experiences

AIGA Wi-Madison Design Hunt

Last week Wednesday I made the 2.5 hour drive to Madison, WI to meet up with my friend Liv. She is a fellow designer who I worked with whilst at University. Together we teamed up and explored the stores, coffeeshops, restaurants, and bars along State St. for the AIGA Wisconsin Design Hunt. It had been a few months since I had seen Liv, so it was great to catch up with her, and I was looking forward to making this scavenger hunt as fun as possible. This meant Liv played along with me setting her up in photos with the items we needed to find (I was in some too)!

AIGA Wisconsin

AIGA Wisconsin is part of the larger American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) that provides opportunities to designers and marketers. This includes events like the Design Hunt to network with others in the industry, speakers, workshops and more. I don’t make it to as many of the event as I’d like to because the Wisconsin chapter runs mostly out of Madison and Milwaukee, but I just could not miss this event.

A group of 16 gathered outside of Collectivo on State St. and we received our list of design related things to find. Among them were a Pantone item, neon sign, the state of Wisconsin, an example of poor kerning, and probably the hardest item (thankfully) to find – Papyrus!

A few of my favorite things we found

My favorite thing we found was a screen printed t-shirt that had hand letting on it within the state of Wisconsin (that was three items on the list in one)! There were a couple things in Collectivo too, including an infographic and set of illustrated icons for their coffee types. I also liked looking at all the different typefaces to find my favorite A-I-G-A letters.

We spent two hours looking for all the items on the list, taking time to enjoy one of Liv and my favorite stores, Earthbound, as well as grab a drink at Starbucks since we had the time. At 8:30pm we met up at Brix & Mortar, a co-working space across from the State Capitol building. I will definitely be checking this place out again the next time I am in Madison because it was such a fun space!

We went through all the items we found.

To our surprise, Liv and I won the hunt! While three other teams had found all the items, it was pointed out that we were the only ones who had ourselves in the photos as well. Yay for having fun! We got a Wisconsin t-shirt (not the one I found on the hunt, but still awesome) and a $20 discount for a future AIGA event. But what I treasure most was being able to spend time with a dear friend.

Thank you AIGA Wisconsin for putting on this event. Liv and I had a blast!