AGDA DNA 260110

26th January, 2010

Regular updates on design news and activities of the national council and executive office

AGDA Salary Survey 2010

The design of the AGDA Industry Benchmarking Survey is near completion and will be posted in February. This will be an invaluable tool for design industry professionals in career and business planning.

Participation in this Survey will provide important data to questions such as:

• How much should an entry-level designer earn?
• Is paying over-time normal practice?
• What is the outlook for business growth for the next few years?
• The key metrics and ratios common to successfully run design businesses?

The results will provide information crucial to all design professionals including:

• Benchmarks in salary structures and billing rates
• Salary differentials in geographic location and business sector
• Growth areas for the design industry
• Benefits and salary packaging in the design industry
• Effective staffing strategies

Enquiries: gm@agda.com.au

National Council Meeting February 2010

The first 2010 National Council meeting will be held in Melbourne in February. Two national councilors are nominated from each state chapter council to envision and plan national strategies and programs in conjunction with the Executive Director.

As a result of two strategic workshops at the end of 2009, teams have been formed to drive goals and objectives in key portfolios, with the implementation process to be shared at state level.

The February meeting will produce a more streamlined distribution of programs and responsibilities to be adopted by councilors, so as to improve and extend value to stakeholders.

Buyers, Sellers, Dealers - Members Self Publish

AGDA's support of the first self-publishing effort by Voice has been rewarding all round. This first foray Type it Write, a multi-award winning publication, has sold out and won its fair share of national and international design recognition. It addressed the usage of the most common forms of punctuation, including apostrophes, commas, quotation marks and semicolons, and provided valuable guidance about matters such as emphasis, placing punctuation with quotation marks and preparing lists.

By popular demand, the second edition of Type it Write has been recently released. It introduces additional topics in acronyms, emphasis and italics; places more emphasis on examples; and is more exciting and even easier to use than the first edition.

Check out the paragraphs supporting AGDA's code of ethics. www.typeitwrite.com.au

Further gluttons for a good read (and look), Voice (Anthony De Leo and Scott Carslake) have teamed up with Toby Richardson, photographer and lecturer at University of South Australia to produce Buyers, Sellers and Dealers, a limited edition publication which goes far beyond an expose on garage sales. Like-minded designer garage-sale addicts, or rather ‘tragics', can experience first hand, the phenomenon, insights and true confessions at the book launch, in the form of - you've guessed it! - a garage sale - with proceeds going to a great cause, the Salvation Army.