AIGA NY Portfolio Reviewers – 2025

Alex Center is a Brooklyn-based designer and founder of the award-winning branding company CENTER. Prior to launching his own studio in 2018, he spent a decade working for The Coca-Cola Company, where, as Design Director, he led the vision for the beverage brands vitaminwater, POWERADE, and smartwater.

Over his career, Alex has helped build several billion-dollar brands, designed packaging that has been in the hands of millions and given keynote talks all around the world. Today, he and the team at CENTER are playing at the center of culture, partnering with icons like Apple, New Balance and Coinbase, startups like Kin Euphorics, Magic Spoon and Liquid death and building new to world brands like United Sodas of America, Ayoh!, Pavise and BERO.

Alex is also a mentor at the SVA Masters in Branding program and cohost of the wildly popular podcast, Front & Center. In his shrinking personal time, he enjoys rooting for New York teams that wear blue and orange and spending time with his wife Jacquelyn De Jesu and their zero kids and zero pets.

Alex Ostroff is a New York City-based creative director and the founder of Saint-Urbain, an award-winning creative agency specializing in brand identity and design.

Alex started his design career as a side hustle in his hometown of Montreal, Canada, creating logos and menus for restaurant friends in exchange for food. Over time, friends became clients, food turned into money (occasionally), and in 2017, Saint-Urbain was launched as a restaurant-focused branding/design agency.

With time and after some notable projects, Saint-Urbain evolved into a more established creative agency, known for creating unique, vibrant brands with personality. Alex and his team of writers, designers, and strategists work with passionate founders, both small and large, across various industries such as CPG, tech, health, film/TV, and food/beverage. Some notable clients include Google, Hilton, YouTube, and Heineken.

Alex’s work in brand identity and graphic design has received recognition from the ADC Awards, The Dieline, and Pentawards. It has been featured in outlets including The New York Times, AIGA Eye on Design, Under Consideration, Creative Review, and Eater.

Hi! I’m a Product Design Leader currently at Spotify in New York City. At Spotify, I oversee a product design team responsible for ensuring all creators can grow and connect with their audiences on Spotify.

Before joining Spotify, I led brand + product marketing experiences at Hearst. Before Hearst, I was on the creative team at Publicis Groupe working on large consumer brands like Proctor & Gamble. Taking it back further – I loved being part of the Viacom-CBS family where I got to work on VH1 + MTV shortly after my time at IMG ended.

TLDR: I’m passionate about creating end-to-end, holistic product experiences with high-functioning, strategically-driven teams 😊. Outside of work, I stay busy with various pursuits, including mentoring students—a rewarding experience I deeply value.

Anne’s design journey began in her teens, creating merch for local bands in Massachusetts. Now, she’s a creative director at Selman, a massively helpful creative studio based in Brooklyn, NY. During her 10 years there, she’s worked on hundreds of projects with Google’s Creative Lab and brought her illustrative touch to MIT magazine, The New York Times, and The Village Voice. Selman’s work has won its share of awards, but for Anne, nothing beats their 5-a-side Lower East Side Soccer Championship trophy.

Arthur leads the Creative team at Koto New York. After having spent six years with the London office, growing the team from six to 100+ people, he set foot in New York in May 2022 to build and lead the brand new office. At Koto, he’s worked with clients such as Airbnb, Fiverr, Venmo, Backmarket and many more. His knowledge and expertise has been shared and rewarded over the years in podcasts and articles, on multiple blogs, and as a guest speaker at multiple colleges.

I am a design leader, educator, and speaker. I specialize in user-centered design, accessibility, branding, visual design, typography, and art direction.

I oversee the product design team at Hearst. We create custom storytelling, shopping, and advertising experiences for our readers. We create the tools that enable our editors to create these experiences.

I am a founding partner of Area of Practice—a design and branding consultancy based in New York City.

I teach Core 1: Interaction and The Visual Archive at Parsons School of Design. I have given guest lectures at Camden Community College, Rutgers, SVA, and Keane University.

