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Lynda Weinman: One of AIGA's most prominent competitions is called Design 365, an annual
event that seeks to honor the best design entries
from the past year. The debut exhibition is held in the gallery
on the first floor of AIGA's National Design Center.
Luckily, I was able to arrange a sneak preview with Gabriela Mirensky, the Director of
Competitions and Exhibitions for AIGA. We took a look around at some of the entries,
which helped me learn more about how AIGA strives to stimulate excellence throughout
the design field. So it looks like we have some different categories.
For example, this is the promoting category down this aisle.
Gabriela Mirensky: Right. We actually have six categories.
The categories depend on the intention of the piece, what they need it to do
in the marketplace. You get things that go from posters -
lots of posters are in the promotional category - to Web sites.
So we cover the whole spectrum of applications of design.
It's a very tough category to judge, just because of the sheer amount of
entries, but it's really fun stuff. Lynda: So you have the physical show here
at AIGA headquarters in New York. Gabriela: Yes.
Lynda: And then does anything else happen with this work?
Gabriela: It travels for a whole year around chapters, Lynda: Oh, fantastic!
Gabriela: AIGA chapters and universities. It's on demand, so we never know in advance
what the touring schedule will be. But generally, it's booked a couple of months
in advance. So we keep a list online, right now, of what
the next venues are. Lynda: That's very exciting.
Do you have to be a member of AIGA to look at this work?
Gabriela: Not at all. Lynda: So it's online. Gabriela: This is open to the public, and
it's available online, open to all on the Web at
designarchives.aiga.org. Lynda: So I know that ties into the philosophy
of evangelizing design to the world. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Gabriela: Well, we want to make sure people understand, not just designers, but everybody,
understands that we live with design and we interact with design 24x7.
It's through bringing pieces that are extremely well designed -
and by well designed, we mean not just pretty. It's not just the aesthetics, but it's really
the way they work and how well they met the design objectives and the communication
objectives - it's really through great examples that we
can explain to the public and kind of educate the public about what design can do,
in addition to make things pretty.