The IdeaLists

Meet Ric Grefe, the Executive Director of the American Institute of Graphic Artists, the country’s leading organization for the promotion of design excellence. We sat down with Ric to ask how an authoritative (near) 100-year-old arts institution can remain relevant in a quickly transforming world. We left with the belief that not only will AIGA continue to spread design excellence in the digital era, but that good design might just save democracy.

How is the business of design changing?

Design is moving beyond the disciplines that historically defined it. The role design plays is not around the making of artifacts but it’s around solving problems. The client is now looking for a solution—which they might not be able to describe properly—but would ultimately be about some kind of experience they want their customer to have. So designers are having to cross disciplines in terms of response. Even calling it “multi-disciplinary” suggests that different disciplines still exist and they really don’t.   In terms of addressing the cultural changes, just as irony dropped out of design in 2001 after 9/11, now design is focusing on simplicity and authenticity The designer has got to spend more time following not his or her intuition but rather a sense of empathy to the ultimate client. So moving into sort of ethnographic research. More and more frequently designers are not relying on their own sense of values, perspective or aesthetic but rather prototyping and evaluating the consequences of what they design with other people and then refining options. This has a power in not only what we know design to have been in the past which is creating objects and effective messages but also in terms of solving more complex problems by thinking differently on how you solve them.

And how is this changing the role of AIGA?

Well, AIGA is a century old institution that is the imprimatur of design excellence. If you look at the millennial generation, they question authority and they believe things should be open source, which would be antithetical to a membership organization that’s established itself as an authority. So what we want to do over the next 18 months is turn AIGA on its head and essentially have much of the voice emerge out of its members. And it terms of what does the business model look like, its not clear. Even as the role of the professional association of the past, some might say, has been supplanted by social media (because it brings together a community) there’s still this issue—just as with IdeaLists—there’s this issue of developing the ecosystem of likeminded people with mutual respect. We will continue to play that role: bringing together a community and connecting them whether it’s using social media or face to face.   And the second element is to create a ecosystem of ethics and principles so that the aspirational nature of a professional association over time will not only be devoted to what is excellent design but rather what is a noteworthy professional. What are the characteristics of a noteworthy professional both in terms of integrity but also in terms of effectiveness?

With that in mind, I’ve got to ask about crowdsourcing. Because as technology is changing business models, crowdsourcing is one emerging model that a lot of industries are now embracing. The design community has not. How are you addressing this?

We certainly have changed our ethical standards based on what’s happening in the marketplace with crowdsourcing—because there is no place to put that Genie back in the bottle. One of the unfortunate elements with a lot of crowdsourcing is that there’s not a lot of actual design that is being asked for or delivered. In other words it’s a very static solution to a problem statement rather than the consultation, which is the designing process.   So to some extent, it’s not as if crowdsourcing and designing are directly competitive. They can be, but they certainly are not in most of their applications.   I think what you are trying to accomplish with IdeaLists means more to a designing solution. A lot of crowdsourcing solutions are offered before the problem is really fully understood. This is not design. The real loser in crowdsourcing can often be the client who is paying less and getting less.

Has there ever been an attempt at unionizing the design profession? Actors, writers, directors and other creatives are protected from the “crowd” by their unions.

Interestingly, about 15 years ago the Graphics Arts Guild became affiliated with the teamsters then disaffiliated. It’s not clear who disaffiliated with whom.   I think the reason (there is no union) is an ambiguity about the role of the designer. And you’ve got a situation where, at least our members for instance, are frequently the employer, not the employee. So is it a profession or is it a craft? I think to a large extent unions work best when it’s a craft.   If there’s a threat right now, it’s not crowdsourcing. To me, the threat is now that business is understanding that designers can make a difference in solving difficult problems, the threat comes from McKinsey, Accenture, who might say “Oh, designers can’t handle this” just as engineers might say that communication designers shouldn’t be at the front end. Industrial designers and management consultants tend to assume the form of the solution before a communication designer does. Designers will periodically, regularly ask why we don’t have a certification process for designers. It’s just too difficult to come up with the criteria.

Agreed. We’ve set some criteria for The IdeaLists membership, but at the end of the day, there’s a level of subjective judgment that can’t be removed.

Absolutely. And you want that. There’s a certification exam that the graphic designers in Ontario have. They did all the right things to come up with the exam and it asks questions about “the attributes of Victorian graphics” or “how do you design a fax cover sheet?”   Maybe AIGA needs a hazing process for membership? That’s called “try and find a job”. I mean 10,000 are graduating a year. A lot of creative bartenders.

Is that part of your evolving role? Trying to somehow bring these people into the workforce?

We’re trying to increase the size of the design economy, the need for a trained designer to solve a problem you’re not thinking about right now. And by the same token, creating demand for designers outside their traditional role as they can solve problems that are difficult for other people to solve. I’m thinking increasingly, its “how do you get recent graduates to understand they can play a meaningful role in society outside design?” How do we expand their horizons to let them know that with an understanding of design they can do many things.   A perfect example is today (primary day), have you seen the New York ballot? AIGA and its Design for Democracy group has been involved early on in dealing with ballot design. There’s an element of clarity and simplicity that’s an integral part of it. Getting designers in at the beginning and trying to help craft an understanding of the human experience and (how we) interact with information and equipment. And you need that. Here's a case that fundamental to the exercise of democracy.