The 2007 National AGM was productive, with a spirit of co-operation we hadn’t seen before. Maybe it was due to the First Nation’s Elder’s blessing that started off the official meetings. Whatever the case, it was a heartening development, and made for some great results.
BC sent a strong contingent again to keep our fingers on the pulse and get some good succession planning in the works. Marga Lopez, Mark Busse, Carolina Beccarra, Steve Mynett and I were there to represent (and I talked too much).
We did all the basic stuff like pass the budget and hear what all the chapters were doing. But in getting things done we took some novel approaches and set out some great policy direction. So here’s what happened, apart from getting kicked out of hotel rooms:
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What a wild and fantastically inspiring Graphex weekend! We’re all just recovering and starting in on all the follow up work but there are a few bits of news in need of sharing. First and foremost the winners exhibit is starting its national tour starting in Vancouver (seems logical since everyone was just here!). It’s displaying at the Pendulum Gallery in the HSBC Building at 885 W. Georgia until April 11th. This is truly some of the best in current Canadian Design and is well worth the trip down to check out. We’ve also posted the video vignettes at Video.ca (available here, here and here). Photos are also starting to come in and will be archived on the our Flickr Account (and the Graphex Collection) The coveted Graphex Catalogues are being produced now and will be available for sale shortly, stay tuned!
After waiting for a long time, the results are finally here! The 2007/2008 RGD Ontario/Aquent National Survey of Graphic Design Salaries & Billing Practices is now available for download. This survey was conducted by RGD Ontario and its partner AQUENT, in cooperation with the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada (GDC) and the Société des designers graphiques du Québec (SDGQ).
This is the fourth time a survey of this nature has been conducted in Canada by this Association and even though the results are not to be viewed as a nationally representative statistical sample of all graphic design professionals, it does provide a current reflection of what some in the design profession are currently earning.
Graphex 2008 launches with a bang.
November 30th, 2007 saw a festive start to Graphex 2008 with catered food, drinks and mingling with some of the BC design community’s best and brightest at the Graphex Judges Evening hosted by GDC/BC at UBC Robson Square. And the festive atmosphere continued through the center-piece of the Judges Evening: The individual presentations from each of the judges and the opportunity for the assembled audience to pose questions from the floor.
Some stirring remarks by GDC/BC President Mark Busse and a special message from National VP of Communications Rod Roodenburg marked the beginning of the presentations and each of the judges in turn gave their insightful, informed sometimes humorous and always heart-felt perspective on the power of design, delivering what will almost certainly be looked-back upon as one of the richest evenings of design discourse to occur in Vancouver this year.
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Last week, while many of us out west worked feverishly to launch the Graphex awards, the winners of the 2007 DX Awards were announced at an awards dinner and gala held at the Design Exchange—Canada’s design museum and centre for design research and education. The DXAs are a Canadian multi-disciplinary design competition based on commercial effectiveness aimed at fostering business and public understanding of the impact of design excellence on the economy and quality of life.
Among the winners of visual communications awards this year are Subplot Design, Exhibit A: Design Group and SmashLAB—all Vancouver firms and professional GDC members. Congratulations Matt, Roy, Cory and Erik!
All winning entries are on display at the Design Exchange. The exhibit will run from November 29 - January 27th, 2008. More info and a complete list of winners can be found here: www.dx.org/dxa
Complete the National Graphic Design Salary Survey by June 22 for a chance to WIN.
Take five minutes to fill out the online salary survey by Friday, June 22, 2007 and be entered into a draw for a free conference registration for DesignThinkers 2007, Canada’s largest graphic design conference taking place in Toronto along with 3 nights hotel and a $100 gift certificate at Kalendar and one of ten 1-year subscriptions to Fast Company. Results of the survey will be made available in the fall.
The survey doesn’t take long to complete and can be accessed at:
http://www.researchdimensions.com/designsurvey
The GDC National AGM was held recently in Montreal and was a terrific experience. During the long meetings many presentations were given about the activities of GDC across Canada. I represented the BC Chapter and gave a report about some of the great things happening out west, but after I was home and the dust had settled did I realize that I forgot to recount a tale about the great advocacy work done by Dean McNeil and our National Ethics Committee on behalf of me and my design firm. I’ll quickly share the story with you now.
My company has provided design and production services to CMHC for many years and enjoyed a good working relationship with them, so you can imagine our chagrin when we discovered a section of their RFSA (Request For Services Arrangement) that included an unpaid speculative design component as a mandatory requirement. In order to be considered for contract renewal, we were being asked to design a series of promotional banners and a full page advertisement according to some generic instructions and without compensation. Ouch.
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I just attended my third National AGM, and possibly the most exciting. There are fantastic things happening across the country and as a National body. It’s a great reminder that we are not only our rock. It’s also great to know that our chapter is very respected and many chapters have used us and our materials as inspiration and a model for how they operate as we have been inspired (and continue to be) by them.
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GDC National Annual General Meeting Update
Montreal, April 27, 2007
During the 2007 Annual General Meeting held in Montreal, Quebec, the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada (GDC) unanimously awarded two Fellowships to outstanding members of the graphic design profession:
Dale Simonson and Jim Rimmer
Fellowship is the highest honour that the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada can bestow, and is awarded to a designer or individual who by influence and/or accomplishment has made a major contribution to graphic design in Canada.
Congratulations Jim and Dale.
We’ve discussed this here before, but it seems I’ve caused a bit of a frenzy again with this idea that it’s time to change our professional title, suggesting we go so far as to change the very name of our association, dropping the term “Graphic Designer” in favour of “Communication Designer”.
From my IBC blog:
The longer I stay in this industry, the more I realize the difference between producing graphically appealing (pretty) solutions and creating strategic communication solutions that produce results.
Though I use my training in Graphic Design daily and often find much of what I do professionally to be based on visual language and aesthetics, it is only one of many services I offer my clients. Being labeled a Graphic Designer feels a little like being called a draftsman, colour artist, desktop layout artist or something else that does not come even close to describing what I do. I believe this is likely true of most of my colleagues in the communication design industry and I want to know. Though it irks me when people cite Wikipedia as a source of definitions, it is interesting to note the definition of Graphic Design on that site as a subset of the field of Communication Design.
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As we will be discussing this important issue at the GDC National AGM in Montreal in April, I invite all GDC members and non-members alike to post comments with their thoughts or suggesions on this topic.
GDC National eNews: November Issue
For those of you not already subscribing to and reading our GDC National E-News, sign up now. (members can do this when logged into their profile area). The November issue is packed full of good stuff and humbling reminder how much work our national council is doing on our behalf.
The AGM was just hosted in Edmonton by Alberta North and it was an inspiring and particularly productive weekend. Our priorities have been categorized and concrete actions settled on in a day long session; improvement continue to be made to our society and for our profession. Its amazing and humbling to be a part of such a focussed and capable group of people that care so much for their profession. The best part is that the more you put in the more you get out. This organization pays you back double.
It was also a blast. As proved here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/gdcagmedm2006/
