AIGA’s NEXT Conference Promises Big Names, Beer and Drama

Lots going on at the Organization Formerly Known as the American Institude of Graphic Arts that we need to catch you up on. The site has just launched for AIGA’s national design conference, NEXT, which is taking place this October 11-14 in Denver. Kurt Andersen, Marian Bantjes, Janine Benyus, Paul Budnitz, Katherine & Michael McCoy and Christoph Niemann will all be hitting the mainstage, and you can look for us poisoning young minds once again. Tickets to the concurrent Great American Beer Festival are sold separately, but the $15 designated driver ticket could come in very handy for either event, depending on your idea of “design thinking.”

Secondly, they’ve just announced the component of the conference we’re looking forward to the most, Command X, an onstage reality show/design contest that will unfold in real time throughout the three days–get it, Command X? We’d say it’s like “Top Design” but we’d rather say it’s like “Project Runway” because that show was better.

Contestants get to attend the conference for free; the winner will get $1000 and other prizes. You must be 26 or younger and an AIGA member to apply, deadline is June 30, details are here, and anyone who makes it up there better make it interesting for us–we are creating an entry for “Hysterical Designer Threatens Peers With X-Acto Knife” right now.

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