Paul Young's notes from the 2008 AIGA Massaging Media 2 Conference

On April 4–6, 2008, I attended and presented at an AIGA education conference
focused on dynamic media.

 
The conference was held
in Boston
   
The conference venue was the Boston World Trade Center at the Seaport

 
   
The main entrance to the Boston World Trade Center
   
The lobby area of the conference center

 
   
Conference attendees were able to choose from a menu of keynote speakers, concurrent break-out sessions and roundtable discussions
   
About 200 educators from across the USA attended

 
   
Keynote speaker Meredith Davis (North Carolina State University)

 
   

At breakout sessions, a wide range of topics were presented by educators from the theoretical to the technical

 

 
   
Another breakout session

 
   

Saturday lunch and roundtable discussions where design educators networked and shared information in a casual atmosphere

 
 

Notes:

  • trend: complexity is inevitable
  • important skill: being able to navigate (filter) complexity
  • tomorrow's designers need to manage complexity (not reduce it)
  • designers are moving from graphic to product to media to experience design
  • designers are moving away from designing objects to designing systems and tools
  • electives in the social sciences are increasingly important
  • data: designers make the meaningless meaningful
  • trend: control passing from designer to end user
  • need to teach: how to design systems (constants vs. variants)
  • teach "web page layout" in publication design
  • teach motion as language

    (other)
  • terminology: "exercise" vs. "class activity"
  • student show: present web site as a movie (recording of a browsing session)
  • syllabus: add statement "student work may be published by the college for promotional purposes" (with option to opt out)
  • practice critiques: compare and contrast good and bad design
  • teaching typography: progression from letter to sentence to page
  • buy Adobe Font Folio Education Essentials

    (books to review)
  • Graphic Design: A New History
  • And Fork: 100 Designers, 10 Curators, 10 Good Designs
  • Things I Have Learned In Life So Far (Steven Sagmeister)

 

 



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