AIGA Design Conference 2022: the award medalists, the hosts, the talks and design’s audacious future
Just a few days after Inscipt Experimental Type Festival (available to revisit under Replay mode for ticket holders only), another celebration of contemporary design kicks off in search of the creative industry’s next frontier, enter the AIGA Design Conference 2022 October 20-22.
A gathering “for the diverse and ever-changing design community to gather together, inspire and explore how design can and will change the future” for 2022, AIGA Design Conference draws its focus on “Re-Connecting” with its community as the first after a three years hiatus in-person AIGA conference, with a virtual option also available.
Aiming to “celebrate the contributions and impact of design” and searching for design’s next frontiers. AIGA Design Conference 2022 introduces “a new twist to our mainstage” by welcoming three hosts to guide the ticket holders “through the most pressing, cutting edge, and provocative topics impacting design.”
AIGA’s Conference chair aka MATTER’s Rick Griffith, along with Brian Collins of COLLINS, Debbie Millman, and Lee-Sean Huang, are the moderators who aim to lead “insightful discussions about the impact of design on our world.”
Bringing together a diverse roster of speakers working in “bold new ways, and exploring how design can build better bridges” AIGA Design Conference 2022 will look past the looking glass addressing “the world’s newest challenges, and learn how we can all make positive progress” through design.
Highlights include the Fireside Chats session and the AIGA Awards Celebration. Hosted by AIGA’s executive director Bennie F. Johnson the Fireside Chats’ theme is the future of design, with guests Audrey Lui, VP, head of design at Lyft, Tim Allen, global head of design at Instacart, Arem Duplessis, Apple’s group creative director and Pepsi’s chief design officer Mauro Porcini.
The recipients of this year’s AIGA Award, are designers and practitioners highly influential in the design industry. This year’s recipients are Andrew Satake Blauvelt, Emily Oberman, and Louise Sandhaus.
Blauvelt is a designer, curator, historian, critic, and educator whose practice spans the fields of art and culture. Since 2015, he has served as Director of Cranbrook Art Museum in metropolitan Detroit leading the institution’s transformation into a vibrant and diverse cultural destination and community partner. Having studied and practiced graphic design, Blauvelt has expanded his practice to also include authoring historical research; curating major exhibitions on art, architecture, and design; editorial design for both print and online publishing; conceiving and managing strategic design initiatives; and writing theory and criticism about the field. AIGA recognizes Blauvelt “for his vast work in the field of art and design in service of the public — a steward of design history, he has redefined the traditional role of the museum in the community and made innovative cultural and educational programming accessible to all.”
Emily Oberman is a multidisciplinary designer whose work spans brand identity, motion graphics, publications, packaging, advertising, and digital. She has been a partner in the New York office of the international design consultancy Pentagram design since 2012. AIGA recognizes Oberman “for imprinting our visual culture with her wit and great fluency of style — highly influential, she is a north star for designers in the business and ubiquitous as a graphic artist in entertainment.”
Louise Sandhaus is a graphic designer and faculty at the California Institute of the Arts. She is the founder and co-director of The People’s Graphic Design Archive, a crowd-sourced virtual archive that aims to expand, diversify, and preserve graphic design history. Author of Earthquakes, Mudslides, Fires and Riots: California and Graphic Design 1936–1986 and co-author of A Colorful Life: Gere Kavanaugh, Designer Sandhaus is recognized “for her presence and voice in the community as an educator and author — brilliant yet accessible, her work elevates under-recognized designers through stunning publications, insightful storytelling, and an eye toward design in everyday life.”
With themes and issues that expand in numerous creative landscapes to cover a hefty design agenda, from the significance of book design now through the educational challenges to reframe and expand visual research, design ethics and action, the importance of meaningful cultural initiatives for a brand to transition design, the role of design in advocating democracy, this year’s AIGA conference is daring.
Learn more about the speakers here and view the AIGA Design Conference schedule here.
Join AIGA October 20–22, 2022 for the next chapter in design virtually here.
Tags/ design, typography, conference, awards, pentagram, aiga, emily oberman, aiga medal award, aiga award
![Tribeca Festival campaign and branding. Client: Tribeca Festival. 2021. Design: Emily Oberman, partner-in-charge and lead designer; Laura Berglund, Matt Varner, Katherine Killeffer, Jase Hueser, Anastasia Kharchenko and John Boran, Jr., designers; Beatriz Congar, project manager. Studio: Pentagram. Image courtesy of Pentagram New York. [Note: Original identity by BIG / Ogilvy & Mather. 2002] Image via AIGA](assets/original/2022/10/21/aiga 2022 design conference award2.png)
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