Sometime last year, I posted an investigative rant about deaf creatives and their place in the creative industry and some of you raised some points and issues about it. I know, in my former town of Cleveland, there is a branch of AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Artists) and while here in Burlington, Vermont there are none.
I managed to speak with someone from AIGA headquarters about organizing a chapter up here and was referred to someone to talk about it.
Even though I’m working on ways to get some more research out of it, I thought some of you creative professionals and/or students might get a kick out of it. The woman, Maria from NYC’s AIGA had this to say to me:
==Adam:
Thank you for your letter. You raise an extremely important issue and we
wholly agree that in order to be successful, design professions must give
opportunity to purposeful creativity from all sources of our society,
culture and population. Clearly, this is also critical if the profession is
to achieve its challenge of communicating to all elements of our society and
clients’ customers or audiences.
In the coming weeks, I will discuss this issue with my colleagues internally
to strategize a way of addressing it–I welcome any thoughts you may have in
this area. Perhaps we could establish an online community for deaf creative
professionals through which to communicate and share experiences and ideas.
Our diversity task force is dormant at the moment as its leadership
transitions, but I will bring this up as a vital aspect of diversity, once
we begin connecting again.
In regards to starting a chapter, Bridget informed me that she forwarded you
the link to that portion of our website. It would be excellent to see
something started in Vermont!
Please feel free to contact me if you have any further thoughts or concerns.
Kind regards,
Maria (edited)
And so…I’m hoping to get something initiated to stir interest, at least, probably at a slow pace but perhaps it will expand later on.
February 17th, 2006 at 3:41 pm
way hey, thats good news then
Weee for us arty types!! 
February 17th, 2006 at 8:18 pm
Good luck with that. When I started the BAHA people mailing list on what used to be e-groups I had 12 members for ages. Now there’s 295 members, and I know a lot of people only join for a short time, have their questions answered and move on. I reckon we’ve had 500-700 members over the last 5 years. I have to say I founded the community on a bit of answering questions interspersed with concentrated neglect!
If you are thinking about design for a community check out some of the information society literature about online communities and what works and what doesn’t. There’s been loads of research into that and it’s quite interesting and explains the difference between different types of communities. If you want I’ll email you a copy of the essay I did for that module of my degree - I wrote it about my BAHA_PPL community.
February 18th, 2006 at 12:36 am
Barakta,
Sure you can email me a copy of the essay..I’d like to look into that
February 18th, 2006 at 1:17 pm
Lette,
Of course
. Not sure if AIGA has a branch in the UK or Ireland but I think there’s something similar to that over there?
February 19th, 2006 at 6:52 am
I dunno Ill have to go investigate!! :p
February 19th, 2006 at 3:06 pm
Can’t hurt to try Lette
.
February 22nd, 2006 at 2:37 pm
Update…okay..so far the Burlington, Vermont chapter of AIGA is a reality…I spoke with a local via email and she says they’re really working on it and invited me to join in and volunteer as a member but I think being associated with AIGA (www.aiga.org) just may give me an edge.
Now that I’m not alone in this..I’m going to really do something about it.
Although, not all Art Directors are like that and can be pretty respectful in their ways of ethical approaches and not cross the line–something I wanted to add and point out.
Some can be unscrupulous in their ways with shady behavior and some don’t. So this is why I think AIGA is going to be beneficial in educating other people not to cross the line professionally.
And this town needs it.
February 22nd, 2006 at 2:38 pm
okay..so I was kidding
..but really the AIGA thing in Vermont will be a reality in the future.
February 23rd, 2006 at 8:49 am
Sanctum, you’re a nut.
Congrats on the Vermont chapter! Should be great for you.
February 23rd, 2006 at 6:02 pm
Today Vermont, tomorrow The World
Seriously, congratulations on getting this going Sanctum.
February 24th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Danke, hohprof…it took a little prodding..but I found a local here who was trying to do the same thing like me…so she is the one who’s doing the organizing and that’s how AIGA referred me to her. So far, it’s preliminary and locations are being scouted..on her part..but she invited me to join and be a volunteer, however I hope to join AIGA when it comes to full fruition.