What is designing today? And how do designers define their own influence within the dichotomy of making versus thinking?
"Make/Think" - AIGA's biennial design conference to be held in Memphis, Tennessee from October 8-11 - will examine just that.
Today's designers span a wide range of disciplines and areas of expertise.
Yet even within specialties such as interaction design or motion graphics, the arc of a designer's career or even the trajectory of a particular client relationship may transition from a maker of artifacts into a role focused on integrative design thinking.
"Make/Think" will explore the ways that designers focus both on making beautiful things and thinking about problems strategically, and the unique and powerful combination of both roles.
"The greatest value a designer can contribute to a client is in the process of thinking through solutions," AIGA Executive Director Richard Grefe explained recently.
"This strategic perspective is often more valuable to the client and is also less likely to be treated as a commodity, which is always a threat to the role of designer as the maker of things."