HOSTS HOSTS
Meet the 2023 AIGA Design Conference Visionaries
Debbie Millman is host of the award-winning podcast Design Matters, one of the world’s first and longest running podcasts; Chair of the first ever Masters in Branding Program at the School of Visual Arts, Editorial Director of PrintMag.com, and the author of seven books on design and branding. She has worked on the design and strategy of over 200 of the world’s largest brands. Her most recent book, Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People, was recently published by Harper Collins.
Champions Design is a branding and design agency. For more than a decade, Jennifer, Bobby, and team have crafted meaningful brand strategy and visual identity systems for some of the world’s best brands. At every point in her career, Jennifer has tackled big systems. She served as Design Director of Hillary for America in 2016, Design Director of New York City’s 2012 Olympic Bid, and worked in Pentagram’s New York City office with Michael Bierut. Jennifer earned an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, where she was the first graduate of the program to join its faculty.
Bobby C. Martin Jr. cofounded Champions Design with Jennifer Kinon in 2010. His clients at Champions have included Amazon, Apple, Dartmouth College, Girl Scouts, MTV, the National Basketball Association, and The Studio Museum in Harlem.
In 2020, he illustrated his first children’s book “Have I Ever Told You Black Lives Matter.” Martin has won numerous international awards from the AIGA, Art Directors Club, Communication Arts, D&AD, and the TDC, among others. In 2021, Bobby joined the Apple Design team. He now works fulltime in Cupertino, California.
Debbie Millman Conference Host Jennifer Kinon Conference Co-Chair Bobby C. Martin Conference Co-Chair
The evidence is in your hands.
While technology continues to evolve and re-shape what it means to be a graphic designer, we want to take a look at where we came from, where we’re going & how we get there without losing touch with our roots. How can “outdated” processes inform & inspire the designs of tomorrow? How can we design works with longevity for an uncertain future? And how important is it to educate young designers in a holistic way that accounts for an increasingly automated workflow without sacrificing the details that make design unique in the realm of creative practices? Let’s work through it together, with insights from some of the most innovative and inspiring designers in the field. Together we can preserve the legacy of print & define a successful future for our industry.
A–Z SPEAKERS SPEAKERS A–Z
Who Do You Want to Hear From?
Alicia is a graphic designer and educator with nearly 20 years of experience. She was a founding partner of MGMT. design, a collaborative women-owned graphic design studio whose projects focussed on exhibition design as well as museum publications, print, branding, and data visualization. Prior to MGMT., Alicia worked as a senior designer for Method, New York, and was a co-design director at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum. She currently serves as an external critic for the MFA program at the Rhode Island School of Design and has taught at Yale University, Maryland Institute College of Art, Barnard College, and the Cooper Union School of Art. Alicia was a past board member of the AIGA/NY chapter and the Fine Arts Federation, a design advocacy consortium in New York City.
Making the most of persistence, patience and keeping things simple. Being a designer, building a team, raising a child, and juggling everything else along the way. The joys and surprises and unexpected benefits of working at one place for a long time. Alisa Wolfson is the EVP Head of Design at Leo Burnett, Chicago. As a leader in the agency’s U.S. design practice, Alisa oversees brand extension and campaign visual identity for Samsung, Kelloggs, P&G and many of the agency’s cultural and socially conscious clients.
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Amedea Tassinari is the Creative Director for Angel City FC, Los Angeles’ professional women’s soccer team. She helped to build the brand from the ground up, and currently leads the design team and the club’s creative efforts. Before joining the team as Creative Director, she was selected to design the club’s crest and brand identity. At launch the crest garnered widespread positive global coverage, resulting in 178M in reach, $1.6M+ in Media Value, and 6.28% audience growth rate. Previously Amedea was a freelance designer & creative director, working with brands to build a design system and tell their story. She also worked as a designer for the LA 2028 bid for Olympic and Paralympic games, where she helped bring the games to Los Angeles. Amedea believes in the power of sports and design to drive social change, and is passionate about shaping a future of equality for women in sports.
Alicia Cheng
Allison Connell
Alisa Wolfson
Amedea Tassinari
Emily Oberman
Emily Oberman is a multidisciplinary designer whose work encompasses brand identity, motion graphics, publications, packaging, advertising, and websites. She joined Pentagram’s New York office as partner in 2012. Emily’s work is unique in that it blurs the line between promotion and design—often using language and humor to make an emotional connection. Her clients include film and television, hotels and restaurants, real estate developments, cultural institutions and nonprofit organizations. In 2022 she was awarded the profession’s highest honor, the AIGA Medal, in recognition of her distinguished achievements and contributions to the field. She has served on the national board of AIGA and as president of its New York chapter.
