AIGA + SPARKcon – be part of the action!

Sophia_Hitchcock_headshotA couple of AIGA Community meetings back, my attention was suddenly snatched when one of the Community leaders started talking about Raleigh’s annual art, design & creativity festival, SPARKcon. I immediately leaned a bit farther out of my seat as they spoke about how AIGA really wanted to be a part of SPARKcon this year and that they were looking for people to start leading this initiative. My thought at the moment was, I absolutely love SPARKcon, I go every year and I’ve always wondered why we have not had more involvement in this delightful creativity-infused festival. As an active member of AIGA I’m always looking for ways I can help out and so I thought why not pair my love for AIGA with my love for SPARKcon? So it began.

I started by emailing a couple of “bobbleheads” or organizers of SPARKcon. They encouraged me to attend one of the SPARKcon general meetings to listen to other groups and gather ideas of how AIGA Raleigh could get involved. Later that month, I did just that. At the general informational meeting for SPARKcon I sat and listened as an eager representative of AIGA Raleigh, and wow, I was blown away. That room was bursting with amazing creative ideas of how to engage the Triangle community and represent each of the different “SPARKS” or creative disciplines of our area. When I shared some of the ideas we had to get AIGA Raleigh involved this year, I was enthusiastically welcomed by other groups who were so excited that we would be a part of SPARKcon this year. They even had some ideas of how we might collaborate together.

With my questions about our involvement answered and encouragement from the SPARKcon team, I set out to really make this happen. After a call for AIGA volunteers I realized, wow, I was not alone in my love for SPARKcon, we had a good amount of people volunteer on the spot and many to follow. But don’t despair, we still need more of our AIGA Raleigh members to join us. SPARKcon is all about fun and engaging our community with creativity and AIGA Raleigh will be doing just that at this year’s festival. Not only will you be networking with your local creative community, you will also have the opportunity to work side by side with your fellow AIGA Raleigh members and get to know them a bit better.  If you want to be a part of making this happen, I encourage you to sign up to volunteer here. See you there SPARKconners!

ABOUT SOPHIA

Sophia Hitchcock is a graphic & motion graphics designer in the Raleigh/Durham area. She is the owner of a startup, SO|MO Studios a video production agency specializing in video production, motion design, explainer videos, product demo videos and event shooting.

Sophia is also an active member of the AIGA Raleigh Community and acts as Co-Director of Student Programming on the Community Board. Her humble hobbies include exploring animation, video techniques and photography and playing with her two boxers, Winston & Emma.

 

By Tracy Maniaci
Published August 14, 2014