AIGA Chicago Mentor Program a great success.

Posted February 15, 2010 9:01 AM | By Nick | 0 Comments

I spent a few hours Saturday at Gravity Tank, learning more about the AIGA Chicago Mentor Program.

Dawn Hancock at Firebelly Design is doing an amazing job, marshaling over 60? 80? people, introducing the mentor program, and breaking people out into small group discussions based on their interests.

Many of the students coming out of art and design programs in Chicago had similar questions, focused on the role of interactive design, web design, and their chosen design fields. It's quite a struggle for print or graphic design students to both master the basics in their chosen field, and also deal with a market place that seems to offer more opportunities in web or interaction design. And both of those fields require, of course, an understanding of HTML markup if not programming languages outright.

We had a great conversation on the role of Flash and Flash programming, Javascript, and ways to prepare for a career in design--regardless of the medium.

There's a Facebook group if you'd like to learn more or come to the next meetup.