Erika Lee, an independent creative director and consultant, melds research, strategy, visual storytelling, and interactions to design emotionally resonating experiences. Globally, she helps ambitious web3 startups build great products with WE3. Locally, she serves as Vice Chair at Ourspace, supporting Hawai’i’s creatives. Erika mentors emerging UX/UI designers through Lady Bandit Studios’ Circular Internship and explores place-based design in a Hawaiian context through Purple Maia’s ‘Ka Maka ʻĪnana’ Think Tank. Before living 5 years in Hawai’i, Erika spent 17 years in NYC, including working at IDEO and collaborating with entities like Pentagram, Gretel, The New York Times, and Jazz at Lincoln Center, earning recognition from AIGA and the Art Director’s Club.
Forest Young likens his career trajectory to a desire path. Desire paths emerge as shortcuts where more deliberately constructed and prescriptive paths take a longer or more circuitous route, have gaps, or are non-existent. From Arctic ice to electric cars, Forest Young and Debbie Millman discuss significant career pivots, key projects, and new perspective from having worked both agency-side and in-house. Hear the personal story behind some of the world’s most influential projects and companies, and exploration into the themes of shifting perspective between working inside and out; finding the courage to pivot in one’s career, and ultimately, strategies for seeing yourself in your work.
She is a Partner at Pentagram in New York. After receiving her master’s degree in Architecture, she earned her PhD in Design at Politecnico di Milano. In 2011, she co-founded Accurat, an internationally acclaimed data-driven design firm with offices in Milan and New York. She is co-author of Dear Data and of the new interactive book Observe, Collect, Draw - A Visual Journal. Giorgia is also a public speaker, her TED TALK on her humanistic approach to data has over one million views. She was nominated as “one of the names to know in Creative America” by Wallpaper. Her work is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, where in 2017 she also was commissioned to create an original site-specific piece.
Ivy Ross is the Vice President of Design for the Hardware organization at Google. Over the past six years, she and her team have launched 50+ products winning over 240 global design awards. This collection of hardware established a new Google design aesthetic that is tactile, colorful, and bold. A winner of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, Ivy’s innovative metal work in jewelry is in the permanent collections of 12 international museums. Ivy has held executive positions ranging from head of product design and development to CMO and presidencies of several companies, including Calvin Klein, Swatch, Coach, Mattel, Bausch & Lomb, and Gap.
Ninth on Fast Company’s list of the 100 Most Creative People in Business
Erika Lee Forest Young Ivy Ross Giorgia Lupi
Juan Carlos Pagan is an artist, designer, and typographer from New York. He received his BFA from Parsons School of Design, and completed his postgraduate studies in typeface design at Type@Cooper. Juan has created visual identities, custom typography, and brand campaigns for companies including NPR, Pinterest, Cîroc, Under Armour, Nike, Google, Disney, New York Lottery, and YouTube. He has also designed cover art for publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, and Variety. In 2017 Juan co-founded Sunday Afternoon, a hybrid creative design studio & artist management agency.
I am passionate about great, timeless design and building connected, strong communities, which has led me down a 20+-year career path in graphic design education that includes teaching students, coaching staff, and developing user-centered systems and frameworks. The hallmark of my career is teaching college students who are out in the world today, significantly impacting the design industry and pursuing their professional goals. I currently teach Introduction to Graphic Literacy at the Georgia Institute of Technology, College of Design, where I lead about 20 students a semester in appropriately using design tools and methodologies to develop researched-based communications, visual messages, and design solutions.
Marina Willer is a graphic designer and filmmaker with an MA in Graphic Design from the Royal College of Art. Before joining Pentagram as a partner, she was head creative director for Wolff Olins in London. A multi-faceted designer, Willer has designed major exhibitions for the Design Museum which were the most-visited exhibitions in the history of the Museum.She has been an examiner at the Royal College of Art and is a member of the AGI (Alliance Graphique Internationale) the most prestigious graphic design association in the world. Consistently recognised as a leading figure in UK design, during the course of her career Willer has been the recipient of a variety of industry honours including Creative Review’s Creative Leaders 2017.
