YG16 Jury
The Young Guns 16 jury is an eclectic group of creative professionals from across the globe and many disciplines. As per tradition, many of the jury members are past Young Guns winners, creatives who know exactly what it means to be part of this selective community of superstars. They are joined by an all-star cast of industry veterans, as skilled as they are curious about the rising talent that is celebrated with every passing year of Young Guns.
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Alex
Director + Co-owner
Bec
The HudsonBec Group (It’s Nice That, Anyways, Lecture in Progress) / London
Alex Bec
Alex Bec is the managing director and co-owner of the HudsonBec Group, which exists to enable creativity to thrive. The independent group includes media company It’s Nice That, creative agency Anyways and educational resource Lecture in Progress.
He has an unwavering passion for giving opportunity and exposure to the best talent in the creative industry, from established names to rising stars – all three businesses continually strive to support this desire.
Over the last ten years It’s Nice That has grown from a one-week University project to respected creative media company that reaches over a million people every month.
Launched in 2011, Anyways has grown into an agency collaborating with the most influential companies in the world including Google, Nike, Uniqlo and BBC.
Although in it’s infancy, Lecture in Progress started on an important journey in 2017 to help the next generation of creatives make better career decisions, and in time look to diversify the talent in the industry.
Alex has also worked as a Visiting Creative Director at Wolff Olins, been awarded a D&AD yellow pencil and a nomination for the prestigious Designs of the Year award at the Design Museum, for which Alex is also a member of the judging jury.
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Alyssa
Senior Fashion Market Editor
Coscarelli
Refinery29 / New York
Alyssa Coscarelli
Alyssa Coscarelli is Refinery29’s Senior Fashion Market Editor and a style influencer in her own right. Constantly keeping the pulse on the market, Alyssa will try any trend at least once, covering fashion brands, styling tips, and overall industry happenings for Refinery29. She also shares her city-inspired outfits, inspirations, and adventures daily with her enthusiastic Instagram following. Well-connected in the fashion industry, Alyssa has worked with notable brands such as ASOS, Nordstrom, Nike, Topshop, Farfetch, and beyond — and also prides herself on discovering the latest indie and emerging brands and next big It-labels. She also regularly creates and appears in editorials, features, live-streams, and videos for Refinery29 and other respected blogs and publishers.
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Amber
YG15 / Illustrator
Vittoria
New York
Amber Vittoria
Amber Vittoria is an illustrator living and working in New York City. Her pieces focus on femininity and the female form, leveraging physical traits such as body hair, overtly extended limbs, and rounded features.
Amber is a Young Guns 15, and her work has been recognized by Print Magazine‘s 2017 New Visual Artists – 15 Under 30, It’s Nice That, Computer Arts, HuffPost, Teen Vogue, and Man Repeller. Some of her clients include The New York Times, Teen Vogue, Man Repeller, Refinery29, Medium, Saks Fifth Avenue, Adidas, 7 For All Mankind, CB2, Framebridge, Amazon Fashion, Under Armour, and Interscope Records.
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Amy
Group Creative Director
Boe
POSSIBLE / Los Angeles
Amy Boe
Amy has had the privilege of working at some of the top agencies in the US. From starting her career at TBWA/Chiat/Day to working at Deutsch, helping the agency win 5 Cannes awards for the Ronald McDonald campaign. Currently, she is the Group Creative Director at POSSIBLE Los Angeles and is helping push the creative on Acura and Microsoft. By working for shops big, small and of different disciplines, she has gained a unique perspective in the advertising world.
Throughout Amy’s career, she has been cited by numerous press outlets, including Adweek, Advertising Age, BizBash and TED for her work, in addition to the major industry award shows including Cannes Lions, One Show and the Grand Ex Award.
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Andrius
YG7 / Digital Artist + Director
Kirvela
PetPunk / Vilnius
Andrius Kirvela
Digital artist & director with a passion for the art of storytelling, high-res images and addiction to diet coke. Currently lives in Lithuania.
Andrius is a ½ part of creative collaboration PetPunk. The artists’ primary areas of interest lie in animation and tactile crafts. Their creative goal is to produce authentic work that is visually and aesthetically challenging, yet peculiarly subtle. PetPunk tend to explore, experiment and play with conventional subjects.
PetPunk has gained recognition by the most important graphic design magazines, becoming a synonym for the new design generation from Eastern Europe. In 2009, the Canadian “Boards” magazine included PetPunk in the top 6 of “The New Wave of Designers”, while in 2010, the UK’s leading design magazine “Computer Arts” featured PetPunk as “The New Wave of Animation”.
Andrius Kirvela and Gediminas Šiaulys (Ged Sia) were the first Lithuanians to win the “Young Guns” prize by the Art Directors Club in New York and have been invited to numerous international festivals such as the European Design Conference (Stockholm), Visuelt (Oslo), PICTOPLASMA (Berlin), Onedotzero (London), Anima (Brussels), Arsenale (Florence), Holland Animation Film Festival (Utrecht), 5th Istanbul Animation Festival (Istanbul), Huesca Film Festival (Huesca), Off Motion Festival (Krakow), DesignFLUX 2007 (Paris). Their clients include: Sprite, MTV, Vodafone, Nike, Volkswagen, McDonald’s, Computer Arts, Visual Editions, Cultures France and IMEPO institutions.
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Ashwini
Co-founder + Director
Deshpande
Elephant / Pune
Ashwini Deshpande
A 1989 graduate of National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, Ashwini is the co-founder of Elephant*, India's largest independent integrated design consultancy with offices in India & Singapore. She has done award-winning work for global brands in diverse segments. Some of the awards include Global ReBrand 100 (USA), Worldstar (Germany), & Asiastar (Singapore) for Packaging Excellence A’Design Awards (Italy) and Best of the Best at CII Design Excellence.
Ashwini was invited by Rockefeller Foundation to participate in Global Social Impact workshop. She has lectured across more than 20 countries including ICOGRADA Design Week, Business of Design Week and International Design Congress. She has been jury at Cannes Lions (France), Global ReBrand 100 (USA), Spikes Asia (Singapore), Design for Asia (HK), Kyiv IAF (Ukrain), International A’Design Awards (Italy) & Design for Change (India) Awards. As a key member of The Design Alliance Asia consortium, she has edited Colours of Asia book published in Hong Kong that was awarded Design for Asia Special Culture Award by the Hong Kong government. Impact magazine has recognized Ashwini among 50 Most Influential Women in Media for three consecutive years. She received Amrutwel Foundation’s SuperWoman 2017 Award from Mayor of Pune city and Leader of the Decade Award at the Women Economic Forum in Delhi last year.
Ashwini mentors start-ups from the advisory board of Indian Institute of Management CIIE programme. She is also mentor to the Vedica Scholars Programme. She is on the Advisory Board of School of Design, Pearl Academy.
*The Economic Times Brand Equity Agency Reckoner has ranked Elephant as No 1 Design Agency multiple times including their 2017-18 listing. At the first India edition of Lexus Design Awards, Elephant was declared as Design House Of The Year in February 2018.
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Aviva
Design Director
Michaelov
The New Yorker / New York
Aviva Michaelov
Aviva Michaelov grew up in Tel Aviv and graduated from Parsons School of Design.
She is design director of The New Yorker magazine. Through 2016, she was the art director of the Opinion pages at the New York Times, leading the design of the Op-Ed page and Sunday Review section. Her work at The New York Times was recognized by the Society of Illustrators and the Society of News Design.
