About
Chicago Design Museum—2014 Summer Exhibition!
$54,659
536
This June, the Chicago Design Museum will become a permanent archive and gallery in the city that will be open year-round. We need your support to hang the first exhibition in our new space.
The exhibition—Looking back, and envisioning the future
In 2014, AIGA turns 100. We are joining in the centennial celebration through our summer exhibition, which reintroduces Chicagoans to the last century of design from our city. We will juxtapose this broad historical documentation with a curated look at the ways in which communication could evolve in the next century. Our group of passionate, curious curators has been hard at work for the past four months developing this exhibition for you. We are excited by their research, and can't wait to share it with you!
Beyond this summer's exhibition, we intend to explore design across other disciplines—architecture, interior, product, furniture, fashion, and more. The big idea is to install one exhibition per season, opening the gallery for two months at a time. When the gallery is closed for a month to change exhibitions, the archive will be available for members and students to peruse by appointment.
Reward—Let's do something impossible
We have commissioned an incredible posters series from our past exhibitors and new friends. We can't wait to get their work into your hands, and frankly, into our personal collections. This limited edition poster series has been designed exclusively for this Kickstarter campaign. All six designers have been asked to design with the phrase, "let's do something impossible". (Poster dimensions—18x24")
Representing our tenure in Chicago are three esteemed designers, and your old friends—Marian Bantjes, Debbie Millman, and Michael C. Place. Representing our growth are three new collaborators—Chuck Anderson, James Goggin, and Mike McQuade.
Reward—Charter membership
In addition to building a new permanent space, launching our summer exhibition, and commissioning an exclusive poster series, we are also pleased to offer our first ever membership program.
Benefits include:
Monthly mailer—Great Ideas of Humanity
Reduced admission to events
10% off all purchases in our store
Invitation to member's holiday party
Private access to the ChiDM collection
*The Great Ideas of Humanity mailer is a monthly series that is commissioned and maintained by ChiDM. Building off of the tradition of the Container Corporation of America's Great Ideas of Western Man series, we intend to pair designers and artists with global thought leaders, asking them to illustrate ideas, which will be printed and delivered to you directly.
Why now?
Over the past two years, hundreds of people have volunteered thousands of hours. Together, we've poured over details, made connections, broken down silos within our community, and challenged the perception of institutionalized museums. We've hosted exhibitions in Phoenix and Chicago—uniting, informing, and inspiring well over 10,000 people. Our momentum continues to build, and now is the time to harness it.
We don't take this opportunity lightly. With your help, we will continue to serve as a resource for the design community and beyond, facilitating an open dialogue about contemporary and historical design through engagements, events, and digital media. Our new, permanent space will act as neutral ground, allowing for meaningful collaboration and conversation.
2014 is an important year for our community. Starting this summer, we will evolve and expand upon our mission, involving you in our process, and changing our landscape together. In conjunction with the AIGA Centennial and Chicago Design Week, we will host events during the summer exhibition that serve both our mission and community.
You complete us
ChiDM is as much yours as it is ours. If you'd like to get involved on a deeper level, please contact our Administrative Director, Lauren Boegen, at lauren@chidm.com. If you have any questions, concerns, or ideas, please feel free to contact me directly at tanner@chidm.com. I am in constant conversation with members of the design community, via email and in person. This high-level of interaction constantly informs and shapes my way of thinking about the organization. Let's continue the conversation.
Risks and challenges
Finding a niche in an already culturally-rich city can be challenging, but for us it has been energizing. Chicago hosts a design community that thrives on collaboration, transparency, and connectedness. Excited by these ideas, creating open access to information, and celebrating design excellence, we are surrounded by like-minded individuals that value and share our ethos.
We have received overwhelmingly positive feedback that you want a permanent design space as much as we do. While we have imagined a complex and diversified business model, we want you behind us when we go to individuals and corporations to ask for support. We're keeping operational costs low, and feel very confident about funding for our other three exhibitions in this fiscal year. As you know, Kickstarter is all or nothing. If we don't reach our goal, we won't receive any donations. We could ask for less, but we feel very strongly that this is an honest and fair assessment of proposed costs. Over time, we will likely need to raise costs to give you more, but strive for slow and steady growth in the interim.
With risk comes reward. Our biggest reward will be seeing your support in action during our summer exhibition, which will run through both June and July.
Learn about accountability on KickstarterQuestions about this project? Check out the FAQ
Support
Funding period
- (32 days)