I am subscribed to the AIGA blog, but like the AIGA itself, it’s not usually meaningful enough to get me to head over and actually read the thing. The latest post caught my eye however: Why Double the Number of AIGA Members? by Richard Grefé, the executive director of AIGA.
In the post, Richard talks about doubling the AIGA’s “professional membership to 20,000 by the year 2010.”
Why would an organization that seeks to be the preeminent association for designers—representing the highest standards of design excellence and professionalism—seemingly pursue quantity without discussing quality?
Because we must ensure the profession’s impact and relevance.
Even though improving the relevance of the organization wasn’t the focus of the article, I have to say… Bravo, Mr. Grefé. The AIGA has been completely irrelevant to me and my fellow web designers for the last 10 years, and I’m glad to hear that they have taken notice.
The AIGA’s relevance ended for me when I got my first design job. It was a little relevant to me in college, where I had a student membership for a time; back then I needed total immersion in the design industry, and that helped a little.
Benefits not worth the membership fee.
I am one of those people who actually reads the brochure. Whenever presented with the option of becoming a member, I look at the benefits, and weigh them against the cost.
The benefits have always seemed a hollow shell of pretend content. A membership directory? Discounts to various seminars? Articles and design resources? The math just never worked out to make that worthwhile. There is no real meat on those bones than cannot be had for less, elsewhere.
Like most designers who have written up a list of benefits for a client, I can attest to the barrel-scraping that happens in order to get the benefits list as nice-sounding and as long as possible. Why would we expect anything less from the king of design organizations?
Ego-Centric
I have a difficult time enjoying myself around self-centered individuals. The AIGA events were all to ego-centric for my taste… every last one of them seemed like a “look at me” contest. I know that artistic individuals all have (and need) egos to a certain degree, myself included, but like a slick brochure with little content, the glossy cover of self-importance thinly covered the shallow clique within.
I am not the only one who thinks this.
In his latest post, Richard states that “Today, AIGA counts 10,000 professional members.” Then if you click over to the membership page, It says that “More than 19,000 of your colleagues have joined AIGA…” I assume they count all of the lapsed memberships there - something has to count for the numeric discrepancy.
When it counts, people vote with their pocketbooks.
In the most recent blog post, the author estimates that the current 10,000 members come from a profession of about 180,000.
I consider the AIGA to be relevant for new, print designers. If you’re well established, a web designer, or successful in any way, the AIGA becomes nothing more than an expensive version of LinkedIn.
Technorati Tags: aiga, ego, relevance, irrelevant, professional_membership,, membership_directory, design_industry, design_resources graphic_design
August 17th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
It’s interesting that I worked in Print at a newspaper and with several regional direct marketing and direct mail firms for the first 3 years I was here - and I had never heard of the AIGA.
Ironically, the first time I heard of the AIGA was when I actually met one of their board members!
I’ve personally hired and utilized a lot of design talent in the region and never did I worry about whether or not they were with the AIGA.
You nailed it with ‘relevance’. What are the benefits of the AIGA regionally? with designers? with employers?
September 28th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
This is actually a subject I feel very strongly about, and I want to figure out how to better communicate the disconnect between web design and the AIGA.
In my opinion, the values of the AIGA are actually in direct opposition with everything I web-type like myself holds dear. My experience has been that designers and agencies with a strong presence in the AIGA don’t know the first thing about Web Standards or Usability. They only care that it looks great. And there seems to be no drive to educate designers how to better design for the web.
My favorite comment of late came from a technical lead at a prominent ad agency in Kansas City. When asked why his agency uses Flash for all of its websites, he gave a few reasons that were each quickly dismissed by the person asking the question. Then the guy said with a smile on his face, “The real reason we use Flash is because it wins awards.” (!!!)
It seems like graphics departments are just steering students into this AIGA-Flash design universe with no regard for semantics, RSS feeds, or anything else that will truly change the web over the next 5 years. It’s gotten bad enough that as a web developer/business-owner, I’ve mostly had to look OUTSIDE graphics departments of universities when recruiting.
P.S. The best part about the little story above is that the same agency is currently on task to help design a social networking site. And they’re contemplating doing it in Flash!
September 28th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Thanks for your comment! I have noticed the exact same thing locally. The AIGA, award winners, and the “design clique” doesn’t normally include standards and usability proponents.
September 28th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
I’m working for a company here now that spent deep in the 5-digits for their flash site. Not only does it not ‘do’ what was requested, the group actually argued that ‘they’ liked it that way.
It’s probably a site that could win quite a few awards, but we haven’t got a single prospect off it because it’s not Search Engine Optimized, it’s static, and there’s no ability to update it.
What a waste! Someone has to teach people that there’s more than Flash in the world. Sometimes it means sacrificing ‘cool’ for older technology and that’s perfectly alright.
One great example is HTML Email… you can utilize advanced CSS techniques all you want, but since many email clients ignore styles, good ‘ol tables and inline style tags work best across all clients.