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Bernardo
SVP, Group Creative Director
Romero
Area 23 / FCB Health / New York
Bernardo Romero
Bernardo Romero is currently part of the leadership team that made history at the 2017 Cannes Lions Festival, winning the title of 2017 Healthcare Agency of the Year for the first time for a U.S. based agency, Area 23/FCB Health. Also helped Area 23 to be the first agency in the history of the festival to win 2 glass lions in the same year. With a total of 10 lions, this year’s achievements also includes a Gold Pharma Lion and a Silver Innovation Lion. He was also a speaker this year at the Cannes Lions Festival and with a full house, he talked about how restrictions can spark innovation. Finally – to wrap up 2017 – he was instrumental in helping the agency secure the Clio Health Agency of the Year and Global Awards agency of the Year awards. Romero started his career in Brazil. As Creative Director at Africa in São Paulo, he was part of the leadership team that won 20 Cannes Lions, a Grand Prix at the Clio Sports and made it one of the ten most creative agencies of the world by Adweek and 2015 Agency of year at Lürzer’s Archive magazine. In 2015 Romero was named the number 1 art director in the world by Lürzer’s Archive magazine, with more than 50 publications in the prestigious journal to date. He was the first craft for art direction teacher in Brazil, at both Brother Ad School and Miami Ad School New York. Bernardo is also a co-creator and host of the show “Incredible Proposals” currently airing on Fox Life Brazil.
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Brad
Partner
Sherman
FLOAT Studio / New York
Brad Sherman
Brad founded Float Studio in 2013 with the mission to make great design accessible for start-ups aging out of the co-working model. His first clients were companies that felt that their specific needs were not being met and that their culture - so critical to their identity as a group - was absent in their space.
Brad’s team spends time with their clients, studying and questioning how they work in an exercise somewhere between a branding revamp and talk therapy. He believes that there is no prescription for good workplace design, and distinctly responds to each brand – the reason why no two spaces he designs look alike.
Along with his Partner, Nina Etnier, he expanded Float Studio to work with with high-powered brands on attention-grabbing projects that have recently placed him on Interior Design Magazine’s Top 40 Up and Comers for 2017 and Metropolis Magazine’s Top 5 Designers to Watch.
Some of his clients include Casper, Glossier, Food52, Bonobos, Superfly and Elysium.
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Catherine
YG2 / Visual Storyteller
Chesters
Elsie & Co. / New York
Catherine Chesters
Catherine Chesters is a designer and artist splitting time between the west Catskills of New York and Brooklyn. Born in County Durham, England. She received a BH Honors from the London College of Communication, Higher National Diploma in Design Communications from Suffolk College and OND in Graphic Design at Durham New College.
Catherine creates visual stories that come in all forms, motion, print and digital. They live on screens, in paper, and memory. Her work includes collaborations with Kathryn Bigelow, Annie Leibovitz, Director X and David La Chapelle and includes branding for entertainment, auto, beauty and charity.
Her work has taken her from to London to Paris, LA, & for the longest time, in New York.
Publications: ID Design, Res, Pause.
Awards: D&AD Silver. ADC, AIGA, BDA PROMAX, Creativity Media & Interactive Design
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Cecilie
Creative Director
Larssen Lonning
Larssen & Amaral / Haugesund
Cecilie Larssen Lonning
Cecilie Larssen Lønning is Co-founder and Creative Director at Larssen & Amaral—a Norwegian design and branding consultancy creating engaging brand experiences. Her work emphasises a global perspective partnered with the simplicity of Scandinavian design principles—creating modern and timeless design that gives clear and effective communication and purpose.
Cecilie works with a diverse range of brands, from fashion labels and startups, to larger corporations and institutions such as the Norwegian Maritime Authority and the British Museum.
Cecilie is educated in both Norway and Australia in the field of visual communication. Her work has received international recognition from distinguished publications and competitions, including the Type Directors Club, Gullblyanten, and Counter Print Books.
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Daniel
YG13 / Illustrator
Zender
Brooklyn
Daniel Zender
Daniel Zender is an illustrator and painter, living and working in Brooklyn NY. His clients include Nike, Adidas, Warby Parker, Facebook, the New Yorker, NY Times, Broad City, Buzzfeed, Playboy, among many others. He has been awarded the gold and silver medal from the Society of Illustrators, and in 2015 he received the Young Guns award from the ADC. He is a graduate of MSU and the SVA MFAI program.
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Daniel
Founder + Creative Director
Vosovic
THE KIT / New York
Daniel Vosovic
Daniel Vosovic, recognized author and former Project Runway winner, launched his newest endeavor in spring 2017 as Creative Director of THE KIT. After having grown his eponymous label in 2009, Daniel chose to embrace the technical components of an evolving industry and tap into today’s consumer needs by shaping a fashion company that would blend the perfect marriage of meeting those needs, while retaining the design integrity he values. Based in New York City, THE KIT is flexible, it is a solution, it is now.
Daniel also recently adopted a rescue pup from Puerto Rico named Rumi whose look is described as a “poodle that has stepped into an electrified puddle” and he’s obsessed with her.
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Devan
YG6 / Artist + Designer
Harlan
New York
Devan Harlan
Devan Harlan is an artist and designer based in New York. His interdisciplinary art practice operates across sculpture, installation, video projection and digital media. He has participated in the public art exhibition “Ideas City”, organized by the New Museum, NY and was included in museum show “Noor (Light)” at the Sharjah Art Museum, UAE. Gallery exhibits include solo and groups shows at Christopher Henry Gallery, Gallery Madison Park, White Box and Usagi Gallery.
Devan’s design practice has included experience design, 3D generative animation and physical design. His work with 3D projection has been presented at the Sonos Space (LA), the Singapore Light Festival and Coachella Music Festival. Notable projects include stage design for the Y-3 / Adidas Spring 2014 show during NYFW and a permanent commission for Canon USA’s global corporate headquarters in NY.
Devan was recently an artist in residence at the Frank Lloyd Wright School Of Architecture, Taliesen West (Winter 2017). He has been a teacher and guest critic for INDA (International Design & Architecture program) at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, and has given lectures at the ASU and NYU ITP. He is a self taught artist and was home educated for most of his childhood in California.
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Eiko
YG11 / Illustration
Ojala
Tallinn
Eiko Ojala
Eiko Ojala is a renowned illustrator based between Estonia and New Zealand. Within his work process Eiko likes to study the forms of shapes and to work closely with light and shadow. He likes to keep his illustrations minimal and well-advised and combines consummate craftsmanship with a healthy sprinkling of wit.
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Ekene
Artist
Ijeoma
Studio Ijeoma / Brooklyn
Ekene Ijeoma
Ekene Ijeoma is a first-generation Nigerian-American artist living and working in New York and Chicago. He works at the intersections of design, architecture, music, performance, and technology, creating multisensory artworks from personal experiences, social issues, and data studies. He’s currently a School for the Art Institute of Chicago Mitchell Visiting Professor in the Department of Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects, Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow and Urban Design Forum Forefront Fellow.
His work has been commissioned and presented by venues and events including Modern Museum of Art (Design and Violence, New York), The Kennedy Center (Arts Summit, D.C), Design Museum (Designs of the Year, London), Istanbul Design Biennial, Fondation EDF (123 Data, Paris), Annenberg Space for Photography (New Americans, Los Angeles), Neuberger Museum of Art (Landed, Purchase, NY), and Storefront for Art and Architecture (Measure, New York).
Ekene has been awarded fellowships, residencies and professorships from New Museum (Ideas City Detroit, 2016), New York Foundation for the Arts (Architecture/Environmental Structures/Design 2016/2017), School for the Art Institute of Chicago (Mitchell, 2018), California College of the Arts (Vibrant Cities, 2017), Santa Fe Art Institute (Equal Justice, 2017/2018), New Lab/Simons Foundation (Science Sandbox, 2017) and Fabrica (2009).
