GRAPHIC DESIGN The Universities that teach it & the Companies that use it

SPD - Encouraging Excellence

SOCIETY ACTIVITIES - Annual Design Competition: At the end of each year, the Society invites leading design professionals to judge the work of their peers. During two days of judging, top art directors and designers view and discuss over 6,000 entries in seventy-five separate categories. This rigorous process produces a show composed of less than ten percent of the entries, representing a unique yearly overview of the quality and direction of editorial design.

Publication Design Show: Each fall, the winning pieces in the design competition are mounted and displayed in a design show, presenting the best design, illustration and photography of the year. In recent years, this show has been a focal point of the Grafix Expo in New York City, where over twenty thousand graphics professionals have the opportunity to view these exceptional works, and has traveled to Altos de Chavon in the Dominican Republic.

Publication Design Annual: A full-color, beautifully printed hardcover book reporduces the winning pieces in the show, and is an invaluable resource for anyone working in editorial design. The Annual is perhaps the most widely used creative reference tool in the industry, displaying the outstanding work of editorial photographers and illustrators along with art directors and designers.

Herb Lubalin Award: To acknowledge continuing excellence in publication design, the SPD presents an award named for the late, great typographic innovator and designer Herb Lubalin. Recipients of this prestigious award have included Cipe Pineles Burtin, Lou Silverstein, Milton Glaser, Bradbury Thompson, Will Hopkins, Henry Wolf, Rochelle Udell and Ruth Ansell.

Awards Gala: A highlight of the Society's activities is the annual black-tie awards gala. Held in a variety of New York's most stunning landmarks, including the New York Public Library's classic Beaux Arts building, the Vanderbilt Hall at Grand Central Terminal and the Museum of Immigration at Ellis Island, the work of the competition's winners is shown and the Gold medals are awarded. Guests attend an evening dinner and dance, meeting old friends and making new acquaintances within this select group of honorees.

Spots: This juried competition celebrates those small but powerful gems called spot illustrations. The show opens with a reception, and the winning original works are displayed for two weeks at the Aronson Galleries of Parsons School of Design in New York City. Each piece of original art is hung next to a copy of the page on which it appeared, showing the context of the often-overlooked, often difficult solutions to editorial challenges.

Grids: A free subscription to GRIDS, the Society's newsletter, is included with your SPD membership. If you need a calendar of future events, or information on shows, activities or products of interest to designers, you'll find it in GRIDS. Our ever-popular musical chairs column chronicles the dizzying world of senior-level job changes. GRIDS also runs articles on common interests and polls the industry on a variety of matter including salaries, technology and trade practices.

Portfolio Reviews: As part of the SPD's ongoing commitment to education and communication, design, illustration and photography portfolio reviews are held annually. In an age when portfolio drop-offs are the norm, this is a unique opportunity for art directors and their creative suppliers meet face-to-face.