In celebration of AIGA Centennial, you are invited to enter the Centennial Design Juried Exhibition curated by AIGA Raleigh Centennial Planning Committee.

Unleash your creative powers and mark your rightful place in the history of design! Join accomplished AIGA designers that delivered, as part of the national AIGA Centennial celebration, designs addressing significant events across the past ten decades.

Register to participate here. We will accept up to three designs per each decade on first come first serve basis.

Design Guidelines:

Select an event connected with the Triangle region that took place within the decade of your choice (use the suggested historic events list at the end of this post or identify an event of your own that inspires you). Design a poster (18×24”) depicting that event. If you are so inspired, incorporate the design vocabulary characteristic of the decade you are referring to in your work (for your convenience, we are including a list of design historical trends at the end of this post). Please be mindful and respect copyrights of other designers and artists. When incorporating work that is not yours, make sure it belongs to the public domain or acquire appropriate permissions.

Submission Deadline and Instructions:

The juried exhibition is free and open to all designers with interest in the Triangle region. Submit your design by July 30th by uploading your work to Dropbox (you will receive access to the Dropbox folder when you sign up for the exhibition). Make sure you deliver a high-resolution (300 dpi) file in .jpg or .pdf format (please outline fonts if you submit in a .pdf format) at the final size of 18 x 24” (portrait) including bleed (0.125″ on each side of the poster) and crop marks. Also make sure that the file name includes your name and the year of the event your design is depicting.

This is a unique opportunity to create an original design of your own, showcase your understanding of design historical trends, and take a place in the design heritage of the Triangle.

All designs will be featured in AIGA Raleigh social media and on our website. The Centennial Planning Committee will select ten designs to be printed and displayed around the time of the Centennial Party coming up in September. The ten selected designs will also be displayed at other locations, soon TBA.

To help you jump right into the creative work, we have done research for you. Feel free to use the following list as inspiration or identify an event of your own (not listed below) and use it as a basis for your design.

Sample Historical Events:

1914-23

• 1914 – City Market opened in Raleigh
• 1917 – the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts becomes North Carolina State University
• 1922 – Motorbuses begin operating between Raleigh and Durham

1924-33

• 1924 – North Carolina Tar Heels squad went 26–0 (it was retroactively awarded the national championship by the Helms Athletic Foundation in 1936)
• 1929 – Raleigh’s first city airport, Curtiss-Wright Flying Field, opened
• 1931- Raleigh is a stop on the first regular airline passenger flight from New York to Miami

1934-43

• 1934 – American Dance Festival is established in Durham
• 1940 – A new Durham Athletic Park was completed in April
• 1943 – What is now Raleigh Durham International Airport is opened

1944-53

• 1948 – NCSU College of Design opens under founding dean, Henry L. Kamphoeffner
• 1948 – The Kamphoefner House (an example of Frank Lloyd Wright’s influence in the construction of several groundbreaking modern homes in Raleigh
• 1952 – J.S. Dorton Arena, designed by Polish architect Matthew Nowicki is completed – and widely celebrated for its radical, double – parabolic arch design.

1954-63

• 1956 – NC Art Museum opens its first location on Morgan Street in downtown Raleigh.
• 1959 – Founding of Research Triangle Park
• 1960 – about twenty male and female students from North Carolina College organized their own sit-in at the Woolworth’s, S.H. Kress, and Walgreens lunch counters in downtown Durham

1964-73

• 1965 – The Rolling Stones at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh
• 1968-1969 – Food Workers’ Strike (in late 1968, members of the Black Student Movement (BSM) at UNC-Chapel Hill began advocating on behalf of the university’s low-paid and predominantly African American cafeteria workers.
• 1969-1970 – mass demonstrations and protests by UNC-Chapel Hill students and graduate teaching assistants against the Vietnam war

1974-83

• 1978 – Grateful Dead at Cameron Indoor Stadium, Duke University
• 1981 – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers begins to fill Falls Lake, which will become Raleigh’s primary water source. It takes two years to fill
• 1983 – The Moore Square Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places

1984-93

• 1986 – AIGA Raleigh is established
• 1992 – Raleigh celebrates its 200th birthday!
• 1993 – Red Hat is founded

1994-2003

• 1997 – City of Raleigh Museum opens in the Briggs Hardware Building – once the tallest in eastern North Carolina (4 stories), and Raleigh’s first skyscraper.
• 1998 – Durham’s Full Frame Film Documentary is first held
• 2001 – First Art2Wear student fashion show at NCSU’s college of design

2004-13

• 2004 – Rebirth of American Tobacco in Downtown Durham
• 2005 – Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University opens its doors
• 2009 – Durham’s historic Golden Belt Complex is repurposed into studio art spaces

Examples of Worldwide Design Historical Trends:

•  1910s: Arts&Crafts Movement (US); Cubism; Futurism; Dada
• 1920s: Art Deco; De Stijl; Bauhaus; Constructivism; New Typography; Advertising
• 1930s: Modernism; Industrial Design; Home Appliances; Cars; Storefront Design
• 1940s: Modernism (US); The American Dream; Tupperware; Plastic and Steel;
• 1950s: Mid-Century Modernism, Abstract Expressionism
• 1960s: Warhol, Pop Art, Psychodelia, Mass Culture
• 1970s: Postmodernism, Emergence of Design Consultancies
• 1980s: Punk, Design in Technology (miniaturization), Computers
• 1990s: Internet, Web Design, Globalization, Software Design
• 2000s: Mobile devices, Apps, User Experience Design
• 2010s: Consumer Data-Driven Design, Responsive Design, Wearable Technology, 3D Printing, Hand-lettering, Vintage

(Image credits:  selected designs from the national collection Celebrating AIGA, 1914-2014. Used with permission.)