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Art Directors Club Follows Recent Rebranding With Organizational Changes

NEW YORK, November 10, 2009 – One week after unveiling a new brand identity, the Art Directors Club (www.adcglobal.org) today announced organizational changes designed to enhance its responsiveness and development of member services and benefits.

The ADC Board of Directors voted to make management of all ADC programming and member services the responsibility of an executive director, still to be named, who will report to the board.  Under the new structure, ADC staff will also work directly with the board via committees, and have an established communications channel to regularly reach out to board members for direction and support on key areas such as awards and membership.  In addition, committees will be restructured to better fulfill important club initiatives and staffed accordingly.

“We passionately embrace the future, which means our structure, approach and offerings have to continually evolve to remain current and relevant,” said Doug Jaeger, ADC president and innovation director, TAXI, New York.  “This new organizational structure opens up better lines of communication between ADC staff and board, and makes us even more responsive to industry trends and member needs.”

As a result of these changes, the board eliminated the full-time position of CEO and accepted the resignation of Ami Brophy, who held that role.  Olga Grisaitis, ADC general manager and a longtime staff member, will oversee operations as acting director until the search for an executive director is concluded.

Jaeger credited Brophy with making significant improvements to the operations of the ADC Annual Awards and other programs, and navigating the club through a difficult economic environment.  “We are very grateful for Ami’s contributions over the past two years, and wish her well moving forward,” he said.

Founded in 1920, the club is the premier self-funded, not-for-profit organization for integrated media and the first international collective of its kind, serving as a hub for a broad range of creatives including creative directors, art directors, graphic designers, digital designers, environmental designers, copywriters, illustrators, photographers and others.  Last week, ADC announced a major rebranding developed by Trollbäck + Company that accentuates its commitment to currency and relevancy while also embracing its origins and heritage.

The club has expanded programming beyond its prestigious ADC Annual Awards, ADC Young Guns and ADC Designism programs in recent years.  Examples include the 2008 kickoff of ADC Grandmasters, a salute to legendary educators in the field, and that launch of DesignismConnects.org with Idealist.org to link creatives with non-profits in need of pro bono design help.  This year marked the first ADC Reboot events focusing on career development for creatives, and the inaugural ADC-Nissan Student Brief Competition.  New programming and member services, both physical and virtual, are planned for 2010.

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