He has been featured on the cover of GDUSA's People to Watch "who embody the spirit of the creative community", named Adweek's Creative 100 "visual artist whose imagination and intellect will inspire you" and also GOOD's GOOD 100 "tackling pressing global issues." His work has been featured in wide-ranging publications including the Huffington Post, The Atlantic, Le Monde, Corriere della Sera, Internazionale, Vice, WIRED, Fast Company, Dezeen, Designboom, Domus, Hyperallergic and Artsy. He’s appeared on TV and radio shows including Fox 4 News, Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) Radio and W Radio (Colombia).
Ekene graduated with a BS in Information Technology from Rochester Institute of Technology and an MA in Interaction Design from Domus Academy. He’s lectured and critiqued at schools including Yale, Harvard Law School, Columbia, New York University, School of Visual Arts, and The New School.
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Elaine
YG14 / Director
McMillion Sheldon
Charleston
Elaine McMillion Sheldon
Elaine McMillion Sheldon is an Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker. Her work explores universal stories of identity, upheaval, survival, and resilience. Sheldon is the director of "Heroin(e)" a Netflix Original Documentary short that follows three women fighting the opioid crisis in Huntington, West Virginia. "Heroin(e)" was nominated for a 2018 Academy Award. In 2013, she released "Hollow," an interactive documentary that examines the future of rural America through the eyes and voices of West Virginians. Hollow received a 2013 Peabody, 2014 Emmy nomination and 3rd Prize in the World Press Photo Multimedia Awards. In 2016, Chicken & Egg Pictures awarded her with the inaugural "Breakthrough Filmmaker" award. Sheldon was a 2013 Future of Storytelling Fellow, and named one of the "25 New Faces of Independent Film" by Filmmaker Magazine and one of "50 People Changing The South" by Southern Living Magazine. She's a founding member of All Y'all Southern Documentary Collective. She has been commissioned by Frontline PBS, Center for Investigative Reporting, New York Times Op-Docs, TEDWomen, Field of Vision, Mashable, and The Bitter Southerner. She was recently named a 2018 USA Fellow by United States Artists.
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Elan
YG1 / Creative Director
Cole
NYC & Company / New York
Elan Cole
I’m in love with Design. I was seduced in the womb of a textile designer and never let it go. Graphics, objects, experiences; inks, pixels; big ideas, flights of gratuitous beauty (or ugly if the solution calls for it). Blessed and cursed: the thing that I do is the thing that I am. I can’t escape it even if I wanted to. So, it’s a good thing I don’t want to.
I’ve helped re-imagine global businesses for Jet Blue, Johnson & Johnson and Infiniti Motors, designed Santeria candles for a Botanica up in the South Bronx. I design and build my own line of leather goods; I’ve worked with my curatorial and artistic idols at the Museum of Modern Art and PS1, and designed comic books for Marvel. Today I teach branding at the School of Visual Art’s Groundfloor Incubator and I'm the Creative Director for the City of New York.
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Elina
Senior Copywriter
Rudkovsky
M:United/McCann NY / New York
Elina Rudkovsky
Elina Rudkovsky is a senior copywriter at M:United/McCann New York working on Microsoft, and most recently created their quirky animated holiday spot. Before working on the tech brand and several of its STEM-forward initiatives, Elina helped launch digital and social content for brands like Office Depot Office Max and Mucinex. Her work has been featured in Creativity, The Drum, Adweek, and Huffington Post.
Elina has won multiple Cannes Lions and a few other fun merits. She currently lives in New York City with her 9 year old poodle, Lex, and has one very unhealthy addiction to Bravo TV.
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Emily
YGX / Designer
Macrae
London
Emily Macrae
Emily is an award-winning designer based in London, England. Since graduating in 2008, she has spent her time at several studios in London and Auckland, New Zealand, working across a range of sectors and disciplines. Alongside this she has headed her own projects for clients around the globe.
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Faust
YG12 / Artist
New York
Faust
Faust has made a name for himself worldwide as one of the most innovative and influential graffiti artists coming out of New York today. He has become recognized for incorporating classical design sensibilities with contemporary urban aesthetics challenging the way people see and think about graffiti. Faust's studio work has been exhibited in the Grand Palais in Paris, the Park Avenue Armory in New York, and the Urban Nation Museum of Urban Contemporary Art in Berlin. In 2016 Faust painted the facade of Urban Nation while the museum was under construction, and is currently featured in their inaugural exhibition.
Martha Cooper (co-author of Subway Art) described Faust as "a prolific practitioner of elegantly executed handstyles". Faust was featured throughout two of Cooper's books, Going Postal and Name Tagging. Faust was also published in The Art of Writing Your Name by Christian Hundertmark and Patrick Hartl, Graffiti New York by Luke Felisbret, Definition: The Art and Design of Hip Hop by Cey Adams, Flip the Script by Christian Acker, Stickers: From Punk Rock to Contemporary Art by DB Burkeman, and Graffiti 365 by Jay Edlin which features the following:
"Among all the amateur scribbling and indecipherable hieroglyphics that make up the average tagger's landscape, a skilled hand at penmanship is a rarity. New York-based artist Faust is best known for his impeccable calligraphy skills...Faust grounds his ethos in the idea that a graffiti writer needn't change his style of artwork to be a legitimate fine artist–the letters are enough."
Faust's work has appealed to audiences far beyond the street, earning him five Awards of Excellence from the Type Directors Club and the prestigious Young Guns Award from the Art Directors Club. Faust has painted commissioned murals in the New York headquarters of Adobe, Spotify and MTV, and most recently painted a 40-foot mural at the Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. Faust was named as one of Juxtapoz Magazine's Top 20 Graffiti Artists to Know Right Now, the New Yorker's Calligraphy Stars of Instagram, and Paper Magazine's Young NYC Artists Shaking Things Up.
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Gracia
YG8 / Illustrator
Lam
Toronto
Gracia Lam
Gracia Lam is an award-winning illustrator living and working in Toronto.
Her unmistakable aesthetic has caught the eyes of countless publications and illustration enthusiasts. With a long list of notable clients such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Time Magazine, J. Crew, Penguin and Random House, and many more.
Lam has won various international awards such as American Illustration, Society of Illustrators, Art Directors Club Young Guns 8, including Gold and Silver awards from National Magazine of Canada.
Despite being in great demand, Lam still makes time to give back to the creative community and have cofounded a creative coworking space in the historic 401 Richmond building, as well as giving talks at OCAD and Sheridan’s core illustration classes to offer mentorship in the areas of client relations, business details, contracts, and process.
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Heather
Creative Lead
Luipold
Google Creative Lab / New York
Heather Luipold
I’m Heather Luipold, a Creative Lead in New York working at the Google Creative Lab. We’re a small group of designers, engineers, writers, filmmakers and thinkers who experiment on non-traditional product concepts and ways to help connect people with our products. I co-lead a team inside the Lab who do a lot of product experimentation. I also work as an adjunct professor in the design department at the School of Visual Arts and the Masters Program at Cornell Tech. Prior to Google, I worked in a slew of agencies where I led product work for clients like Gucci, American Express and Lexus.
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Helena
Creative Director
Skonieczny
72andSunny / Los Angeles
Helena Skonieczny
In 2013, Helena was recognized by Business Insider as one of the Most Creative Women in Advertising. Through TBWA\MAL, she launched an award-winning environmental campaign for Conservation International called ‘Nature is Speaking,’ which received worldwide acclaim and was awarded a Gold Lion in the 2015 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. While working at TBWA\Chiat\Day in Los Angeles, Helena was recognized for crafting the stunning new visual identity for Crate&Barrel that catapulted the brand to the national stage with the iconic “&” campaign. Helena’s strong visual sense can also be seen in her work for Target, Apple iPhone, Gatorade, Diet Pepsi and the renowned Visa Olympics campaign.
