Attention fellow design enthusiasts! Super neat event details!

Tuesday, February 5, 2013, 6-7:30 pm
The Art Institute of Chicago
Fullerton Auditorium
111 S. Michigan Avenue

Martha Schwartz is a landscape architect and artist with an interest in urban projects.  She creates public spaces that build community through intelligent, idea-based design.  As president of Martha Schwartz Partners in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, she explores the relationship between landscape, art, and culture, and she challenges traditional concepts of design.  Her goals include designing landscape solutions that enhance the social, environmental, and economic sustainability of a place; raising them to a level of fine art; and making landscape design critical to the sustainability of our surroundings.

Admission is free for this event.  Doors open promptyly at 5:45pm, and seating is first come, first serve.  I hope to see you there, please try and find me to say hello, and if I don't see you, I hope you enjoy this event!  Looks really interesting and eye-opening to what we will begin seeing in our design world exteriors.

I have officially joined a world-renown design firm.  Gensler.  North-Central Region.  Chicago.

An innovative team of world-renown architects, designers, planners, consultants, partnering with our clients on some 3,000 projects every year.  These projects can be as small as a wine label or as large as a new urban district.  WIth more than 3,500 professionals networked across 42 locations, we serve our clients as trusted advisors, combining localized expertise with global perspective wherever new opportunities arise.  I am super excited and honored to be a part of such a dynamic and creatively talented team!  Looking forward to seeing the path my new career adventure takes me!  Joining this design firm has been a dream come true!  I could not be happier...

See more of the Gensler - Chicago location, learn the architectural history of the studio, as well as take a tour!  Check out this link on You Tube!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NWNG1A3zSY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

This question has been posed for decades...with opinions all over the map...  Is Graphic Design truly an art..?

Some say art is art and graphic design is graphic design.  Some say graphic design simply takes other's creations/designs and pairs up their imagery with text and then calls it a work of art.  And then there is me:  I say graphic design is a form of 'art' because it is an expression of creativity.  Art is an expression and can be found in writing, music, painting, sculpture, dance, fashion, the beauty industry...as well as industries of design such as interior design and graphic design.  Like any industry/field it truly depends on the designer... there are accountants, lawyers, scientists, etc, who could be using far more creative thinking than a lot of painters, sculptors, or graphic designers.  I feel though, that any space, canvas, or print that is created with emotional power and heart- this is true design...true creation...true art.

Unfortunately, to date, graphic design has not been able to capture the respect that fine arts has...  Those who are of the opinion that graphic design is not truly an art have the notion that the creator of the message is not the main creator of the finished message.  Here the creator is primarily a source who has a particular need to put across a message to a certain targeted group of people with a specific intention to generate a favorable feedback.  This message unlike Fine Art creates only one interpretation.

In retort, one might say, then why do graphic designers have to study art fundamentals before they study design fundamentals?  Also, why is the degree called a 'Bachelor of FINE ARTS- Graphic Design'..?  (thoughts to ponder...???)