AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts)

AIGA, founded in New York in 1914 as the American Institute of Graphic Arts and renamed AIGA, the professional association for design, in 2005, is the oldest and largest membership body for designers in the United States, with more than 70 chapters and over 200 student groups. It publishes the AIGA Standards of Professional Practice, a code covering the designer's responsibilities to clients, to other designers and to the public, first issued in its Design Business and Ethics series in 2001. We have discussed how professional organizations, educational accreditation bodies, and influential publications also play a very significant, practical role in this ongoing self production and as such they also contribute to its boundary maintenance. They do so by codifying ethical standards like AIGA's Standards of Professional Practice or the Deontological Code by READ (Spanish Network of Design Associations), defining professional competencies and bodies of knowledge, accrediting educational programs that meet certain criteria, and conferring legitimacy upon individuals who meet these standards.