I have spoken at local and international design events—from New York City to Copenhagen. My work has been recognized by The Art Directors Club, The Type Directors Club, The Society of Publication Designers, and others. I have produced and moderated talks on politics and the future of media for the Society of Publication Designers.

David Klein is a Canadian graphic designer based in New York City. He is currently an Associate Creative Director at Seed, and previously held positions at Porto Rocha and The Museum of Modern Art. He has collaborated with clients spanning the arts, education, finance, and creative technology. He holds a BFA in Communication Design from Parsons The New School for Design.

David is the Design Lead in the Office of Communications at The Ford Foundation. He is board member of the AIGA New York. He’s an artist and illustrator, he is also the founder and manager of dpicting studio, an integrated consulting business devoted to conceptualizing and elevating the creative ideas of multicultural businesses. He’s also an instructor with Social Movement Technologies, an org building the capacity of advocates to organize digitally. Prior to joining Ford, he worked at Demos, Frontline Solutions, Black Folks in Design and Good Shepherd Services.

Elizabeth Carey Smith is a New York typographer and brand designer. She is the Design Director at Saturday and President Emeritus of the Type Directors Club. Across her two decades in design, ECS has designed some of the biggest brands in the world, designed custom type, magazines, books, and collateral for fashion and arts organizations. She is a graduate of the Cooper Union’s post-graduate type program and holds a BFA from Detroit’s College for Creative Studies. Elizabeth has spoken about typography at conferences around the world.

Ellis is a Visual Designer with work spanning across branding, art direction and user experience. She has worked at a bunch of NYC agencies big and small for the past 10 years and has recently moved to an in-house role at Taco Bell. In her spare time, she does oil paintings, DIY home renovation projects, and takes her dog Pippin on lots of walks.

Gary Fogelson is a founding partner at Other Means, a graphic design studio, where he leads strategy and design, developing the concepts and narratives that drive the studio’s work. He has directed identity, interactive, and book projects for the Brooklyn Museum, Matthew Marks, MoMA PS1, Pace, Storm King Art Center, and The Shed. His book design work has been awarded prizes from the Swiss Federal Office of Culture, the American Institute of Graphic Arts, and the Tokyo Type Director’s Club. Gary has taught and lectured at top design schools worldwide, including Yale, ECAL, and Parsons. He co-founded Typography Summer School New York and holds a BFA from Pratt Institute.

Grace Hamilton is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Communications at CUNY, Baruch College. Grace is also runs the creative studio Everyday People, working with fashion and lifestyle brands. She has previously held senior design positions and art director roles at both the menswear brand Bonobos and the denim brand AG Jeans. Grace holds an MFA in Visual Communication Design from the University of Notre Dame and a BA in Visual Communication Design from Loyola University Chicago.

Jaclyn is a design generalist working across visual design and user experience for a variety of interactive mediums (websites, products, tools, games). Clients include: Two Dots, Apple, Google, Meta, MTV, Giphy, MAC Cosmetics.

She’s also taught UX Design at Parsons, and Harbour.Space (Bangkok & Barcelona) and currently teaches Interaction Design at the School of Visual Arts.

Justin Au is a Hong Kong born, Brooklyn based, multidisciplinary designer, animator, and art director with a focus on dynamic brand systems, interactions, and experiences. He is currently an Creative Director at Gretel NY, and previously Droga5, Ogilvy, and SpecialGuest.

Justin has worked with brands in a diverse range of sectors, including Amnesty International, Apple, The New York Times, IBM, Masterclass, Mountain Hardwear, The Museum of Modern Art, New York City FC, among others. Regardless of scale or category, his approach balances the tension of a strategic and research-driven input, paired with an expressive and experimental output.

Justin is a winner of Young Guns 21, and his work has been recognized by Cannes Lions, The One Show, TDC, ADC, D&AD, and The Webby Awards.