With 10 years of experience working at agencies like TBWA\MAL, Deutsch Los Angeles, and TBWA\Chiat\Day. Helena served as the Executive Creative Director for Pitch in Los Angeles. There, she lead the charge on the Waldorf Astoria & Beverly Hilton accounts in addition to all major new business and current client projects for the agency. Helena is currently working at 72andSunny LA and was a creative force behind the Carl's Jr./Hardee's Global rebrand and is now heading up Starbucks. She has always been a strong believer in the power of pure simple messaging that resonates deeply with consumers.
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Jake
YG7 / Creative Director
Smallman
Self-titled / Melbourne
Jake Smallman
Creative director Jake Smallman has over 16 years of brand, design and art direction experience and co-founded Self-titled in 2014. Self-titled is a creative agency based in Melbourne, Australia with skills extending across brand, design and communications to spatial and digital design.
Prior to starting Self-titled, Jake worked both in the UK and in Australia, having previously held roles as Creative Director of Interbrand, Design Director at Paper Stone Scissors and Senior Designer at Cornwell. His client list includes Peter Lehmann Wines, Realestate.com.au, Pronto Software, Origin, Medibank, Australia Post, Melbourne Fashion Festival, Kookai, Woolmark and QMS.
Jake’s work has won numerous awards including as an ADC Young Gun (YG7). Jake’s approach to design is always ideas driven and involves reducing a concept down to its essence.
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Jason
Chief Creative Director
Peterson
Havas Creative, U.S. / Chicago
Jason Peterson
Jason M Peterson is the chairman and chief creative officer of Havas Creative, U.S. He’s known for igniting cultural conversations across all channels and understanding the critical role social media plays in brand storytelling and modern brand building.
He’s been the Head of Art for Volkswagen, founding partner and Executive Creative Director at Berlin Cameron, and co-president and Executive Creative Director at Translation, a marketing agency founded by Steve Stoute and Jay- Z.
A true social media junkie, Jason is one of the most influential social presences in Chicago; to date he has amassed more than 1 million Instagram followers. He's been invited to shoot President Obama’s farewell address, the Chicago Bulls, Lollapalooza and more with his sponsor, Leica.
Most recently, Jason was named as one of Business Insider’s 30 most creative people in advertising in 2016. If you see him on the street behind the lens of his camera, please say hello.
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Javin
YG5 / Founder + Design Director
Mo
Milkxhake / Hong Kong
Javin Mo
Javin MO is the founder of design studio Milkxhake and a Hong Kong-based graphic designer, and curator. He has been actively involved in collaborations with leading local and international clients, particularly from the arts, cultural and institutional sectors. He was also the editorial and design consultant of Design 360°, the only bilingual design magazine in China between 2009 and 2015. Javin’s works have been selected for numerous international design awards including: iF Design Award (2017), Taipei International Design Award (2017), Taiwan Golden Pin Design Awards – Best in the Year (2015), British D&AD Awards (2015), New York Art Directors Club Young Guns 5, Tokyo Type Directors Club, Design for Asia Awards, and others.
His works have been widely published in international design magazines and journals including the Japan IDEA Magazine. In Jan 2014, he co-curated with OOO Projects from Osaka for the first graphic design exhibition “TYPE TRIP–THE NEW ASIAN GRAPHIC DESIGN EXHIBITION” successfully held in Hong Kong. He had been traveling to Asian cities between 2014 and 2015 co-edited for “YELLOW PAGE”, a special feature appeared in IDEA Magazine from Japan. In 2016, Javin started the self-initiated project “MOBILE TALK” together with Tetsuya Goto from OOO Projects, which is a new platform of creative sharing and discussion had been touring around the Asian cities including Osaka, Hong Kong, Taipei, Singapore and Tokyo.
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Jennifer
YG15 / Creative Director
Whitney
N/A Collective / New York
Jennifer Whitney
Jennifer Whitney is an experiential designer whose work embraces a wide range of disciplines, such as graphic design, brand strategy, web design, and creative direction. Her industry experience and RISD education give her the skills to lead cross-disciplinary teams, from pitch, through production, to installation, and post-production, whether designing for a high profile individual, corporation or not-for-profit. She works to bring the client and team together to find and develop the best platforms to convey the message, make meaning, engage human interaction, and create lasting moments.
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Jesse
YG9 / Photographer
Rieser
Phoenix
Jesse Rieser
Jesse’s exploration and celebration of the mundane and humorous elements that often go overlooked can be traced back to his Midwestern upbringing in Springfield, Missouri. At Arizona State University he majored in photography and art history while attending the Herberger Institute of Art and Design. Now working between New York and Phoenix, he continues his curious exploration of subtleties paired with his signature style of light and color.
Rieser and his photographic works have been featured in The New York Times, Time, NPR, Buzzfeed, It’s Nice That, Refinery 29, Wired, Fast Company, The Guardian, The Daily Mail and has collaborated with AT&T, Amtrak, Coca-Cola, Disney, ESPN, E* Trade, The Ford Motor Company, NBA, New Mexico State Tourism, NFL, Procter & Gamble, United Airlines, Warner Brothers, and Visa.
His personal fine art work, editorial assignments, and advertising commissions have been celebrated by the Communication Arts Photography Annual (2X), PDN Photo Annual (5x), American Photography Annual (10x), Photolucida’s Critical Mass Top 50 (Top International Fine Art Project)(2x), Center's Review Santa Fe 100, 2011 Art Director’s Club Young Guns (Top 50 International Emerging Creative Under 30), Luezer’s Archive (200 Best Ad Photographers Worldwide) and a recipient of the Magenta Foundation’s Flash Forward award in 2012 (Top Emerging Fine Art Photographer in North America and U.K. Under 35)
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Jessica
YG8 / Designer, Art Director + Co-founder
Walsh
Sagmeister&Walsh / New York
Jessica Walsh
Jessica Walsh is a designer, art director, and co-founder of Sagmeister & Walsh. Her NYC based design studio creates brand identities, commercials, campaigns, websites, apps, films, books, products and more. Clients include: Snapchat, Pepsi, Barneys, BMW, Oreos, Museum of Modern Art, The New York Times, Levis, Adobe, among many others.
Jessica lectures about creativity at conferences and universities internationally. She teaches design & typography at The School of Visual Arts in NYC. Her work has won awards from almost all major design and advertising competitions and featured in hundreds of books and magazines. She has been awarded numerous distinctions such as Forbes “30 under 30 top creatives designing the future” and Ad Age’s “Top 10 Visual Creatives”. Her work has been shown in museums around the world such as MoMA, MOCA Los Angeles, SF MoMA, ICA Philadelphia, Design Exchange Toronto, MAK Vienna, Les Arts Decoratifs, La Gaîté Lyrique, among many others. She hosts mentorship circles for creative women through her initiative Ladies, Wine & Design; which has spread to over 65 chapters in 30 countries around the world.
Jessica's personal project “40 Days of Dating” received over 10 million readers, and received international recognition including spots on “The Today Show” and “The View". The film rights to “40 Days of Dating” was bought by Warner Bros who are currently working on the script. Their book “40 Days of Dating: An Experiment” was just released by Abrams and is available for purchase online and in bookstores worldwide.
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Jordan
YG11 / Animation Director + Illustrator
Bruner
Brooklyn
Jordan Bruner
Jordan Bruner is an artist, filmmaker, and animator based in Brooklyn, NY inspired by mythology, travel, and bright colors. Jordan has directed commercials, music promos and interactive games for Linda McCartney, Google, the NY Times, Eve Ensler and Paramore amongst others. Jordan’s style brings the screen to life, and offers surreal charm to any project. Beyond animation, Jordan has designed wallpaper, and soft furnishings as part of Clerkenwell Design Week. Her work has been screened at various festivals including Pictoplasma, Best of Animation Block Party, and LA Film Festival. Jordan was a winner of New York’s ADC Young Guns 2013.
