Designers as Leaders
AIGA LEADERSHIP RETREAT 2011
This past week I had the privilege to visit Minneapolis, Minnesota for the 2011 AIGA leadership retreat. This was my first trip up north to Bobby’s world, and it was also my first time at the leadership retreat, attending as the South Carolina Education Director. I really wasn’t sure what to expect from the city or the retreat.
I’ve come home to the sticky South with new cityscape on my mind and the inspiration to be something I never thought I was: a leader.
If you aren’t familiar with AIGA, it is the professional association for design, committed to advancing design as a professional craft, strategic tool and vital cultural force. I joined AIGA in 2005 as a sophomore in college and it was probably the best 50 bucks I’ve ever spent. AIGA has allowed me to understand my profession, have lunch with the top designers in the field, and hear lectures from people who wrote the books I learned from. And it allowed me a network of invaluable friendships.
The leadership retreat is an annual meeting of all chapters, AIGA staff and the national board. I walked into a very well designed (of course) ballroom at 601 Graves hotel and I walked out inspired and unafraid. This statement seems over dramatic, I know, but the experience was transformative. To see Debbie Millman give her last talk as president, to hear Ric Grefe — who just waltzed up to the podium with no prepared notes — speak eloquently and then answer questions from a crowd of 250 designers, was truly inspiring. It was motivating to see what other chapters, including Austin, Alaska, Detroit and Minnesota, are doing to better their communities and the design profession.
I’m typically shy, flushed red and stammering. But after watching these (and many other) designers take to the microphone to share their passion, describing the diligence with which they approach their craft, and in doing so demonstrating true leadership, I no longer feel afraid. I need the microphone and the stage to make change; I am committed to pushing our tiny chapter and a message of design’s power into our community.
More specifically, I learned what I can do to help young design students as well as those transitioning into the workforce. It is so important to continue to provide the students and professionals of today what AIGA has provided for me in the past. I learned “How to Hold a Successful Meeting” and even attended a session about CreateAthon, which of course Riggs Partners founded! Between the 7:30am breakfast call of mushroom and asparagus frittatas, the countless sessions and meetings, an open bar reception hosted by Shutterstock, and partying in Debbie Millman’s penthouse until 1:00am, I came home excited and exhausted. And thankful to be part of such a wonderful organization furthering design to actually change our world.
Below, a little sampling of the trip:
