AIGA 100: A Century of Design
August 17 - October 5, 2014
Graphic design impacts everything we do. Through the creation and organization of visual and typographic elements, meaning is brought to a world crowded with messages and helps us to navigate it most effectively.
Interestingly, the practice of graphic design didn’t come into being until the early twentieth century, when a new understanding of typography arose. The art of visual communication evolved (especially in advertising and magazine publication), and printing made great strides, as well: there was finally a way to reproduce imagery that was once beyond the reach of mass production.
As the profession grew, a small group of celebrated artists and printers convened to create the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA). Today, it is the leading communication design organization in the United States, as well as the largest and most influential worldwide.
In 2014, MODA presented AIGA 100: A Century of Design. The exhibition allowed viewers to explore the organization’s hundred-year history through artifacts from AIGA’s archive in New York and encounter pieces that had not been shown since their organizational debuts many years ago.
The work featured in AIGA 100 was created by some of the industry’s greatest talent and emphasized the significant impact of AIGA on visual culture. AIGA 100 embodied the organization’s commitment to “advancing design as a professional craft, strategic advantage, and vital cultural force. But most of all, it demonstrated the power of graphic design to connect, assist, and delight us.
This exhibition was curated by Sean Adams
