When AIGA West Michigan (AIGAWM) launched at the JW Marriott, I think all of us expected something truly remarkable from our design community, but to be honest, when I walked in that room to see every seat taken in the ballroom and standing room only, I knew they had started something that was long past due.
Up until that launch, they were connected as a community to the state chapter but rarely got to break out --until that moment. Ever since, they have produced one event, lecture, party, and learning session after another that inspires our design community in ways we may never be able to quantify.
Another event that began four years ago was the result of collaboration with DC’s Design Army. When they approached the husband-wife team that would be here to conduct a lecture on the same night as Halloween, Pum Lefebure from Design Army suggested that AIGAWM should harness this moment to do something different and unique.
The result has been one of the most creative Halloween events to emerge in some time, because AIGAWM combines a lecture from a leader in the design world with a costume party.
This year’s guest lecturer is Martin Venezky, whose works have been featured in Eye, How, émigré, and Graphis. In 1997, he was listed among ID magazine's "ID40" list of influential designers and, in 2001, an exhibit of his collected design work, Martin Venezky: Selections from the Permanent Collection of Architecture and Design, was held at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
“There is no other event like this in all of AIGA. AIGA West Michigan uniquely combines a Halloween party with a speaker every year--this is our fourth Halloween event,” says Gwen O’Brien AIGAWM’s president. “There is nothing quite like looking out on a crowd of giddy Halloween goers, eagerly waiting to listen to one of our design heroes and ready to get their Halloween on, all at the same time.”
Venezky, a Los Angeles-based designer, is the genius behind the Appetite Engineers and is bringing along his latest book, The Wes Anderson Collection, as this year’s grand prize for the best costume. If you know Anderson’s films then you understand what an amazing prize this is this year.
Some may attend to win, others to gawk at the always-lavish display of creativity, but others who are smart come to network with some of the brightest minds in our region who could lift your next project from ho-hum to OH HELL YEAH!
Admission: $15 – $50 (Student, Member, Nonmember, and Party Only tickets are available.)
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