Sustainability. Go Green! Living Principles. These keywords and concepts have been circulating the news, business communities, and social media sites. But what do they really mean? And what do they mean for you? How can these concepts affect what you do and how you practice your life and career choices as artists, designers, photographers, business people and members of society.

Terms such as Going Green may sound merely like buzzwords, perhaps a passing trend . . . but I think it’s become apparent to the majority of us that people need to work together to make a difference for a collective good. I believe that most agree, we can no longer stand idly by and hope for the best without investing our own hard work and initiatives. We are the ambassadors of our planet.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AIGA CONNECTICUT

CONTACT:
Lisa Mikulski – Director of Communications and Public Relations
Email:  communications@connecticut.aiga.org
Web:   www.connecticut.aiga.org
Phone: 260.227.5472

Calling all designers, artists, entrepreneurs and students . . . check out our upcoming events at AIGA Connecticut. From a warm breakfast to Living Principles, we’ve created a blizzard of activity to inspire your winter days. All events are open to the public.

Friday night was the culmination of all that is good and right in the Connecticut art and design scene. The opening of The Center for Public Art and Design, directed by Margaret Bodell, was a smashing success with a great venue, good people, excellent music and stellar installations. What made it even better was the knowledge that this beautiful space is also the first of AIGA Connecticut’s satellite locations.

Featuring Ann Willoughby at Billings Forge Community Works, Hartford Connecticut

As creatives, we put design thinking into practice every day with clients. But, what happens when we apply that thinking outside of the office to other places and spaces? Inspiration that leads to transformation.

AIGA CT, in coordination with Sappi Fine Paper and Billings Forge Community Works, invites you to spend an evening with nationally respected designer Ann Willoughby of Willoughby Design as she shares stories of unique spaces and how they deepen our work and play, change lives and shape a community. This event includes dinner of handmade pizza that you and other guests will create with the wheat grown and harvested (all by bicycle!) by Billings Forge artist-in-residence Ted Efremoff of Bread Cycle Works.

Like border violators, graphic designers Jan Cummings and Peter Good have crossed the line that separates personal subjective visual art and public objective visual communications that serve the needs of businesses and institutions. Sometimes, for Cummings & Good, the distinctions between art and design become ambiguous. A fortunate condition for us who love creative visual arts.

Join Cummings & Good in their gorgeous new gallery space, Posters & Prints, for AIGA Connecticut’s 3rd Breakfast Epiphany as the design team discuss forty years of “Turning Design into Art and Back Again”.

Together, Cummings & Good can be described as: Design legends, AIGA Fellows, illustrators, painters, entrepreneurs and pillars of the community.

October 13, 2010
7:30am to 9:00am . . . but you know how good conversations can get…
Coffee and light breakfast fare will be served.

Cummings & Good, Chopin Leaf Poster

Cummings & Good
3 North Main Street
Chester, Connecticut
860.526.9597
www.cummings-good.com

This event will be limited to 15 attendees only and we expect tickets to go fast.
Register today at:
www.connecticut.aiga.org

The AIGA Connecticut Breakfast Epiphany Series is an open, intimate conversation with a thought leader and 10 new friends. Topics are designed to traverse the borders of business, creative and nonprofit communities for eye opening and unexpected discussions. With a creative or industry professional leading the way, these mini-events are hosted throughout the state and cap at a maximum of 10 guests. This is not a lecture series. This is an opportunity to start your day with inspiration and good conversation.

It seems lately, if you are in public relations, your job might be equated with something along the lines of being a unscrupulous used-car salesman. BP, the government, and even my beloved Apple, have contributed to the notion that PR is the cover-up agency for bad behavior or a poor product line. As Communications and Public Relations Director of AIGA Connecticut, I thought I’d write a few paragraphs on what I believe public relations is and why it’s important for your organization or business.

“There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.” – Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) American Educator.

What Now? In the midst of a general malaise regarding North America’s influence on the world, we are witnessing a return to the best of American popular culture. Optimism. Hope. A quest for truth. A demand for accountability. Yearning for deeper connections with the world, we see the resurgence of creativity and crafts once on the verge of extinction. Social media, the wild west of the internet, is taking root in our lives. So where does design fit? What might it represent in years to come? Dana explores some of the visionaries who have made our profession significant and the content creators who are the harbingers of our new age. Join AIGA Connecticut, as Dana Arnett explores their tenacity, intelligence and power to claim their rightful place at the centre of our collective future.

Though many designers can claim to have done work for Motorola, Harley-Davidson and IBM, Dana Arnett and VSA Partners haven’t just designed for these companies, they’ve built the backbones by which those brands are known. Come hear the designer who set the bar on brand experience share who he believes will be the next creative thinkers to watch and why you should be following them right now.

DANA ARNETT is the “A” of VSA Partners, leading a team in the creation of design programs, film projects, interactive initiatives and brand communication solutions for clients that includeHarley-Davidson, Motorola, School of Rock,IBM, GE, American Express, Sure, Converse, Nike, Wilson, Target, Cole Haan, and Sappi, to name a few. Recognized globally by more than 60 competitions and designations, Dana was an inductee into the Alliance Graphic International and named to the ID40. Former member of the AIGA National Board of Directors and a frequent lecturer and visiting professor, he is active in furthering the role of design in society through contributing publishing endeavours, conference chairmanships and foundation activities.

Friday, September 24, 2010
7:00 PM – 9:30 PM

University of Hartford / Auerbach Auditorium:
200 Bloomfield Avenue
West Hartford, Connecticut 06117

$35 members
$50 non-members
Students are free with student I.D.

Dana is a national headliner. We only have 12 tickets left for this extraordinary event.  Register today at AIGA Connecticut.

AIGA Connecticut Announces New Board of Directors for 2010-2011

AIGA Connecticut is pleased to announce its new Board of Directors for 2010-2011. AIGA, the professional association for design, is committed to furthering excellence in design as a broadly defined discipline, a strategic tool for business and a cultural force. AIGA is the place that design and creative professionals turn to exchange ideas and information, participate in critical analyses and research, advance education, and uphold ethical practices.

Entering its third year as an established chapter of the national organization based in New York City, Connecticut joins 65 other national chapters. AIGA CT has had a remarkable start with events and quality programming that has included such names as Sean Adams, William Drenttel, Pam Williams, Alex Isley, Cummings & Good and Patrick Coyne.