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Juan Carlos
YG11 / Co-Founder + Creative Director
Pagan
Sunday Afternoon / New York
Juan Carlos Pagan
Juan Carlos Pagan is a New York based Designer, Art Director, and Creative Director. He received his BFA from Parsons School of Design in 2006, and completed his postgraduate studies in typeface design at The Cooper Union. Juan has been honored for his work by The Type Directors Club, Communication Arts, The ADC, One Show, Graphis, Cannes Lions, Clios, Fastco, and Print Magazine among others. In 2013 Juan received The Art Directors Club Young Gun Award, That same year he was named the top of Adweek‘s Talent 100, and was subsequently nominated for Print Magazines New Visual Artist 20 Under 30. He is currently the founding partner and Creative Director of Sunday Afternoon. He previously held Head of Design and Creative Director positions at, 72andSunny NY, Deutsch NY, and DDB NY.
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Julia
YG7 / Executive Creative Director
Neumann
TBWA\Chiat\Day / New York
Julia Neumann
Julia Neumann most recently joined TBWA\Chiat\Day New York as executive creative director.
Her advertising career started at Saatchi & Saatchi New York, where she won the brand’s very first Cannes Lions for P&G’s Tide. After stints at Y&R New York, Wieden+Kennedy in Portland and BBH New York, joined Mullen Lowe in New York, where she got charged with running the JetBlue account as well as growing the newly opened New York office.
Notable work includes Land Rover’s “Pathological Liar”, as well as “4 Year Olds Bucket List” and the critically acclaimed stunt “Art Heist for Good” for WaterIsLife, in which she played Robin Hood. Julia Neumann was a winner at the ADC New York’s Young Guns 7. Throughout her career, her work has been recognized at all the industry’s top award shows, including The One Show, Cannes Lions, The Clio Awards, D&AD, The Andy Awards, The AICP and the Art Directors Club. Business Insider also included Julia in their annual list of most creative women in advertising in 2013, 2014 and 2016.
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Kelly
Group Creative Director
Woh
Ogilvy / Shanghai
Kelly Woh
Kelly Woh is one of the most respected digital creatives in China and renowned for her idea generation and conceptual work, as well as a passion for flawless execution that pushes both technology and design to the next level. She has over 14 years experience working in the advertising industry. She currently joins Ogilvy & Mather Advertising as Group Creative Directorwas tasked with setting up the digital & innovation creative team for the company. Since then, she has pushed the boundaries of sociable digital creative, adopting new technologies to provide innovative solutions to clients. Kelly was also featured as one of The Top10 Malaysia Creative Youth awards and Campaign Asia-Pacific 20 exceptional women to watch in Asia-Pacific Marketing in 2014; The A List Campaign Asia winner in 2017.
Before joining O&M Advertising, She worked in AKQA Shanghai since 2009 and she has worked on projects for a range of clients including Nike, Unilever, Kraft, Uniqlo, Coca-Cola, L'Oreal, Estee Lauder, VW and Lego. In the past years, Kelly has created several award-winning Integrated and digital campaigns for global clients such as Nike, Adidas, Kraft and Unilever in the major industry award like Cannes Lions, OneShow, Clio, Adfest & Spikes.
In addition, Kelly has been a juror for China Advertising Great-wall Awards, Roi Festival Awards, LongXi & LongXi Nova Awards, OneShow China Youth Creative Award, Adfest, D&AD, FITC Toronto awards, digital president juror for China 4A and Art Directors Club.
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Kimberly
YG9 / Art Director, Illustrator + Designer
Dulaney
Brooklyn
Kimberly Dulaney
Kim Dulaney is a graphic designer, illustrator and art director residing in Brooklyn, New York. She is a Washington state native. Her early inspirations were found in the vistas of majestic wilderness. To this day she's inspired by the beauty of nature and tries to integrate it's complexity and nuance in her work. She strives to deliver detailed and colorful works that show her personality.
Kim Dulaney graduated with honors from California Institute of the Arts, where she received a BFA degree in design in 2005. Shortly after graduating from the graphic design program, she went on to start a career in the motion graphics industry. From 2005 to 2007, she became a member of staff at Stardust Studios and from 2007 to 2009. She then became employed at Psyop Inc. as a designer and an art director. Currently, she's working as an independent designer. She is taking on feature films and many diverse projects in the entertainment industry.
Her diverse skill set has led her to receive many accolades including: in 2015 a Webby People's Voice Award winner for branded Animation for Airbnb Berlin, 2015 Graphite Pencil at the D&AD Awards in London Airbnb Berlin, and 2015 a AICP Creative Award Airbnb Berlin. Eurobest 2012 Craft - Film Animation Gold for BBC Olympics: "Stadium", a Epica Awards 2012 TV/Cinema commercial Animation Silver for BBC Olympics: "Stadium", London International Awards 2012 TV/Cinema/Online Film - Post Production Animation Silver winner for BBC Olympics: "Stadium", Epica Awards 2012 TV/Cinema commercial Media Bronze for BBC Olympics: "Stadium", A Gold Cannes Lions Award for Graphic Design and Design Crafts for the 'Offf Titles' 2011, Archives Magazine's 'Best 200 Illustrators Worldwide' in 2011, Print Magazine's 'New Visual Artists' in 2011, 'Young Guns 9' in 2011, BDA Gold On Air Commercial for Adidas "Hu Jia" in 2009, Step's 'Emerging Talent' in 2007. Kim's design work can be seen in TV on the Radio's "Me, I" which received the SXSW jury award in 2008. She collaborated with Mixtape Club for Yeasayer's music video "Wait for the Summer" which was an official selection of the SXSW film festival in 2009.
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Lauren
Associate Creative Director
Ferreira
Droga5 / New York
Lauren Ferreira
Lauren is an Associate Creative Director on Google at Droga5. She’s worked with the talented folks at 72andSunny LA, 180 LA, CP+B Boulder, Cliff Freeman, TBWA\Chiat\Day NY and Leo Burnett Chicago. Her writing has been featured in Cannes, The One Show, the Clios, Young Guns, Lürzer's Archive, ADDYs, and Effies. Forbes ranked her Sonos campaign among the Top 5 Ads of 2016. She was named one of Business Insider's Most Creative People Under 30. And McSweeny’s has reviewed her writing as “Hmm, interesting.”
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Leigh
President + Chief Creative Officer
Reyes
MullenLowe Group Philippines / Makati
Leigh Reyes
Leigh is the President and Chief Creative Officer of MullenLowe Philippines, and entered the Creative Guild Hall of Fame in 2015. Winner of the country’s first gold Clio, she has received awards at Cannes, D&AD, One Show, Clio, Art Directors’ Club, Spikes, Asia-Pacific AdFest, New York Festivals, LIA, Asian Marketing Effectiveness and Strategy Awards, Digital Media Asia, and others. She has served on the juries of Cannes Lions, New York Festivals, Art Directors' Club, Clio, LIA, AdFest, Spikes, Startup Weekend, the Boomerang Awards, and more. She was elected to the Board of Directors of the Internet and Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines (IMMAP) in 2016 and 2017. For 2018, she was elected to a two-year term. Leigh was a founding member of MobileMonday Manila, an open community platform that brings together mobile visionaries, developers and enthusiasts. Her calligraphy appears in Le Pain Passion by Gerard Dubois, winner of Best Bread Book at the 2017 Gourmand Awards. She is also the writer of the first virtual reality diorama experience at the Ayala Museum, RizalVR. As @leighpod, she is a content creator with a growing, engaged online audience. Her YouTube channel has over 6,000 subscribers and over 1.5 million views. She interacts on Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest with thousands of people with shared interests in art, writing instruments, technology, and culture. Her latest adventure is A Year of Creativity on Anchor, a startup aiming to reinvent radio.
