Make Think AIGA Conference 2009 Day One

October 9, 2009 • 11:40 am • POSTED BY kdorsey

It has begun. Command X is in full swing and boy was it strange to experience it as an observer this time around. I was surprised as we entered the ballroom a little bit by its size. It’s much more intimate than what we were dealing with in Denver, the stage much closer to the audience.

The night started out with some great speakers and presentations including Al Bell from Stax, who spoke about the power of creativity and courage, Stefan Sagmeister, who detailed his sabbatical and lead us all in song, and Carin Goldberg, who won my heart with her motto for the evening: fear-hope-disco. She then danced on stage to her favorite disco jam while images of her entire body of work flashed on screen to the beat. Amazing.

I knew it was time for Command X because that same jingle started to play that they used last year. I wasn’t nervous at all until then, I had a sort of Pavlovian response to the music, as it played I had a kind of sense memory reaction. I immediately felt my stomach tighten and felt like I might vomit. Yup, that’s exactly what it was like my first time on stage, it all came back to me.

Michael Bierut was a great MC, as always. Judges for the evening were Bonnie Siegler, Chip Kidd, Paul Sahre, and Carol (sorry didn’t catch her last name!) from Graceland. That’s right, since we’re in Memphis, their first task was to redesign the logo of Elvis‘ homestead, Graceland. Here is how it exists now:

And here are the contestants with their solutions:

The judges seemed to be a little bit harsher this year, Chip Kidd especially, and I’m not sure that everyone thought he was funny, I did anyways. Guest judge Carol did her best to make the contestants feel good about their solutions and made sure to say one nice thing about their executions to each of them. But, inevitably, two were cut and only five made it to the next round. Matthew and John were Command Xed and now can spend the rest of the conference like everyone else—drinking, I mean networking and learning things about design.

So, what’s next you ask? In keeping with the breakfast food theme from last year, ladies and gentleman, it’s cereal. Yeah, Cap’n Crunch breakfast cereal.

The task at hand is to redesign the front of the box for a new demographic— adults. Pretty tough, I can’t wait to see what they come up with. I met all of the contestants last night and picked their brains about what type of direction they would take with the fearless Cap’n. I told each one individually that I thought it would be brilliant if they changed his ethnicity. I hope one of them does it, it would be hilarious, and in really poor taste—ok, nevermind, I hope they know I was joking.

So, until next time. Tonight I’ll be sitting at this table. Ok, gonna go grab some cereal, later.