Mark Sanders is a designer, teacher, author, typographer, photographer, baker and basket maker. He explores many of these pursuits as a Founder and Creative Director at the trans-disciplinary design studio Q Collective, a professor of graphic design at the Maryland Institute College of Art, and co-author of the 6th and 7th editions of Typographic Design: Form and Communication. Mark designs and produces interactive projects, identities, literature systems, promotional items, books, and exhibitions for a diverse group of cultural institutions. His latest work explores interaction design as a folk art pursuit, expressing cultural identity by conveying shared community values and aesthetics through digital interface, architecture, and experience.
Matt Owens is a New York based designer and creative strategist managing and producing brand, design, and digital experience projects for a wide range of clients. A Texas native, Matt studied graphic design at the University of Texas at Austin and received a Masters Degree in graphic design from Cranbrook Academy of Art. He is a founding partner of Athletics, a cross-disciplinary creative agency based in New York City. Founded in 2004, Athletics have grown through a commitment to design innovation and an ability to work with organizations large and small to meet the challenges of design and contemporary brand-building.
Juan Carlos Pagan Lisa Babb Marina Willer Matt Owens Mark Sanders
Michael Bierut studied graphic design at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning, graduating summa cum laude in 1980. He worked for ten years at Vignelli Associates before joining Pentagram as a partner in 1990. Bierut served as president of the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) from 1988 to 1990 and is president emeritus of AIGA National. He also serves on the boards of the Architectural League of New York and the Library of America. Bierut was elected to the Alliance Graphique Internationale in 1989, to the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in 2003, and was awarded the profession’s highest honor, the AIGA Medal, in 2006.
Morgan Searcy is a creative lead and strategist with a background in politics and graphic design. She self-directs the creative practice, Morgan Searcy Studio, and lead the politicsproject.com, an initiative supporting research uplifting gen z and bipoc voices in Democratic and progressive politics. I create influential work that reaches beyond the current trends. Understanding clients’ present and future impact is important to my approach. I help teams focus on sustainable creative by applying progressive values to concept-first work. Previously the studio has supported teams at Nike, Elizabeth Warren for President, Politico EU, AppleTV+, Corona Global, HBO, theSkimm, Budweiser, Levi’s, Jon Ossoff for Senate, Rock The Vote, Shondaland & Let America Vote.
Natasha Jen is an award-winning designer, an educator, and a partner at Pentagram. Born in Taipei, Taiwan, she joined Pentagram’s New York office in 2012. A six-time National Design Award nominee, Natasha’s work is recognized for its innovative use of graphic, verbal, digital, and spatial interventions that challenge conventional notions of media and cultural contexts. Her work is immediately recognizable, encompassing brand identity systems, packaging, exhibition design, digital interfaces, signage and wayfinding systems, print and architecture. Working at the intersection of technology and culture, Natasha has developed branding for some of the most complex “frontier” technologies, from AR/VR, quantum computing, photonic computing, mobility technologies, gaming, AI, and biotech to crypto/blockchain innovations.
Rechung Fujihira brings 10+ years of experience and leadership to the development of creative communities and supportive, collaborative entrepreneurial spaces in Hawai’i. As the co-founder and treasurer of Our Space, an incubator and makerspace for individuals and small businesses, he strives to apply 21st century state-of-the-art technologies to give professional the tools and space they need to innovate. He began his career as CEO of Hawai’i first co-working space, Box Jelly, and went on to become the co-founder of Blue Startups, Hawai’i’s first venture-accelerator. A local of Honolulu with numerous honors and awards, including being named one of the 20 people to watch for the next 20 years by Hawaii Business Magazine. He continues to work towards building a resilient and sustainable future for his island.
Silas Munro
Rechung Fujihira
Silas Munro is an artist, designer, writer, and curator engaging multi-modal practices that inspire people to be the best versions of themselves in order to effect positive change on society as a whole. He earned his BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and holds an MFA from California Institute of the Arts. He is the founder of Poly-Mode, the LGBTQ+ and Minority-owned design studio primarily working with cultural institutions and community-based organizations including collaborations with The City of LA, The Phillips Collection, The Center for Urban Pedagogy, Housing Works, MoMA, MOCA, The New Museum, Walker Art Center, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, and David Kordansky Gallery.
Michael Beirut Morgan Searcy Natasha Jen
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