Be a Winner

Calling all sustainable graphic designers in the Mid-West!

Showcase and celebrate your sustainable design work in the upcoming 2012 AIGA Minnesota and the Green Leaf Award that recognizes design leadership in environmental responsibility and sustainable design. The entry deadline is Friday, March 30th, so enter now. By entering student work or professional work in the design show, you can enter to win the sustainable Green Leaf Award at no extra cost.

And this year, the MCAD Sustainable Design Online (SDO) program faculty are partnering with the AIGA to bring their sustainable design expertise to bear in two significant ways.

First, I led the project to update the Green Leaf Award criteria for the show with valuable input from Wendy Jedlicka. My partner, John Moes, and I had helped institute the Green Leaf Award for the AIGA and had even written the original criteria. But criteria needed to be refreshed and updated to reflect the advances in sustainable design thinking. The updated criteria reflect the current thinking and evolved approach to sustainable design that the MCAD program teaches.

Secondly, volunteers from the MCAD SDO faculty will be judging the Green Leaf Award entrants. Why is this important? By applying the principles and quantifiable criteria to the communication design industry, we can help advance how design is practiced and expose more people to the practice of sustainable design.

The AIGA is the professional association for communication designers. Entrants need not be AIGA Minnesota members; however, members get a discount for both entry fees and event admission.

The AIGA Minnesota Design Show highlights the most exceptional design work being produced in the upper Midwest and showcases the power of design in today’s culture. This annual competition is independently judged by leading design professionals from across the country and is structured around the entry’s ability to solve the problem of communicating both design’s effectiveness and aesthetic appeal. Selected entries are presented at the Design Show’s opening reception and are showcased online for the following year.

For more information and to enter, visit: http://www.aigaminnesota.org/event/design-show/case-study-and-green-leaf-2012/

Holly Robbins, article author and MCAD Sustainable Design Online faculty (BFA/University of Wisconsin-Stout) is a partner and creative director of This Is Folli, a design concern, with her once and again partner, John Moes. Over the years, Holly has worked at Target Corporation, at advertising agencies, at design firms and owned her own design partnership, but she has always worked to advance the cause of ecologically-sustainable design throughout her career. She has worked with various organizations over the years to promote sustainability, develop guidelines and award criteria and advance sustainable design professional education, including with the AIGA/MN, GreenBlue’s Sustainable Packaging Coalition and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Her work has appeared in books, publications and exhibits, including Print magazine, How magazine, the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, American Corporate Identity, Creativity Annual and local and national AIGA competitions.

MCAD is now accepting applications for fall 2012 to its newly launched Master of Arts in Sustainable Design program. Work with a global network of faculty and students. Learn from wherever you are in the world, it’s 100% online. Apply today!

Design Show image courtesy of @AIGAMN. Paperless poster courtesy of @agencyFdesign.