A microsite launched in celebration of AIGA's centennial, “100 Years of Design” focuses on the intersections between design and society. Exemplary works from the organization’s digital archives, significant moments from its history, insightful interviews with living masters, and memorable quotes from leading designers are woven into narratives to present how design informs, connects, delights, influences, and assists the communities it serves.

The experience also encourages visitors to join a conversation about the role design plays in our daily lives. They are invited to share their favorite works and describe what they mean to them.

To commemorate its 100th birthday, AIGA imagined an online experience that conveyed the rich history of the organization and provided a platform for audiences to contribute their own perspectives on design. Communicating a wealth of information while fostering participation, the microsite needed to tell the story of the past century of design, utilize design works from AIGA’s extensive archives, and encourage users to join the conversation.

As design enthusiasts, we were thrilled by the opportunity to celebrate the design profession and offer a new lens through which to consider some of its greatest works. We immersed ourselves in the content in the context of the original brief and together with AIGA determined that:

• the tone of the site should be accessible rather than academic to appeal to visitors from all backgrounds
• the work would be better served by a narrative structure with multiple entry points rather a traditional timeline presentation
• the experience should balance passive narrative exposition with interactive exploration
• in addition to familiar design icons, new voices should be featured
• narratives should capture a balance of historical and contemporary influences
• the experience of the contributions should be highly visual, open-ended, and thought-provoking for designers and general audiences alike

We began the project by delving into the vast collection of artifacts in AIGA’s Design Archives, combing through articles from diverse voices in the design community, and reviewing other retrospectives, critiques, and blog posts. In our research, we noticed there was little discussion of design history that was not organized by time, form, medium, or discipline. Although these ways of presenting design history are informative and educational, AIGA's aim for the centennial site was unique: to create a living resource that captures the ever-evolving conversation between design and society and invites visitors deeper into it.

While we were pondering this goal, our client pointed us to “No More Heroes,” an article from a 1992 issue of Eye magazine that really spoke to us. A quote from Bridget Wilkins was especially inspirational to our conceptual development: “We need to explain not ‘what it looks like’ but ‘why it looks the way it does,’ how a piece of graphic design communicated and to whom.”

After countless thought-model sketches and with AIGA's guidance, we landed on a framework that offers audiences a new way to evaluate great design. We organized the stories by design intent, allowing the purpose of the artifacts–to Connect, Inform, Assist, Delight, or Influence–to be revealed for the visitor. We then worked with our client to select artifacts, quotes, and moments from the organization’s rich history before hitting the road to conduct interviews with legendary designers.

Once the site's content had been determined, we needed to consider how to make this story framework exciting and accessible for guests with varied knowledge of design. It couldn’t overwhelm the general public, but it also had to meet, if not exceed, the expectations of design enthusiasts and practitioners. To strike this balance, we created an experience with two layers. At the surface layer, visitors can view carefully curated artifacts, quotes, and videos, and listen to audio clips. Those who are interested can go a level deeper to see additional artifacts, designer profiles, and moments from AIGA’s history. With 11 videos, 26 audio clips, 120 design artifacts, 17 designer profiles, 15 AIGA historical moments, and 19 quotes, there’s a wealth of content for visitors of all backgrounds to explore.

One of AIGA’s priorities for the project was extending the conversation to include visitors, ensuring that the microsite would become a meaningful record of this time in design’s history. To foster discussion and participation, we needed the perfect prompt, simple enough to be easily answerable yet challenging enough to provoke real engagement. The ideation that we spent on this prompt was extremely thorough, as we examined reactions to words like “think” vs. “feel,” and found out if users were more comfortable contributing from the first person (“I am connected by design that…”) or from a general perspective on design (“Design that connects is…”). We settled on a phrase that could be applied across all five intents and that allowed guests to choose an intention and add their own thoughts and images.

“100 Years of Design” offers visitors a fresh perspective on the history of design and shines a light on the intentions behind great pieces. It's inherently educational, with a framework that urges users of all backgrounds to consider the impact of design on our culture and encourages practitioners to reflect on the purpose and value of their own creative efforts.

Providing visitors with the opportunity to contribute to the site themselves enables designers and general audiences to have a conversation about design and its meaning in their lives. Because design and society are constantly mirroring each other, the contributions represent a kind of living archive, an ever-expanding collection of responses that demonstrate our culture’s understanding of how and why good design works.

The site received more than 92,000 visitors from over 100 different countries and nearly 800 contributions in its first 8 weeks live (1/21/14 – 3/18/14).