AIGA New York Stuff I’m Involved With

AIGAWe hit a little bit of bad luck over at AIGA New York during the weekend, when tomorrow’s Small Talks speaker, the one and only Jason Fried came down sick and had to cancel. So for those of you who have tickets to this sold out event, please don’t show up tomorrow (an official email went out to all chapter members and ticket holders this afternoon) as Jason’s appearance has been postponed. We don’t yet have a make-up date, but we’re hoping to schedule it for sometime in the next few weeks — hopefully pretty soon, actually.

Meanwhile, here are some more AIGA New York goodies to tide you over.

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The Failures Behind Success

Otis School of Art and DesignAs promised in my previous post, here is the text of the commencement address I delivered to the 2007 graduating class at my alma mater, Otis School of Art and Design.

It is, as I explained, intended to be an inspirational address rather than the sort of tactical overview I’ve been giving at my presentations thus far in my career. So at times it can be a tad maudlin, but at the very least it’s an honest communication of one of the more valuable lessons I’ve learned in my career: don’t be afraid of failure, because every success is just the result of a series of failures. You might want to have a box of tissues at the ready.

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Speech ’n’ Cheech

This weekend I flew to Southern California for a very quick Mother’s Day visit to my mom in the O.C.. While I was here, I took up a somewhat astonishing offer from my alma mater, Otis School of Art and Design in Los Angeles, to give the commencement address at this year’s graduation ceremony.

I was so flattered that I had been asked to do this at all that chances were good that I would have said yes in spite of what they told me next: that they would be giving an honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts to Cheech Marin at the same ceremony. Meaning I’d be sharing a stage with Cheech Marin. THE Cheech Marin. As soon as I heard this, my response was, “Done. I’ll be there.”

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