LOCALLY SOURCED with AIGA PHL

LOCALLY SOURCED WITH AIGA PHILADELPHIA

Role: Education Director, AIGA Philadelphia
Years: 2025–Present
Scope: Annual publication and awards
Team: Grew from solo to a four-person committee over two years
Reach: 450+ submissions & 10+ institutions
Partners: Allied Printing & Asian Arts Initiative
Link: aiga philadelphia · locally sourced

OVERVIEW
As Education Director of AIGA Philadelphia, I conceived and lead LOCALLY SOURCED Issue 04, an annual juried regional student design competition that culminates in a printed publication and launch party celebrating the strongest emerging creative work from across the Mid-Atlantic. Working as sole creative lead, I direct every dimension of the program: the visual identity, the competition format, the publication design, the launch event, and the partnerships with regional institutions and printers that make it possible. Beginning with Issue 05, the program will expand into a committee-led model as it scales. LOCALLY SOURCED gives student designers a durable, professionally produced artifact that places their work in conversation with peers and the field at large.

CHALLENGE

Student designers rarely have access to printed publication platforms outside of school, and even when student work is celebrated within an institution, it tends to be siloed from peers across the region who are working on parallel questions in parallel programs. LOCALLY SOURCED set out to address both gaps at once: to give student designers a real published outlet for their work, and to connect students across institutional bubbles into a regional design conversation. Doing this as a sole creative lead added significant constraints. I built the publication and event from scratch, from visual identity, to competition format, jurying process, printing logistics, and launch event on a nonprofit budget. The design challenge was twofold: build a visual identity strong enough to evolve across multiple annual issues without losing recognizability, and build a program structure sustainable enough to scale across years and committees.

APPROACH

IDENTITY & COMPETITION
LOCALLY SOURCED operates within an established AIGA Philadelphia brand system with a fixed typeface, color palette, and library of sticker assets that anchor the program across issues. Each issue’s creative direction reinterprets that system in a new visual language: previous issues have ranged from a wrapped-in-plastic treatment to a 3D metallic aesthetic. For Issue 04, I designed a psychedelic, flower-power rave identity that is colorful, playful, and unmistakably print-forward. The competition itself is structured as a regional juried call for entries across schools and disciplines, with submissions evaluated by industry professionals and Best in Show / Runner-Up recognition that gives standout work additional visibility within the publication and at the launch.

PUBLICATION
The printed anthology is the program’s primary artifact. I direct every dimension of the publication: editorial structure, art direction, typography, the spread design that frames each featured project, the foreword, and the production decisions around paper, binding, and printing partner. Issue 04 features Best in Show Metamorphosis by Cameron Specht (Tyler School of Art & Architecture) and Runners-Up Lunar by Danielle Goldman (Tyler) and The Cult of Domesticity by Jenn Nguyen (Moore College of Art & Design), alongside dozens of other works selected from across the Mid-Atlantic. The publication is designed so that student work reads as the central content and its identity provides a visual frame that elevates the work it presents.

LAUNCH EVENT
The launch event extends the publication into a community moment: a gathering where students from across the region see their work in print, meet peers from other institutions, and engage with industry professionals in a celebratory and non-academic setting. I design the full event experience, from physical exhibition of the printed work, photo booth, networking activities like Locally Sourced Networking Bingo, and the spatial and signage design that translates the issue’s identity into three-dimensional space. The event is structured so attendees can meet designers from schools they would otherwise have no reason to encounter, strengthening the creative community of greater Philadelphia.

IMPACT

Issue 04 reached 450+ submissions across 10+ universities in the Mid-Atlantic, expanding the program’s institutional reach beyond previous issues. The sold-out launch event drew over 100 attendees and not only featured students, but family, friends, professors, and invited industry professionals from across the region. Featured students have gone on to use the publication in portfolios, internship applications, and professional pitches, extending Issue 04’s reach well beyond the launch night. The program’s success has prompted its evolution: Issue 05 will operate under a committee-led model, scaling beyond solo leadership into a structure that can sustain the work over time. Led by an Education Director with a clear creative vision, LOCALLY SOURCED built a regional publication platform that creates the cross-institutional design conversation student designers rarely otherwise have access to.