problems and to be involved earlier in the process. At the same time, most designers want to be engaged with issues that effect the human condition, that really make a difference. AIGA can serve to be the portal to that experience.

Engagement within the AIGA community helps designers who often have to work alone; engagement within the local community brings attention to the value of design and raises both awareness and respect for designers; engagement in the national and global arenas help to use creativity to defeat the habits that have challenged the quality of life globally.