It's rare enough that the prestigious Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI) meets in North America.
But for the organization --- an invitation-only bouquet of graphic design's elite --- to offer not only "design hero" lectures but hands-on workshops to design students is really a once-in-a-career opportunity.
That's why some 900 students from across the continent and around the world have been packing the auditorium at the Art Institute of Chicago and keeping nearby Millennium Park buzzing with energy and ideas.
Here are some of the ideas swirling around:
new ways of relating to the design canon and creating links to the 00s;
a recognizable "new illustration" sensibility that is counterbalancing the rise of ultra-portable photography;
baroque type . . . baroque in its distress;
creative strategies for a tough economy;
organizing green design at the actual grass roots level.
Tuesday Sep 23 was one image-packed presentation after another, and featuring Paul Sahre, John Bielenberg, Niklaus Troxler, a representative from the studio of Mexico D.F's Gabriela Rodriguez, Michael Vanderbyl, Jennifer Morla, Nicholas Blechman, Steff Geissbuhler, Leonardo Sonnoli and Christoph Niemann. Rick Valicenti, a co-organizer with Dana Arnett and Paula Scher, MC'd the talks in his easygoing style.
Pens were scratching and keys were clicking in the darkened hall all day as students laughed over ironic words of advice and boggled at killer design work on the huge screen.
Jennifer Morla spoke eloquently about the balance of inspiration and the demands of craft while showing a diverse selection of her work.
Nicholas Blechman gave an inspiring description of the "process" behind his magazine
Nozone, of which every issue seems (to him) to be the last . . . but then new conditions in the world send up a kind of creative Bat Signal and he is compelled to produce another issue.
Leonardo Sonnoli braved the technical perils of switching from slideshow to live, tabletop video during his talk in order to flip through real books --- worth the effort as students got to see rare examples of early Modernist design and the sliced pages of Queneau's One Hundred Million Poems.
Niklaus Troxler proved that the good ol' dictum that 'empty space is the designer's best friend' is just another rule to be broken by showing decades of dazzling work in which he routinely fills that poster space edge to edge and makes it work . . . beautifully.
Christoph Niemann cracked up the crowd with his jolly descriptions of an agonizing creative process, and revealed his goal --- a real change from old school illustrators --- NOT to be limited to a single style in his illustration but to constantly experiment with new styles, adapted to the client and the topic.
In this shot, the inimitable Michael Vanderbyl entertains the panel, and the students, in an answer to a question from the floor.
photos: Gregory Tyson Hanrahan
