The Edison Agency – AGDA Mentoring Program

The AGDA Mentoring Program is dedicated to bringing together experienced design professionals with those that are seeking career guidance, professional advice & design business skills. The program aims to promote and nurture the sharing of real-world skills with the benefits of a collaborative design community.

Amber Bonney, The Edison Agency founder, is a dedicated AGDA member, Victorian Councillor and a passionate advocate for the program and it’s benefits to the design community.

Over the past 3 years as program leader, Amber has crafted the program structure to evolve with changing needs of AGDA members and the AGDA council values, purpose and vision. In reviewing previous years program structure and design collateral, AGDA decided that 2019 was the year to relaunch the program with a new communication strategy, program design and visual language system – one that reflected the diversity and inclusivity of the program.

The idea for the new identity system is centralised around using the distinctive asset of AGDA’s iconic ‘A’ and connecting it with the ‘M’ for mentoring to creates a word-mark acronym ‘AM’ -a visually succinct message of self-empowerment. The new design system allows for flexibility in its application – appealing to a broader audience of both potential mentor’s and mentee’s. The “I AM” acronym creates an opportunity for language that directly speaks to the program benefits and has unique visual distinction through its aesthetic simplicity:
– “I AM…sharing”
– “I AM… progressing”
– “I AM… growing”
– “I AM… connecting”

The AGDA Mentorship Design System is a reflection of a broader social narrative – the deep human desire to belong and to feel connected. The design language celebrates diversity and momentum through a fresh and bold design aesthetic. This system was only recently implemented in early 2019 and will continue to evolve and adapt itself across all communication touch-points in Victoria with a vision for implementation on a national level in coming years.

The big picture for ‘AGDA – I AM” is to create visual distinction and recognition as a foundation program for AGDA – one that not only servers the developmental needs of the Australian design community but has a greater propensity to increase AGDA’s membership base and unify the community as a whole.