SECOND AIGA CHAPTER MEETING 2009-2010

THURSDAY 19th November. 6:30pm Heuser Auditorium

A strong group of buAIGA members attended the screening of ‘Died Young Stayed Pretty’ whilst enjoying a feast of chicken and fries.

Prior to watching the movie, the executive committee welcomed new members and discussed arrangements for the forthcoming trip to the SEEK conference. buAIGA will have a pretty strong presence at the conference with more than a dozen members car pooling it up to Northern (at 4:30am !).  Look out for photographs posted on this site shortly after the conference.

The meeting was also an opportunity to let everyone know about the large number of design contests available to enter (and their deadlines), including an opportunity to collaborate with the painting students to make the BU campus a little prettier with a ‘Design a Dumpster’ competition.

Finally, Senior President, Jordan Philbrook, reminded the chapter that buAIGA t shirts are available (fitted and loose). Orders should be made directly to Jordan or emailed through ‘Talk to Us’ on this site.

Many of the details for competitions and other activities are posted on this site, either on this front page or the ‘Events’ page. Please check regularly for updates.

And to all buAIGA student chapter members – HAPPY THANKSGIVING

The deadline for your submissions will be on your return to school after the winter break. Please email your electronic (pdf) submissions back to gwill@bradley.edu. They will be reviewed by a panel of Bradley based judges early in the new year.

Top three designs will win prizes and be featured on this buAIGA site.

It’s now the official start of the Hand Turkey Challenge. Like last year, download the template below, use a little creative magic and draw a sweet hand turkey, scan and email back to us at mail@rule29.com. We’ll post all of the entries for YOU TO VOTE ON, and one lucky hand turkey will win a $50 iTunes gift card as our way to show our thanks to you and runner up will win a $25 dollar itunes gift card. Check out all of last years’ goblling creations at our Flickr set. Please have your Turkeys back to us by close of business the 24th. May the best turkey win!

Download Template

Contact Jordan Philbrook (Senior President) in person or email through ‘Talk To Us’

Posted by Patrick Burgoyne, 16 October 2009, Creative Review

One of the most eagerly-awaited design elements of the London 2012 Olympics was launched today – the pictograms

To many designers, the Olympics pictograms are one of those dream projects: Otl Aicher’s set for Munich in 1972 (below) and the Mexico 68 collection both figure in most designers’ mental lists of most revered works.

Tough gig then, a fact recognised by ‘Yasmine” of the London 2012 Brand Team who was put up to explain the 2012 version on the official blog today, which features efforts from previous games, including 68 and 72.

CR understands that the 2012 pictograms were the work of SomeOne, although Yasmine is strangely silent on this fact. Nevertheless, she explains that “The agency had to come up with something that fitted in with our brand identity but at the same time create something new and exciting.”

“Traditionally,” she tells us, “pictograms are used for way finding and signage at Games time, so people generally see them as just an Organising Committee’s way of doing their own toilet sign! [Really?] We wanted to create an asset that we, our licensees and our partners would use in more creative ways than just at Games time – and they’ll be vital to the identity of our ‘Look’ programme (how we ‘dress’ the city).”

“The pictograms of the past have nearly always taken their cue from the Munich Games pictograms designed by Otl Aicher,” continues Yasmine, “Therefore, they are generally based both on old technology (things have moved on!), and are often stationary and frozen.” Well the results of that “old technology” still look pretty good to me…

Here’s what she has to say about the 2012 set: “One of the joys of London 2012 is the coming together and connection of the world’s people, and so a more contemporary approach to pictograms offers an opportunity beyond pure informational signage. We really wanted to push the concept for the pictograms and one of the outcomes of this was to create two style versions – a silhouette version used for high visibility and information-based applications,

“and a dynamic version used both as decoration and where a more exciting version is called for, such as on posters or banners.” Supposedly, these were “inspired by the London Underground map”

This is how the Track Cycling ‘dynamic’ pictogram, with the silhouette version inset will work

“Do I believe they could rival the Munich Games’ versions?” asks Yasmine. “Absolutely, because I strongly believe these will touch and inspire everyone – whether in London, the UK or more widely around the world.” Hmmm….

First impressions are that the “dynamic” set are more interesting than the somewhat clip-arty ’silhouette version’ but neither has the charm of 68 or the beauty and rigour of 72, which remain the gold standard. Given that they must work with the logo and so must have at least some stylistic similarity or ability to exist in proximity to it, perhaps that was too much to ask.

Having two sets – the ’silhouette’ and the ‘dynamic’ – smacks of compromise. I suspect, and this is pure conjecture, that SomeOne would have liked to push  the dynamic set and its ‘tube map’ references as it’s a stronger, London-themed idea. The dynamic pictograms look like they might have real potential when animated or, for example, rendered in 3D. They also work well with the logo and typeface (see above) – something that would be incredibly difficult to pull off.

What do you think?

UPDATE

Some additional images from the SomeOne site showing the ‘dynamic’ set in use:

Note also the similarity to the Atlanta pictograms by Malcolm Grear (thanks Wim for pointing this out in the comments below)

THURSDAY 17th September. 7:00pm GCC Reading Room
… and what a way to start! This first chapter meeting of the new academic year was open to member and non-member graphic design and interactive media students to let them see what an important (and cool) organization the AIGA is. Over 30 students packed the reading room as they were privileged to have the company of design legend/psychedelia king of the 60’s London music scene – Alan Aldridge. Aldridge has recently had a one man exhibition at the Design Museum which was voted the #1 exhibition of last year in London. His stories, anecdotes and advice kept the chapter enthralled.

Second item on the agenda was for the BU AIGA Executive Committee to ’step up to the plate’ and tell everybody what the benefits of being in the organization were and why they should join – hopefully, the next MEMBERS ONLY meeting will see an equally large crowd.

THURSDAY 7th MAY 7:00pm GCC Reading Room

This final meeting was very student oriented in that it had the senior graphic design students discussing/showing their portfolio’s and senior projects to the group, followed by Eli Davis, a recent Visual Communication graduate student, talking about the differences between graduate and undergraduate studies and showing examples of her own portfolio. The meeting ended with elections of the 09/10 executive committee board:

Joint President: Jordan Philbrook and Sarah Foerster Joint Vice President: Taia Hartman and Sarah McDonald Treasurer: Jessica Cwik and Secretary: Natalie Kuehn

Well done to the current board for a good year of speakers and events and we look forward to many new members for the next years activities.