Community Impact. Not community “outreach” or community “service” (although our work is all of that.) Impact is defined as having a ”forcible effect” upon a person or thing. We want to have an impact. Not just to extend a hand or do a service, but to make an active difference. Our goal is to use our skills to yield better circumstances. We’re open to all sorts of collaborations. We want to learn from you how you see AIGA making an impact on the metro Detroit community. This is a big town with huge opportunities to make a difference. AIGA|Detroit is stepping up.

There are several initiatives currently underway. In our Conjunction program, we adopt a grass-roots organization, one or two at a time, and support them with the range of skills represented by our membership. For our first initiative Mat Burton, Liisa Salonen and Elizabeth Youngblood were instrumental in helping the animal rescue group Home-Fur-Ever with media attention and branding. We’ve just taken on our second organization and added a member to the committee to support the specific tasks and scope of work we undertake.

The newest addition to our enterprise is Shout, a mentoring program. Led by Craig Steen, Shout exposes high school students to the creative process as a problem-solving tool. Up to 16 high school students, 4 college student designers and 4 professional designers will work together in a 3-day workshop. The students will devise a project aimed at making their specific communities more to their liking. It’s shaping up for a maiden run early this summer.

Although not an AIGA|Detroit sponsored project, seven members of our chapter are helping the InsideOut Literary Arts Project. Under the tutelage of professional writers, grade school students create poetry and artwork that are fashioned into a book, then printed and published.

This year, members Sara Godin, Paula Guthat, Alan Languirand, Sue LaPorte, Susan Lutfy, Gail Perez, and Rachel Beresh each pitched in and assembled a file, preparing a book for print. We put out the call on InsideOut’s behalf and they stepped up to the plate.

Community Impact committee members are Nina Bianchi, Liisa Salonen, Elizabeth Youngblood and Nkenge Zola and we’re getting  special assistance from Kiko Paradela for the Boggs School project.

Investigate the links below to get acquainted with “our” organizations and feel free to contact any of us to give your input or to join in.

Links to our partners past and present:
www.homefurever.com
www.insideourdetroit.org
www.boggseducationalcenter.org/

Shout encourages students to use their voice in the creative process to develop projects that will improve their communities.

AIGA Detroit offers Shout as a unique opportunity for high school students interested in communications (drawing, design, art, photography, singing, writing, theater and research) to participate in additional arts programs. As public school budgets become tighter around the state and art programs shrink, our chapter must strive to introduce the profession of design to students and encourage them to consider it as a field of study.

Shout has the following educational goals for each student:

• To develop an understanding that the creative process can be used as a problem solving method.
• To learn basic graphic design principles (type / image / hierarchy / composition).
• To become aware of how graphic design has been used in communities to build awareness and promote issues.
• To collaborate with each other and to work in teams, as well as with college design students and professionals.
• To use graphic design as a creative form of self-expression.
• To experience the delivery of a clear and expressive message as a powerful way to affect their communities in a positive way.
• To become aware of what graphic design is, and its potential as a legitimate career path.

For more information about upcoming shout programs please contact:

Craig Steen or call at (248) 591-9450