AIGA's current president is senior graphic design student Amanda Lewis. Ms. Lewis became president last fall and is trying to follow in the successful footsteps of former president Dustin Brady.

"We had a really good president before; I kind of just try to follow his lead as well and do fundraising and stuff like that so we can take our professional development trip to Dallas," said Ms. Lewis

AIGA will take their professional development trip to Dallas on March 31. This trip allows students to visit design firms, paper companies and art galleries. Through this trip students have a chance to get a taste of what design firms look like so when they graduate they already know what to expect. They experience firsthand what branding is and how the process is done.

"It is like all of the art culture and graphic design firms networking and stuff like that, with a whole bunch of people that have been doing this for about four or five years,” said Ms. Lewis

After visiting these places, students attend a dinner with designers. Students can talk and discuss any questions they may have with the designers.

In April, AIGA will host a fundraiser to raise funds for St. Jude's Hospital.

The fundraiser will be a longer version of another art event known as Command X held once a month on a Saturday. During Command X students design artwork with a prompt given to them by a design professor. The artwork at the end is critiqued and a winner is chosen.

"It's helpful and you definitely learn on It." said Ms. Lewis

The AIGA St. Jude’s fundraiser is similar to Command X except it will be held from night until morning. This fundraiser will also help students improve their design skills.

Ms. Lewis believes that students who join AIGA learn more than graphic design. They also learn that there are many things to do within graphic design that it doesn’t all have to be focused in one place in order to be considered a good graphic design artist. She also believes that AIGA helps students with networking and getting their names out there.

Ms. Lewis would like to see more sophomores and freshmen joining AIGA. She thinks joining AIGA would help these students if from the start they began taken advantage of what AIGA has to offer. AIGA has helped Ms. Lewis in her college career with networking, learning how to improve her design, and what companies are looking for.

Ms. Lewis will graduate in May 2016. She hopes to be able to get a job in Colorado working in a design firm. One of her goals is to include her love of photography in her work.

Ms. Lewis describes the graphic design major as, “It is a really fun major; I think if you have the passion for it you’re going to go places. If you can communicate through your art, if you love it, I think you will go places…because that is what it is art is passion.”

To join AIGA students need to attend the meetings, which are held every Monday at 5 p.m. in the Art Building Room 153.