Part of something bigger

It makes sense to surround yourself with like minded people, professionally and personally. They can help you grow, learn things and be better at what you do. There are many organisations around for Graphic Design, some act as a hub of talks, events, competitions and discounts while a few others offer a form of accreditation that can help bolster you as a creative individual or company.




D&AD - Design and Art Direction

Price

Awarded Member — £100.00
Member — £100.00
New Creative — £35.00

Benefits

2 free President’s Lecture tickets per year, and discounts thereafter

Free tickets for Sharp’ners (Lively pub events, for Members and friends to share opinions and exchange ideas)

Invitations to Member events such as D&AD Awards judging tours and the Annual launch

Showcase yourself and your work with your online profile. (Awarded members only)

Previews of filmed President’s Lectures and Sharp’ners. Spend an hour or so with the greats - Terry Jones, Bob Gill and company. Members get to watch them first

Exclusive online content and opinion pieces

Download high res files from D&AD’s huge online winners Archive

Shape the future by casting your vote on the members of the D&AD Executive Committee

Take the opportunity to buy the Limited Edition D&AD Annual

Your name immortalised in print in the D&AD Annual

The discounts

5-10% off Apple products

15% off howies clothing

Up to 50% off magazines such as Creative Review and Wallpaper

20% off publications from publishers such as Taschen and Phaidon

10% off D&AD’s creative professional development programme – Workout

20% off your D&AD Awards Night ticket

15% off studio materials from London Graphic Centre

2 for 1 on tickets for the Barbican, Design Museum and V&A and selected shows at The Lowry, 20% off exhibitions at Tate Liverpool

Leading Creatives talk about what D&AD means to them.

ISTD - International Society of Typographic Designers

Admission

Membership by Application

Candidates for membership will normally be required to support their application by submitting their CV with between six and ten examples of their typographic design work, including background information on one item. Design concept, typographic competence, creativity, scope and presentation are all taken into account. 

Price

Member — £100.00

Benefits

Professional Recognition


International Society

Views from Assessors and Society members on the ISTD Student assessment in 2011

AIGA - American Institute of Graphic Arts

Price

Member — $230.00
Member 4yrs + Experience — $315.00

Benefits

Access to Live webinars

AIGA Jobs

AIGA Member Gallery

Design Business and Ethis Publication

AIGA Designer Directory

The discounts

Discounted Apple products

Discounted Shutterstock

Discounted Adobe products

Conferences and Events

The Association of Professional Design Firms Discounted services

Print on Demand services at Blurb

Rockport Publishers events and discounts

What AIGA is and what it has to offer

TDC - Type Directors Club

Price

Member outside USA — $190

Benefits

Publication in Type Directors Annual "Typography"

Access to TDC Archive

The discounts

Discounted Entry to competitions

Discounted Fees for Events

Icograda - International Council of Graphic design Associations

Price

Mainly Company Based

Individual
Zone A - $120

Zone B - $90

Zone C - $60

Benefits

Icograda General Assembly

Best Practice Papers

Networking

Icograda Design Weeks and Regional Meetings

Programmes and Activities

Member Toolkit

CSD - Chartered Society of Designers

Price

Associate (Assoc.CSD) - £100

Member (MCSD) - £180

Fellow (FCSD) - £264

Applicants are required to demonstrate their competence and that they are suitably qualified to be awarded a particular category of membership reflecting the stage in their career development.

Member 4yrs + Experience — $315.00

Benefits

Associate Membership includes

Use of the affix Assoc.CSD after your name

Discounts on CPD training modules

An Associate class membership certificate

Discounts on CSD events

Access to the members pages of the CSD website

Membership of Design Pool and Design Mine

Access to available professional services

Regional networking group access

Access to online fora

Access to available professional information & publications in CSD online Library

Membership (MCSD) includes

Use of the affix MCSD™.

A MCSD membership certificate.

Access to the members pages of the CSD website

Membership of Design Pool and Design Mine

Your own online profile and portfolio

Listing on 'Find a Designer'

Eligibility to vote at the Society's AGM.

