The Most Important Card in My Wallet

I first joined AIGA in 1999, a full decade ago. Over the last ten years, I’ve received hundreds of publications, event promotions and collateral from them. While they’ve made a noticeable effort to be more “green” and scale back on printed materials, every year for the past ten years I’ve received my annual membership card in the mail. This year was no exception — until I opened the envelope. Rather than the typical throw away card, this years card was completely redesigned, made from recycled material, recyclable, and reusable. And it is GORGEOUS.

Below, we’ve posted a few images of the new membership card and some of the great features in the new design.

First, the old card:

Here’s the card on its insert. (Told you it was gorgeous.) The membership cards come in three colors — magenta, blue and yellow. I’m convinced I got the bright yellow version since I’ve lost my membership card almost every year.

Here’s the back side of the mailer. The right hand side showcases AIGA’s core values — stimulating thinking about design, demonstrating the value of design, empowering designers for success, and savings with your membership, and directs members to the Web site. The left side of the mailer lets members know that in the future instead of a new membership card, they will receive a new expiration date sticker. A sticker!?

Yup, right there in the bottom right hand side, we placed our new expiration sticker. Much more economical and environmentally friendly then sending 22,000 membership cards every year.

Underneath the card, a confirmation of my current contact information from the AIGA database, and the URL in case any of that information is incorrect.

Here’s a shot of the front of the card by itself. Big bold lettering for the name (which matches the other collateral AIGA sends out), our member number (which we need for certain discounts on the Web site), and a member since date. That member since date, especially in my case, definitely encourages me to make sure I renew every year.

Finally, the back side of the card. Reinforcement of the mission of the association, as well as the web address. But what are those boxes? Turns out, they are for stickers to acknowledge attendance at national events or competitions. What a great way to remember the events we’ve attended and to talk them up amongst fellow members!

Congrats, AIGA, for a great redesign!