AIGA needed a program for its 2009 Design Legends Gala, a celebration recognizing the lifetime achievement of select design-world luminaries. That our audience would be composed of fellow designers made the task easier and harder. We had a great amount of creative freedom but would of course be judged by our esteemed peers.

The piece was conceived as a precious object that contributes to the design-centric spirit of the evening, and hopefully is kept as a souvenir. To contain and reflect the medalists’ important bodies of work, we developed a system that displays the content at its best. The typography is designed to be read at different levels: a passing glance will impart lively pull quotes and images; a deeper look will reveal thoughtful meaning in the text. Because we are a company of type nerds, we used only custom, unreleased typefaces, hoping to inspire an evening of mystified (and incorrect) guessing games as to their origins.

The program was well received, although we did encounter some resistance from a certain champion of Helvetica: “There are too many typefaces, I honestly find it confusing”—Massimo Vignelli.

A truly fitting keepsake design for a class of AIGA design legends.