April 28, 2012 10:36:22 PM by
SuperUser
 ICON Helps Review Student Portfolios
Art Directors Club of Denver and AIGA Colorado invite students and professionals to help shape the future of design. ICON believes, as leaders in the community it is our obligation to both participate and contribute in raising the level of student's thinking. This is ICON's 8th consecutive year.
June 09, 2005 12:40:28 AM by
SuperUser
 Eric Baird: He Means Business
by Joseph Coplans
"I love the business side of design. I love the dollars and cents of it. I intend to brand AIGA Colorado."
As a model of change, Denver, Colorado, is a city continuing to redesign itself in the image of newly forming cultural demands. Few cities in the United States have incorporated such a steadfast movement for an engaging and charismatically progressive, urban design. And Denver's urban renaissance is creating opportunities for its metro-conscious designers to inspire people to enjoy every aspect of their new, urban lifestyle. This new calling for cultivated design has invited all disciplines from within our industry to work together, in synchronicity with each other. After all, placing value on the experience of everyday things is a creative motivator for alluring and dynamic design. And indeed, design has found value in everyday life here. Denver, in a very short time, has become wondrously sophisticated.
Mirroring this new sophistication, and working to synchronize itself with prominent opportunities, is the new business plan of the burgeoning Colorado Chapter of the AIGA, spearheaded by its new Chapter President, Eric Baird.
"It's all about creativity, imagination, and above all, innovation," says the business savvy, new President. As a stalwart designer, Eric Baird maintains the growing success of three companies, showing excellent momentum with his leadership. His experience on 4 boards as a director (2 of which have been with AIGA, with one term as AIGA treasurer), have inspired him to demand a formidable paradigm shift in AIGA Colorado thinking. His approach? Run AIGA Colorado like a business. "Which it is," asserts Mr. Baird, also owner of ICON, a design firm specializing in corporate identity and branding. "AIGA Colorado is a 501c3 non-profit corporation. Some of the most prominent organizations in the country are non-profits, and they are successful because they have far-reaching business plans that find distinct harmony and benefit in combining their efforts with the visions of larger companies. So, creativity and imagination applied in a business context, is innovation", explains Baird.
Yet, never before has AIGA Colorado leadership been so determined to become a viable cultural force in Denver. AIGA leadership has linked the power of the their mission statement to unexplored areas of benefit for the city of Denver and the ultimate benefit of the AIGA constituency. This cataclysmic vision, this push to have AIGA Colorado become a permanent part of culture hinges on the success of a key element: High-level sponsorship from big business. "With this new model," explains Mr. Baird, "we have developed a Living Document with a Dynamic Timeline, and a viable sponsorship package that is building a foundation to leave an AIGA legacy, with the goal of housing us in a building that will become a permanent home for AIGA. Because, we'll have relationships that will build a true sponsorship infrastructure."
This Living Document finds ways for large corporations to monitarily appreciate design. Additionally, Mr. Baird supportively describes designers as crucial contributors to the corporate vehicle that generates profit. Large corporations perceiving the value of design with respect to their bottom line will align themselves with AIGA Colorado through sponsorship. With the results of sponsorship dollars in the tens of thousands, offerings to the AIGA membership, will have a dramatic effect. "And that, is what will bring undeniable and unprecedented value to AIGA members," says the new president emphatically. "The community of design is corporate culture," Mr. Baird stated confidently. "We want to provide the symbiosis between corporations and the AIGA, and use that same model to approach philanthropy interested in our mission, and in turn give back generously to the community."
It's a three-way dance between design culture, corporate sponsorship and philanthropic opportunity. "Yes, and it means we're operating more as a business and less as a club," smiled the tenacious AIGA Colorado President.
Excitingly, the new business model promises to take the first steps toward what the new president of AIGA and others have long envisioned for AIGA Colorado: a prominent AIGA Colorado chapter creating design strength to meet the quality of design required by the demands of a new culture - and now, a path to the true financial means necessary to fulfill the evolving AIGA mission statement.
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