Discounts on CPD training modules.

Discounts on CSD events.

Access to available professional services.

Professional advice and initial consultation with advisors.

Regional networking.

Access to available professional information & publications.

Criteria for Fellowship of CSD

The basic criteria for achieving FCSD:

Existing full membership of CSD.

In addition:

In order to award Fellowship, the assessors will be looking for you to demonstrate:

exceptional professional practice skills

a high degree of creativity

demonstrable management and business understanding.

You will also be expected to have made a significant contribution in 3 key areas:

to the design profession

to your own professional life in design

to the Society

Fellowship (FCSD) membership includes

Use of the affix FCSD™.

A FCSD membership certificate.

Eligibility to vote at the Society's AGM.

Access to the members pages of the CSD website

Membership of Design Pool and Design Mine

Your own online profile and portfolio

Listing on 'Find a Designer'

Discounts on CPD training modules.

Discounts on CSD events.

Access to available professional services.

Professional advice and initial consultation with advisors.

Regional networking.

Access to available professional information & publications.

Invitations to Fellowship only events.

Chief Executive talks about CSD and what it has to offer

The Typographic Circle

Price

Individual £30
Student (current full-time student or graduate within the last year*) £15
Company/College £125

Benefits

Advance email alerts and booking for upcoming events
Access to members-only events
Discounts with selected sponsors
Discounted tickets for our events: £10 per ticket (saving £5 on a full-price ticket)
A free copy of the award-winning Circular magazine


Company/college members also:

Are able to reserve up to ten places at events
Are able to receive up to ten discounted tickets at events for their members
Receive three members cards for designated staff
Receive an extra two studio copies of the award-winning Circular magazine

Thoughts


D&AD has always been "the one" for creative professionals. They celebrate good work, provide talks and events and are a large active body within the design world. Not just Graphic Design either, all forms of creativity. This is really appealing, and they offer a lot in the way of discounts and entry to events and shows. 


There is also the ISTD, which is internationally held in high regard for high standards and quality, offering nothing in the way of discounts or perks you would get but, making up for this with the accreditation and "seal of approval" they offer to professional practice.


AIGA trees the same vain as D&AD, mainly focussing on America although they are expanding worldwide. The only real advantage I can see to becoming a member of this is if I was going to be going over to America to work...and I do like the idea of California!


CSD for me is a strange one. They are very much a professional, business organisation from what I can tell, but they don't strike me as particularly inspiring. This sort of organisation seems more for clients than designers, offering a reassurance that a designers practice is to a high standard. 


Icograda is one for the future. Should I ever achieve my dream of owning a studio then, this would be worth becoming a member. They offer much in the way of business advice and help (as do CSD) and again, its a mark of approval for a prospective client.


The Typographic Circle is the cheapest of the organisations, offering discounted access to events, and with sponsors. Possibly worth it just for the early booking on events.




I am not really sure how much accreditation is necessary within Graphic Design, they are rarely mentioned past winning a D&AD pencil. I would be interested to hear from people within the industry what the view is on some of these organisations, whether they are worth joining, why they aren't mentioned and what they are members of.


For me, my immediate thoughts are D&AD and ISTD, I feel more points of view on the others would be beneficial.

Self

Retrospect


You know when you are in primary school and you come home with a painting and your parents say "That's nice, what is it?" well, I'm still getting that. Growing up I used to love science, how things work, taking stuff apart and then putting them back together. I wanted to be an inventor. I would come up with an idea and then try to make it work. 


Not much has changed. I still love coming up with ideas and then seeing how to make it work. I like taking an idea part, disassembling it down to its elements and then rebuilding it, or putting the elements through different processes to discover new things.


My creative journey started in sixth form. I hadn't done art at GCSE and missed drawing, I had done technical drawing in Design and Technology which I really enjoyed but it wash;t quite the same. I wanted to be an Architect, I loved the idea that you could build these massive structures that people lived with/within. Antonio Gaudi was (and still is) an idol of mine. I loved the organic way he worked out his buildings. He started with an idea and then worked out how it would work, rather than the materials dictating how his building would be.

