The Open End

In the Fall of 2008 the AIGA hosted a conference at the Maryland Institute College of Art titled Social Studies: Educating Designers in a Connected World. The audience of attendees were design educators from around the world. Keynote speakers included Scott Stowell, Mieke Gerritzen, Stefan Bucher and Steven Heller. It was a tremendous event.

I worked with a small team of MICA graphic design graduate students to design and produce the conference packets that each attendee was to get upon arrival. Each team member had experienced a conference of similar caliber and knew what we wanted this packet to be a departure from the normal conference materials: cardboard pocket folder, trifold conference schedule, lanyard equipped with sub-standard name tag (i.e. uninspiring), and a handful of visually different one-sheets announcing anything from an after party to a map of the local campus or city. Ugh.

We put our heads together a produce a visually cohesive packet that, in the end, was personalized for each and every attendee (except a few late-comers). We kept the design simple: two colors, two typefaces and designer chairs. These were the unifying elements throughout. The chairs were used to reinforce the idea of social connectivity. Sitting stations were set up throughout campus to urge attendees to take a load off and engage in some serious dialogue.

In additional to the beautiful conference collateral, attendees were given a one of a kind book designed by the graphic design graduate students and Mike Perry, which housed the conference’s lecture titles, keynote speaker bios and abstracts of all the topics being presented.