by Carly Hagins

There are few events where you can have conversations with a guy who takes portraits of pugs (Fred Levy), a creative recruiter (Lyndsey Wallace), an editor of in-flight travel magazines (who was, unsurprisingly, out of cards), an enthusiastic new intern (Anna Shafer-Skelton), and the district chair of national design organization IDSA (Jeremy Ogg) all in the span of one drink. The AIGA-sponsored Cross-Org AFTA at Vlora on June 21 was one of those events.

It was timed to coincide with the opening day of HOW Design Live, one of the biggest annual design conferences in the US. Throughout the night, there was lots of talk about inspiring presentations and the most highly anticipated speakers of the following days. This also made the evening a great opportunity to meet creatives from outside of Boston who were in town for the conference.

The AFTA series periodically brings like-minded designers together at venues throughout greater Boston to share drinks, swap business cards, and dream up the next big idea. ‘Cross-Org’ AFTAs are meant to gather people from a variety of creative fields: writing, photography, illustration, graphic, industrial, and user interface design, to name a few. This mixing of disciplines leads not only to captivating conversations (“the best thing about photographing sea turtles in Bermuda is…”), but also connections that form the basis for future collaboration. It is, put simply, the perfect opportunity to grow your creative network.

Carly is currently doing contract work for a little toy brand called B. and teaching in the industrial design department at Wentworth Institute of Technology. In her free time, she likes to bake pies, ride bikes, and blog. Tweet hello @carlyhagins (she’ll tweet back!)