designedhere.KC’s Kansas City Design Archive, housed on The People’s Graphic Design Archive (PGDA) is now open for your submissions. With its national audience, user-friendly tools, and lasting presence, we found PGDA to be the perfect platform for our online archive. The submission process is straightforward and hassle-free, ensuring a seamless experience for you and making it easy to share your work with the world. 
With just a few steps, you can become part of design history—your contribution to the archive is not just a submission; it's a significant addition to the rich tapestry of Kansas City’s design history. Your work will be part of a collection that designers and researchers will appreciate for years to come. First, it’s easy to upload with the tools and resources available on PGDA. (Choose work at least 10 years old, a PGDA requirement.) Second, tag, tag, tag. Tags make your work discoverable. Third, after uploading, click the "Add to Collection" button above the title and select KANSAS CITY DESIGN ARCHIVE.
About tags
PGDA emphasizes the importance of tagging, stating that “Several levels of classifications are what make for useful tags from general to the specific.” “Tags that identify designers, studios, fonts, periods, styles, and so on are very useful for researchers. These are fundamental categories for design research.” ”Calling attention to something that is an early or unknown work by someone, or an unusual use of a font, or anything that can be identified with expert knowledge and strikes your eye is helpful.” In other words, tags make your work discoverable and help it stand out in the archive. Read more about tags.
PGDA tutorials
Adding to the Archive
Creating a Collection
Documenting work fast & easy
Conducting an interview fast & easy
Archiving fast & easy

Here’s what we are up to in 2020:

• Working with Bark studio to create 5-10 minute videos of leading advertising and design leaders

• Collecting existing video and oral histories from AIGA Fellows and AIGA Medalists.

• Continuing to collect and document work from the advertising, communication, and graphic design fields, including illustration, photography, animation, motion graphics, and exhibit/mural design

• Gathering the AIGA award show winners, digital assets from the past 15 years to serve as the initial base for designed here.KC

• Gathering AAF award winners and digital assets starting with 1980-2020 and going backward by decade

• Seeking experts in archival preservation and local design history to aid in properly recording the design history and artifacts

• Inviting the design community (companies, educators, colleges, museums and designers in the private and public sectors) to capture at-risk design and designers through artifacts and oral histories

• Completing 501(c) (3) 

• Resolving vision and mission statements

• Establishing organizational structure and business and funding plans

• Recruiting members and volunteers

• Developing a fundraising campaign to build a digital asset management platform, sponsor events, and provide design preservation collection efforts

On September 27th, 2019 the designed here.KC team unveiled the first gallery exhibit at the annual AIGA KC Gala held at the Grand Hall at Power and Light in downtown Kansas City. The exhibit showcased over 300 award-winning advertising and design projects completed over the past 3-plus decades.

At the end of August the AIGA KC team met with some amazing partners at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. We covered a lot of territory in our meeting today! We discussed the importance of projects like Designed Here KC and in our community. It was very encouraging to know so many of us are working to document our city’s creative history committed to telling the untold stories. We've already got a game plan and follow-up on the books. Stay-tuned for more soon!