I’m Laura Scofield, a Brazilian New York-based graphic designer. I’m currently a Design Director at The Atlantic working on projects that span branding, editorial design, web design, events and more. My work has been recognized by the Type Directors Club, Society of Publication Designers, D&AD, Cannes Lions, Red Dot, Print, iF and Brazil Design Awards. I also served as a jury member on the Type Directors Club, Latin American Design Award and Brazil Design Awards. I’m a visiting critic at Parsons Communication Design and former AIGA NY board member. In my free time, you’ll find me researching about vexillology (the study of flags).

I am a creative director with 15 years of experience in creative strategy, development, and execution. I have collaborated with over 100 clients at pivotal moments including brand and product launches, brand re-envisioning, and experimental storytelling opportunities, and now specialize in creative for climate-beneficial organizations including pro bono work for non-profits. Previous project clients include Blueland, Harry’s, Glossier, GAP, Rothy’s, and Supergoop!.

With 15+ years of experience in product design, Maria heads up the Big Human design team, overseeing both Brand and Product Design teams. She began her career as an art director for a physical alt-news magazine and pivoted to UX and product design, working for in-house brands (like Motorola and Orbitz) and various Chicago-based design and product agencies, where she created mobile apps for startups. In the last decade, Maria has honed her focus on direct-to-consumer digital projects, including mobile apps, web apps, marketing websites, and branding. Her diverse experience spans across healthcare, social media, eCommerce, travel, luxury, and finance.

She’s a recipient of a Webby Award and a D&AD Impact Award, and her work has been shortlisted for Cannes and featured in the App Store.

Mike Tully is an independent graphic designer and educator based in New York City. He works with artists, architects, publishers, and institutions on culturally focused and research-driven projects. Select clients include Apple, The Armory Show, The Brooklyn Rail, Center for Curatorial Studies Bard College, The Guardian, Lisson Gallery, MIT Press, The New York Times, and Yale School of Architecture. He has been an artist-in-residence at the Internet Archive, San Francisco, and a design fellow with the Center for Urban Pedagogy, New York. Mike has taught, lectured, and led workshops at Pratt Institute, Columbia GSAPP, Rutgers University, VCUarts, RISD, Parsons School of Design, and the School of Visual Arts. He holds an MFA in Graphic Design from the Yale School of Art.

Niya is a UX/UI designer based in Brooklyn NY. She currently work as a Senior Product Designer for The Atlantic, leading design of AI experiments on our product incubation site, The Atlantic Labs. Previously, she worked a Senior UX Designer at National Geographic Society, where she designed digital services and tools for the Explorer community.

Noah is a designer at Cotton, a studio specializing in branding and web design. Cotton focuses on creative code, dynamic/generative identities, and unique websites for cultural institutions, nonprofits, and creative organizations in fields like fashion, architecture, and music.

Interested in sports, clothing, the environment, architecture/interiors, comedy, music, and technology.

Vada Ortiz is a graphic designer and art director based in Brooklyn, NY. With 8+ years of experience ranging from agency, in-house and freelance positions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, SoulCycle, and WØRKS, among others, Ortiz has honed her skills in graphic design, photography and art direction. Vada is incredibly passionate about diversity and equity in the workplace as well as helping young creatives find their footing in the industry.

Ortiz earned a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in graphic design and photography from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD)

Michael was born in Detroit, raised in Florida and studied design at the University of Miami and SVA. His design career began at Nylon, followed by roles at GQ, Simon & Schuster, Aritzia, Harry’s, Esquire, and New York Magazine. He is currently a design lead at Apple working on Services.

Juri Okita is a graphic designer and art director with extensive experience developing visual identities and marketing assets in multiple format for renowned global brands and institutions. Originally from Japan, she has worked in New York and Tokyo, collaborating with clients such as Tiffany & Co., MoMA Design Store, and Nike. Juri specializes in crafting compelling brand experiences across digital, print, and spatial platforms. She earned her Master’s degree in Graphic Branding and Identity from the London College of Communication and has been recognized with awards like the D&AD New Blood Wood Pencil and TopAwards Asia. Juri has also shared her expertise as a guest speaker at Parsons School of Design and The Design Kids. Known for her strategic thinking and creative vision, she continues to shape innovative and impactful design solutions.