Kara Turner, AIGA Baltimore’s Communications Director and all-around Renaissance woman, grew up on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. She was a varsity lacrosse player in high school (“the only girl on the team”) and, between games, she acted in plays. After a few years of freelance work in Manhattan and Daytona Beach, she returned to Maryland to focus on a professional career in communications and media.

Since we’re shining the Spotlight on Kara this month, we wanted to find out what makes her tick. She says she’s has always thrived when thrown into challenging situations and prefers to work on multiple projects at a time.

“I love the process that goes into creating,” she tells us, “It could be an event I’ve organized for work or a character I’m playing on stage but I just like creating things. I like to see the results of something I’ve done that’s had a lot of hard work put into it. But I also strive to get a reaction from people.”

She’s looking forward to our upcoming events and the opportunities to network with other designers.

“Design is powerful,” she says, “Great design has the ability to add order to our lives. It can express humor. It can make people think. It can make people safer and can teach others. The design of a space, or the lack of, affects the way people feel and the way people act.”

Kara lives in Annapolis but knows her way around Charm City, seeing shows at CenterStage, having drinks in Fell’s Point, and performing in the local theatres. Since we at AIGA Baltimore are always thinking of new symbols to replace the crab, we asked her if she had any ideas. She suggests a purple and orange foam #1 finger then changes her mind.

“Baltimore has so many fantastic outdoor events,” she says, “Artscape, Sowebo, the Greek Folk and Ukraine festivals. So, I’d say a good symbol for the city would be a festival tent.” She also tells us that everyone should experience being out on a rooftop deck in Pigtown on the Fourth of July.

“There’s the view of the fireworks, of course, but you can also see all the distant ones from other towns all around you. Then, you see hundreds of car headlights creep around the highways and hear the mass of people leaving the Harbor.”