We were asked to create a design to be distributed at the 2003 AIGA Biennial Conference in Vancouver, announcing that Boston would be home to the next conference in 2005. At that point, no theme had been determined for the conference, so we began by thinking about what we could do to simply promote the Boston location. Also, we realized that this would be happening 20 years after the first AIGA conference, which was held in Boston in 1983.

To reflect Boston’s rich sense of history, we began looking at historical fonts and using letterpress printing. But we also wanted the announcement to be contemporary, fun and experimental—other characteristics that make Boston such a great place to visit. We settled on a type-only solution that combined a simple word treatment with embedded messages and plenty of white space.

The postcard was effective enough for the AIGA national office to request a much larger second printing to be mailed to the full AIGA membership list. This example is from that second run, in which we modified the colors.

So refreshing to see something so different. They hit a clever solution and they knew when to stop. Right choice of color and type size. It is complex, but looks simple and crafty. There is intelligence at work and the work gets deeper the more you view it.