In honor of AIGA's centennial, AIGA Chicago's annual members meeting and celebration focused on 100 Chicago designers’ visual responses to a simple question: "What does design in Chicago mean to you?"

Each response was a single 24 x 36 inch poster. The posters were displayed at Venue One, a contemporary West Loop event space. Each poster was raffled off during the evening of the annual members meeting to raise funds in support of Chicago's chapter.

 

My response was personal, abstract and symbolic of my time in Chicago as a designer. Practicing visual communication, I attempt to lay my own visual tastes aside and allow a truer meaning of the work to be made clear. I see this as a form of camouflage within my work, similar to concealment and evasion through crypsis. The presence of patterns, natural, handmade or computer-created became representative of that effort.

 

Layers of grid, color and bodily senses were meant to evoke tones of the city, cherished elements of nature and daily life in the midwest alongside my given abilities that allow me to create in my own way. These abilities hold the potential to hijack one another, foster self-doubt, frustration and fear but they also allow for a lifelong creative pursuit well crafted and vibrantly lived.