AIGA Design Conference

I know this is a little late but I wanted to post on some of the items from the AIGA design conference. I tried posting while I was there, but time was limited and when I got back, the work was piled up. I’m now just getting caught up.

So, was it worth going to? Overall I’d say “Yes”, but there were some areas of disappointment.

Some of the more worth-while presenters were Stanley Hainsworth, the VP Global Creative at Starbucks. Since I work as an in-house designer, I tried to go to speakers who would really give me insight and help on being a great designer in that situation. He was successful in accomplishing that. He gave a lot of background about Starbucks and how there design department works and what they do to be successful.

Here are some of the highlights

Everything has to have a purpose, no decorations unless it backs something up.

It’s not only the brand but the experience that is created. That is what you need to achieve.

He talked a lot of their creative brief and how they have trained everyone to fill out a complete and to-the-point brief so projects can be completed quicker and in line of what the other department wanted.

As an in-house designer, you need to look more into your business needs and what you want to accomplish. Don’t get bored with the product. Be excited about it and look for ways to improve upon it. Everyone is a brand steward.

There was a question asked, “How do yo stay creative within the guidelines?” He brought up a little about their brand guidelines and within that they have 5 keywords that their whole brand is built around. So, instead of having specific colors they have to conform too, they are able to push the limits more as long as it comes back to the keywords they have. (Unfortunately, I don’t have those 5 keywords.)

Stanley, by far, was the best presenter that I went to at the conference. Another great presenter was Bobby C. Martin, Jr. the Design Director at Jazz at Lincoln Center. I’ll mention the highlights of his in a later post.