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Louise
Director
Fili
Louise Fili Ltd / New York
Louise Fili
Louise Fili is director of Louise Fili Ltd, specializing in food packaging and restaurant identities. Fili was art director of Pantheon Books for eleven years, where she designed over 2000 book jackets. She is co-author, with Steven Heller, of Italian Art Deco, British Modern, Dutch Moderne, Streamline, French Modern, Deco España, German Modern, Design Connoisseur, Typology, Stylepedia, Euro Deco, Scripts, Shadow Type, Stencil Type, and Slab Serif Type. Fili has also written and designed Elegantissima, a best-selling monograph of her work, as well as Grafica della Strada, Graphique de la Rue, Gràfica de les Rambles, The Cognoscenti’s Guide to Florence, and Italianissimo. A member of the Art Directors Hall of Fame, she has received the medal for Lifetime Achievement from the AIGA and the Type Directors Club.
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Luisa
YGX / Creative Director
Milani
La Tigre / Milan
Luisa Milani
After the Master degree in communication Design at Politecnico di Milano, Luisa worked for some years at Leftloft in Milan, where she had a confirmation about her huge passion for graphic design. Now it’s almost ten years she runs with Walter a graphic design studio, LaTigre.
La Tigre specialized in refined visual design solution for small to large, local and global clients. In the last years they worked for various international magazines such as The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Wired, The Independent and many more. They have been nominated Young Guns by Art Directors Club in 2012. The studio have been awarded also by New York Type Directors Club, Laus and Society of Publication Designers.
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Maria
Photographer + Art Director
Svarbova
Bratislava
Maria Svarbova
Maria Svarbova was born in 1988; she currently lives in Slovakia. Despite studying restoration and archeology, her preferred artistic medium is photography. From 2010 to the present, the immediacy of Maria’s photographic instinct continues to garner international acclaim and is setting new precedents in photographic expression. The recipient of several prestigious awards, her solo and group exhibitions have placed her among the vanguard of her contemporaries, attracting features in Vogue, Forbes, The Guardian, and publications around the world; her work is frequently in the limelight of social media. Maria’s reputation also earned her a commission for a billboard-sized promotion on the massive Taipei 101 tower, in Taiwan.
Maria’s distinctive style departs from traditional portraiture and focuses on experimentation with space, colour, and atmosphere. Taking an interest in Socialist era architecture and public spaces, Maria transforms each scene with a modern freshness that highlights the depth and range of her creative palette. The human body throughout her oeuvre is more or less a peripheral afterthought, often portrayed as aloof and demure rather than substantive. Carefully composed figures create thematic, dream-like scenes with ordinary objects. Her images hold a silent tension that hint at emergent possibilities under the lilt of clean and smooth surfaces.
There is often a sense of cool detachment and liminality in Maria’s work. Routine actions such as exercise, doctor appointments, and domestic tasks are reframed with a visual purity that is soothing and symmetrical and at times reverberant with an ethereal stillness. The overall effect evokes a contemplative silence in an extended moment of promise and awareness—a quality difficult to achieve in the rapid pace of modern life. Maria’s postmodern vision boldly articulates a dialog that compels the viewer to respond to the mystery, loneliness, and isolation of the human experience. Nevertheless, deeply embedded within the aqueous pastels, Maria’s compositions hold to a celebratory elegance that transforms the viewer’s gaze into an enduring reverence for life’s simple beauty.
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Masaru
YG4 / Creative Director + Art Director
Yokoi
TV Asahi / Tokyo
Masaru Yokoi
Born 1973 in Kyoto, Japan.
Art director for TV Asahi in Tokyo since 2003.
Works:
- 2001-2003 Matthew's Best Hit TV ( featured in the film “Lost In Translation”)
- 2003-2013 responsible for corporate brand images “TV Asahi Visual Identity”
- 2011 background movies for Lady GaGa - “Born This Way” “Marry The Nights”
- 2012 background movies for Rihanna - “We Found Love ft. Calvin Harris”
- 2013 EX THEATER ROPPONGI Visual Identity , background movies for Katy Perry - “Roar”
- 2014 background movies for Pharrell Williams - “HAPPY”
- 2015 MUSIC STATION ULTRA FES , TV Asahi & Roppongi Hills Summer Station VI
- 2016 background movies for Underworld - “Born Slippy (Nuxx)”, Abema News Channel VI
- 2017 World Gymnastics Championship VI , SXSW AI Gocahn , MUSIC STATION
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Maxi
Brand Creative Director
Borrego
MTV International / Buenos Aires
Maxi Borrego
Maxi Borrego is the Brand Creative Director who leads MTV International’s World Creative Studio, a multidisciplinary creative team focused on enhancing the audience’s experience with MTV and its properties. The team develops creative strategy and implements it across almost 100 channels worldwide.
With a track record of more than 12 years of experience working in creativity, storytelling, visual innovation, and strategic thinking, Maxi’s work has been recognized multiple times at Cannes Lions, Clio, One Show, D&AD, London International Awards, FIAP, Ojo de Iberoamérica, and The FWA, among others.
Prior to joining MTV, he served as a Creative at Saatchi & Saatchi and Y&R Buenos Aires, working with clients such as Coca Cola, Google, Playstation, P&G, InBev, Movistar, YPF, and more.
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Melatan
Partner / Creative Director
Riden
Not an Office / New York
Melatan Riden
Melatan Riden is a multidisciplinary designer/director and creative entrepreneur based in NYC.
Prior to co-founding Not An Office in 2017, a newly established co.lab for creative thought and concept development, she was Head of Design at TBWA NY where she lead the origination and growth of the agency’s design capabilities. Working closely with the creative and production departments, she seamlessly integrated efforts aesthetically across all clients and new business.
Before relocating to New York, she was the first creative hire as Head of Design at Anomaly’s thriving Toronto office where she was responsible for the agency’s entire design output, influencing all branded content, campaign platforms and digital experiences.
Over the past year, as partner and creative director, she launched Double Barrel, a device in the cannabis market that was awarded best new product at the 2017 High Times Cannabis Cup.
Throughout her career, Melatan has worked with influential global brands the world loves—in fashion, retail, entertainment, cannabis and beverage—including Bite Beauty, Aritzia, Ann Taylor LOFT, BMW Mini, Red Bull, Jameson, H&M and NBC.
Beyond the industry, Melatan represents UN Women’s New York Chapter as Executive Creative Director, spearheading campaigns and events that raise money and awareness for programs advocating the rights of women and girls all over the world.
Melatan is an active participant in global juries, and her work continues to be recognized and awarded globally.
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Menno
YG6 / Chief Creative Officer
Kluin
360i / New York
Menno Kluin
Menno Kluin serves as Chief Creative Officer for award-winning ad agency 360i, where he oversees Creative work for clients including HBO, Nespresso, Oreo and Pernod Ricard. Under his creative leadership, 360i was named to Ad Age’s A-List 2018, recognizing the top ten ad agencies in the country.
Menno has a proven track record of creative success, garnering hundreds of industry accolades including 30 Cannes Lions, 25 One Show Pencils and more. He joined 360i from Deutsch where he led creative for brands like Sherwin Williams, WATERisLIFE, Shock Top, Green Giant and Children’s Museum of the Arts. While there, he championed the creation of Krylon’s First Ever Pinterest Yard Sale that picked up honors including a Titanium Lion at Cannes, numerous Pencils from One Show and D&AD, and Adweek’s Media Plan of the Year, among others. Other career achievements include the creation of a drinkable book for WATERisLIFE that was named one of the top 25 inventions of the year by TIME magazine, and working with the New York City Ballet to mark 9/11 with “New Beginnings,” a ballet performance on top of the new World Trade Center at sunrise on September 12th.