The nave in the Sagrada Familia with a hyperboloid vault. Inspiration from nature is taken from a tree, as the pillar and branches symbolise trees rising up to the roof.

I'm not sure what changed, maybe the over emphasis on maths did it, but I was suddenly faced with uncertainty. I stopped paying attention in physics, dropped some courses and was left with just two, Art and Photography. I was much more comfortable if, a little aimless.


I went on to do a Foundation Degree in Art and Design at the Lichfield School of Art and Design. This was ideal, I got a to try out everything, experiment, make mistakes. I even got t visit some of Gaudi's buildings. I was doing work I wanted to do again. They were big, sculptural pieces, textural images. All stemming from my original interest of architecture, but also bringing in new techniques. I would spend a lot of time in the dark room, playing with processing, seeing what I could do with it. Projects were definitely multi disciplined, often moving an idea from one process to another. New firm interests in photography and graphic design started to develop.

Singer/Bassist of Dirty Habit taken at a local band night. 1600ISO 35mm film to get textural grain and high contrast in enlargement.

My tutor introduced me to the work of David Carson and, from that point on I decided I wanted to do Graphic Design. He embodied the strong images, using mixed media that I was interested in.

David Carson cover for MTV magazine "Blah Blah Blah"

I went to the University of Lincoln to do Graphic Design and Contemporary Lens Media. A joint degree incorporating film and photography with graphic design. I learnt many new techniques, and begun to realise how rule based Graphic Design really was. I suddenly realised how little I actually knew about Graphic Design and in hindsight probably tried to hold on to what I knew too much. If I am honest, it probably took me a bit too long to get it. 


So I got my degree, graduated and signed up to every Graduate scheme I could, eventually getting a 6 month internship at Air & Ground as Graphic Designer (plus working part time pushing trolleys at Tesco) they kept me on, eventually doing a 6 month Short Term Knowledge Transfer Partnership with Staffordshire University. This was fantastic, I learnt a huge amount from my tutor Mark Garner, which grew my confidence in my understanding. I completed the KTP and, having met Barbara a few times during the course of the Partnership, was asked if I would be interested in the MA Creative Futures.


http://www.thisislincolnshire.co.uk/Shoppers-baffled-batty-bus-stop-signs/story-11198911-detail/story.html#

University work - poster on news articles - internet bullying 

Identity for an alternative clothing company - unused

"Taxi Driver" fact book - using script from main action
scene projected onto model of the set to illustrate

Spread from "Taxi Driver" fact book

Air & Ground Logo refinement

Air & Ground Literature

Air & Ground Website

I would say, although I am working in the field I now know I want to be working in, I'm not producing the kind of work I am happy with. There is very little sign of my original passions, nor new ones. I am extremely interested in design for social good, especially with recent events such as the Occupy movement, designers such as Bruce Mau, Jonathan Barnbrook and ideologists such as R. Buckminster Fuller. I have become more web and screen based, which, while not a bad thing, takes me away from the kind of work I would like to be doing.






Introspect


I want to be better at what I do. I feel like I need new challenges and experiences so that I can grow professionally and personally. Currently I am the only Graphic Designer at Air & Ground working in house, which means I am looking at the same things every day. My dream is to have my own creative studio. Ideally I would work my way up within the studio structure, as well as freelance before to gain experience. I feel this MA will help me do that, as well as provide an escape from the solitary in house work I am currently doing, helping to prevent a staleness setting in.


I would say I have weaknesses in project management, typography and confidence in my work. I struggle to feel work is finished. For this reason I have not managed to do much in the way of self promotion.
I would love to learn far more typographically, it is a rich area that I have not explored as fully as I could have and I would like the opportunity to do so.


My strengths are ideas, experimenting and the ability to learn quickly.


I feel I need to re-focus, with the kind of work I am doing, the things I am looking at and how I work as a designer. I need to address my practice, personal and professional so I can move forward as a designer.










I would also one day like to live in California, it's warm in California and I do hate that cold.