Prior to Deutsch, he was at DDB New York, where he served as Executive Creative Director and Head of Art. During his tenure, the agency was named Creativity's "Agency to Watch" in the Advertising Age A-List, the "3rd Most Awarded Agency in the US” in the Gunn Report, and “Design Agency of the Year” at Young Guns.
At Y&R NY, he served as Creative Director and Head of Art, where he elevated the quality and the craft of the work, helping the agency become the most-awarded US shop and runner-up for “Agency of the Year” at the Cannes Lions, and crowned “Digital Agency of the Year” at the Young Guns.
Menno started his career at Saatchi & Saatchi NY, where he earned accolades for his work for clients including JCPenney and P&G. Within Menno's first two years in the industry, he was named "Most Awarded Art Director Worldwide" by Creativity and was ranked one of the Top 50 Young Creatives in the world by the New York Art Directors Club.
Menno grew up in the Netherlands. He currently resides in Brooklyn.
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Merel
YG14 / Art Director
Witteman
KesselsKramer / Amsterdam
Merel Witteman
It is possible that Merel Witteman sources her creative power from her golden tresses, but it is far more likely that it comes from a deeper, darker, smellier, slimier place, somewhere beyond her hair follicles. In a time where society is obsessed with the execution and often forgets the substance behind it Merel Witteman is here to stand up for the idea and isn’t afraid to give people what they think they don’t want. Unlike many art and design devotees pretty isn’t necessarily what pleases this young creative who is a full time art-director at KesselsKramer and one half of a creative duo with Maartje Slijpen. Don’t judge this book by its pretty cover, Merel is not afraid to get her hands or her ideas a little dirty. Her work is simple, clear and inevitable humourous, preferably with a cheeky wink and is undoubtedly a reflection of someone who sees the world from a perspective most people have steered clear of. Merel has an ability to see the creative potential in an idea and then dig beyond that; always looking for the rough edges and dirty little secrets hiding in a sea of ‘perfection’.
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Nina
YG7 / Senior UX Designer
Boesch
Local Projects / New York
Nina Boesch
Nina Boesch (YG7) is a New York based UX designer and artist. In 2016, after multi-year engagements at Pentagram and Ralph Appelbaum Associates, Boesch joined the renown experience design firm Local Projects as senior UX and interaction designer.
Born in 1978 in Germany, Boesch brings close to 20 years of international work experience in interactive media design to the table. Her past projects range from software prototypes and mobile apps to interpretive displays and large-scale media installations for museums, cultural institutions, and corporate clients worldwide.
Boesch holds a BFA with honors from Rhode Island School of Design and won awards from the Art Directors Club (ADC), the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), the Society for Experiential Graphic Design (SEGD), the Type Directors Club (TDC), Adobe, and others.
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Pablo
YG3 / Graphic Designer, Typographer + Artist
Medina
Design is Culture / New York
Pablo Medina
Pablo Medina has a BFA in drawing and an MS in communication design from Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute. Fresh out of grad school he set out to infuse the design world with his typeface designs that drew from his love of Latin-American popular culture. In 1999, his work was exhibited at the prestigious Design Triennial exhibition at the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt Museum. He is also a recipient of the Art Directors Club Young Guns award. He has taught art and design at Parsons School of Design, Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and at California College of the Arts (CCA). He currently lives and runs his studio from the East Village of New York City.
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Patrick
CEO
Janelle
Untitled Secret / New York
Patrick Janelle
After living across the United States and across the globe, Patrick settled in New York in the fall of 2011. Following several years working in the art department at Bon Appétit magazine, he stepped out on his own to forge brand partnerships, create secret pop-up gatherings across Manhattan with his creative partner, Amy Virginia Buchanan, and pursue a lifestyle worthy of the constant photos he posts on Instagram. Patrick has been recognized by The New York Times, The Telegraph, and The Guardian as a top food Instagrammer and was awarded the inaugural Fashion Instagrammer of the Year award by the CFDA. His creative agency, Untitled Secret, continues to work with companies on projects that leverage his expertise in branded content, experiential marketing, and event production. As co-founder of Spring Street Social Society, Patrick co-hosts an ongoing series of one-night-only performances and dinner parties. He is also a co-founder of The Liquor Cabinet, an authoritative mobile app dedicated to the world of spirits and cocktails.
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Pedro
YG15 / Art Director
Sampaio
BBDO / Brooklyn
Pedro Sampaio
Pedro Sampaio is a Young Guns 15 and award-winning Creative/Art Director based in New York. Pedro believes ideas should be provocative and bring a unique perspective into people's lives. His visual and conceptual work has been recognized by the most important Advertising Awards such as The One Show, D&AD, Cannes and was featured in the Tribeca Film Festival, NPR, Fast Company, Mashable, ABC News, Huffington Post.
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PieterJan
Creative Director
Mattan
Studio Mattan / New York
PieterJan Mattan
Studio Mattan is a specialized, New York based Creative Services Studio & Consultancy, dedicated to building brands at the intersections of design, furniture, fashion, hospitality, technology, digital creative, retail and e-commerce.
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Pinar&Viola
Digital Artists
Europe
Pinar&Viola
Pinar&Viola, Pinar Demirdag and Viola Renate, are artists, digital artists obsessed by visuals. They thrive in understanding the human condition and translate it as prints, patterns, videos, holograms, experiences which idealize new ways of being more healthy, constructive, inclusive and peaceful. Their artworks are often engaged with latest technologies where they develop smart, playful and artistic ways to create emotional engagements with the user.
They, mix, mingle and reinvent new images, icons, idols, sensations images which set the fashion of today’s visuals. The artist duo regularly launches collections about the future of patterns and visuals, the way fashion designers do with clothing.
Their works have been exhibited in museums including New Museum NY, Santa Barbara Museum of Contemporary Art and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Meanwhile they do surprising collaboration and make custom tailored visual experiences for world leading brands, people and events in culture including IKEA, Nike, Adidas, COP21, Diplo, Koché, MTV and Amsterdam Fashion Week.
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Sahar
Type Designer
Afshar
Birmingham
Sahar Afshar
Sahar Afshar is a type designer and researcher from Iran. Her interest in typography during her years as a student at the University of Tehran led her to the University of Reading, from which she holds an MA by Research in Typography & Graphic Communication. Since graduation, she has been working on the design, consultation and quality assurance of Arabic typefaces, as well as researching the printing history of Arabic and Indic scripts. She is currently based in the UK, and is a doctoral candidate at Birmingham City University, where she also works as a research assistant to the Centre for Printing History and Culture.
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Shanti
Creative Director, Designer + Illustrator
Sparrow
Head of Teaching - Shillington School of Design / New York
Shanti Sparrow
Shanti Sparrow is an award winning Australian graphic designer, illustrator and educator living and creating in New York. Shanti Sparrow has been named one of 33 Women Doing Amazing Things in Graphic Design, 15 Inspiring Illustrators to Follow on Instagram, 60 of the Best Graphic Designers to Follow on Behance and 100 must follow Pinterest Accounts for Graphic Designers.
Sparrow collaborates with many not-for-profit clients that create awareness and raise funds for important humanitarian, environmental and research based causes. She is recognized for her conceptual design and has created successful appeals for international clients including Red Cross, Greenpeace, NBCF and UNHCR.
Referred to as the “Queen of Layout” her work is characteristically informed by the grid, with refined typography and bold colour choices. Shanti Sparrow embraces the simplicity of geometric shapes to create minimal yet visually striking designs. As an illustrator Sparrow has a distinctive style that involves textures, geometric patterns and digital collage. Her work has been exhibited across the world and she has developed large-scale sculptural installations for projects in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Sparrow has also illustrated 4 children’s books that have been published internationally.
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Shawn
Global Director + Packaging Design
Lovejoy
Tom Ford Beauty / New York
Shawn Lovejoy
Shawn was adopted as a baby to a loving family outside Rochester, NY in 1982. That was when he was gifted the fake-sounding but smile-inducing last name of Lovejoy. The next 18 years were soccer, snowboarding, and dreaming of escaping this tiny town called Bloomfield, NY.
Thinking he would attend the Cleveland Institute of Art for Industrial Design for furniture and lighting… led to a minor in Technology and Integrated Media and a major in Fiber and Material Studies. He collaborated with two of his dearest friends for a BFA presentation that would win the Agnes Gund award, and send him onward and upward.
During college, there was a month-long intermission to come work for Heatherette to help get their runway show in 2004. This led to his mind being blown about the world of makeup, and encouraged him to learn the art while finishing his education.
The makeup world’s slope slipped into the enchanting world of fragrance, and his first gig in New York was working for Bond No. 9. He spent five years there as a creative consultant evaluating fragrances, taking care of visual merchandising, and eventually designing the products and packaging of many fifi-award winning fragrances, all showcasing a love of New York.
Five years into his New York career, a longing for a return to the world of cosmetics (but not wanting to leave fragrance behind…) led him to an opportunity at Tom Ford Beauty. Originally one of only two on a creative team for a brand that has since globally exploded, Shawn designs all the products and packaging that the beauty world has come to know and love in the name of TF.
In between there was a US tour as a drummer in his friend’s band, multiple graphic design gigs, as well as makeup, hair and styling for music videos and television as life awarded.
And it’s a wild, wild life.
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SJ
YG15 / Director + Partner
Myeza
7Films / Cape Town
SJ Myeza
SJ is from bustling Johannesburg South Africa, but now lives in the beautiful Cape Town. After his studies he joined 7Films as a young director, moulding him into the director he is today. He is now a majority shareholder of 7films, an award-winning Production Company rated 2nd in South Africa. His work won silver and gold Loeries at the 2016 Loerie Awards, at the age of 22 he was the youngest winner and ranked 3rd in the country in his debut directing year. He won Gold at Cannes Lions in 2017. He was voted top 200 young professionals in the country by Mail and Guardian which is one of the leading news publications in South Africa in 2017. His works in the film and commercial industry earned him a spot as one of the winners of YG15, the only African representative to be named that year. He became the 1st recipient in the history of YG 15 to receive the 1st ever Creatives Choice award. He is an ambitious, risk-taking individual, who is quick to learn and adapt at problem solving. His style is inspired by real stories with real characters, he believes reality is stranger than fiction. Taking on filmmaking as a personal responsibility to the world at large.
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Studio AH-HA
YG13 / Founders + Creative Directors
Lisboa
Studio AH-HA
Carolina and Catarina met in university and after working with some of their design heroes they’ve started Studio AH–HA. The studio pursues varied creative interests: from brand strategy to interior design, naming and identity work, advertising, new media, traditional and fine print, retail and product design, photography and illustration.
With an ever-changing cast of collaborators, Studio AH—HA has a holistic approach towards design, working together with clients through every stage of the process, filtering their inspirations into fresh, engaging and compelling brand messages. They are based in Lisbon but look forward to work with the rest of the world.
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Thomas
SVP of Design + Brand Creative MTV / VH1 / Logo
Berger
Viacom / New York
Thomas Berger
Thomas Berger is the SVP of Design and Brand creative for MTV, VH1 and Logo. Thomas has spent the majority of his career defining the visual identity of MTV. Starting as a graphic designer in the off air creative department, Thomas was designing logos and graphics for apparel by day and partnering with MTV promo directors on visualizing MTV commercials by night.
Fast forward 17 years, Thomas currently leads the creative team for MTV and Vh1, and has been responsible for the creative direction and design of multiple channel rebrands, logo identities, and promotional campaigns for MTVs biggest properties.
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Tom
YG13 / Director
Brown
Psyop / New York
Tom Brown
Tom Brown is a British Director, Illustrator and Loner. As one half of Holbrooks, his award winning films ‘t.o.m.’ (2006) and ‘teeth’ (2015) screened in festivals worldwide. He now lives and works in New York as a Director at Psyop.
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Veronica
YG7 / Founder + Art Director
Fuerte Julve
Hey Studio / Barcelona
Veronica Fuerte Julve
Verònica Fuerte is a designer and illustrator from Barcelona. After earning a degree in Graphic Design from ELISAVA she worked for several design studios in Barcelona. In 2007 she founded her own studio, Hey, which has grown steadily since. She received the ADC Young Guns 7 award and her work has appeared in prestigious media such as It’s nice that, DesignBoom, Communication Arts and AIGA.
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Wendy
YG11 / Creative Director, Founder + Peripatetic Learner
W FOK
WE-DESIGNS / NYC / Hong Kong
Wendy W FOK
Wendy W Fok, trained as an architect, is the creative director/founder of WE-DESIGNS, LLC (Architecture/Creative Strategy) and Resilient Modular Systems, PBC (Socially Missioned Venture). She is featured as Autodesk Remake’s list of 25 Women in Reality Computing (2017), winner of the Autodesk AiR Fellowship (2016), Young CAADRIA Award (2015), Digital Kluge Fellowship awarded by the Library of Congress (2014/15), the Art Director’s Club of New York’s ADC Young Guns 11 Award (2013), AIA (American Institute of Architects) Dallas “Express Yourself” Women in Architecture Award (2013), and selected designer of the Perspective 40 under 40 Award (2011) and the Hong Kong Young Design Talent Award (2009). Fok completed her Doctor of Design at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, with collaborating department the Harvard Law School, and was a Teaching Fellow for CopyrightX. She has a Master of Architecture and Certification of Urban Policy/Planning from Princeton University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture with a Concentration in Economics (Statistics) from Barnard College, Columbia University.
Notably, WE-DESIGNS has been selected by Twenty+Change (co-curated by Heather Dubbeldam and Lola Sheppard) as 1 of 20 Emerging Canadian Design Practices (2011); Meanwhile, Fok has independently been selected as a Western Living Designer of the Year – Ones to Watch – Maker Category (2016) and 1 of 13 DX (Design Exchange) Emerging Talent Awards (2013/14) across Canada. Along with her practice, Fok is an Assistant Professor of Integrated Design at Parsons School of Design Strategies (SDS).
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Zim&Zou
YG12 / Illustrators
Nancy
Zim&Zou
Zim&Zou are two french artists, based in Nancy. The duo is composed of Lucie THOMAS, born in the Vosges in 1987, and Thibault ZIMMERMANN, born in Paris in 1986. They studied graphic design (design, publishing, advertising) during three years. The duo decided to focus on installations using handcrafted objects made out of tangible materials such as paper, wood, thread, etc... rolling away from computer design. Anchored in craftsmanship, they create all the elements composing their installations by hand, from drawing to cutting and assembling.
Their favorite material is the paper they’re manipulating to give rise to intricate and colorful sculptures. Paper inspires them for its versatility, infinite range of colors and unique textures. The flat paper sheets turned into volume are giving an installation the poetry of ephemeral material.
Zim&Zou’s strength is to be a complementary and polyvalent duo.
Selected Clients - IBM, Microsoft, Hermès, TIME, The Washington Post, Der Spiegel and Centre Pompidou among many others.