AIGA NY Portfolio Reviewers – Fall 2025

Max Amato is a multidisciplinary creative director, artist, designer, illustrator, and author based out of New York City. He works primarily in branding and design projects for sports, music, fashion, and cultural clients. After working at agencies like Doubleday & Cartwright, Sid Lee, and Character, as well as in-house at brands like Nike and Apple, he co-founded his own design studio Itch Projects.

Kiser Barnes is a creative leader and industry pioneer who works at the intersection of design, technology, and innovation. As Chief Creative Officer and Partner at Red Antler, Kiser supercharges brands through multi-disciplinary creativity. He is known for crafting fantastic futures by fusing transformative design with unique experiences.

From disruptive startups to Fortune 100 giants, Kiser has been instrumental in shaping some of the world’s most iconic companies across a wide range of industries. He brings a holistic, forward-thinking approach to creativity, with experience that spans brand design, advertising, product design/apps, e-commerce, retail, experiential design, AI, augmented reality, gaming design, innovation solutions and more.

Kiser has led groundbreaking work, including Walmart’s entry into the metaverse with WalmartLand on Roblox and Delta’s CES Wonder Window experience, which redefined immersive brand storytelling. A Cannes Lions Grand Prix winner and AdAge Web3 Marketing Trailblazer, Kiser is recognized as a leader in the integration of media disruption with next up technologies and AI

Ryan Bugden is an independent typeface and graphic designer based in Brooklyn. He creates custom typefaces for clients, and co-runs the design practice R&M with Michelle Ando. He also teaches typeface design at Type@Cooper and School of Visual Arts. Before graduating from Type and Media in 2019, he studied graphic design at RISD and typeface design in the Type@Cooper Extended Program, and has held design roles at various NYC design studios.

Simon brings a global perspective to brand building having worked as a designer and creative lead in Australia, the UK, and the US. He has led memorable campaigns and award-winning identities with Nike, The Athletic, The New York Times, PayPal, Spindrift, Mode, and MoMA. With experience at several globally renowned branding agencies — Winkreative, Moving Brands, Gretel, and Wolff Olins — Simon now leads multidisciplinary teams at BUCK, crafting thoughtful and stunning brand systems at scale, with motion at the heart. Simon serves as a mentor at SVA and D&AD Shift — a program dedicated to giving people without a traditional design education entry into the creative industries. He was also a judge at this year’s D&AD awards in the typography category.

Kapono is a Founding Partner and Head of Design at Combo. Prior to Combo, Kapono spent over a decade working at some of the industry’s most notable design studios such as BIG at Ogilvy, The Brand Union, AR New York and Mother Design. Under Kapono’s leadership, Combo has successfully created, refined, and transformed some of today’s most innovative brands, including Away Luggage, Saie Beauty, GAP, Instagram, Nike and H&M, amongst others – work defined by Combo’s diverse team and collaborative approach to creative challenges.

Growing up between South Korea and Hawaii, Kapono followed in the footsteps of his father, a designer in Seoul who went on to have a hand in some of South Korea’s most iconic brands throughout the 1980s.

An active member of the community, Kapono is a contributor to For Freedoms, a non-partisan art collective, as well as an integral part in the success of Scope of Work, a talent development agency for underrepresented young people in the creative industry.

Originally from Ohio, Garrett studied at the University of Cincinnati, School of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP). As Design Director at Order, a design office based in Brooklyn, his work is research-based, systematic, and practical. Developing identity systems for clients like Herman Miller, Apple, and Notion, among others, his work is focused on utility, creating a strong but adaptable relationship between form and function.

Damien Correll is the VP of Brand & Creative at Figma, where he leads the Brand Studio team. Based in New York, he has spent over two decades working across brand and product design—often in the spaces where the two meet. His past experience includes leading creative teams at Tumblr and Google, building design systems, reimagining emojis, designing books, directing animations, and shaping design conferences and typefaces. Across startups, global tech companies, and his own independent practice, Damien’s work centers on making the expected surprising, the strange familiar, and the accessible abundant.

I’m a product design leader based in New York with over a decade spent building products that reach millions. At LinkedIn, I lead product design for Premium acquisition, and previously, I led Duolingo’s growth design team. I specialize in growth with vision, craft with taste, and teams with heart. At the core of my work is connection: helping people connect to things like healthcare, opportunities, education, and creativity. That same drive also led me to create Pour Toi, a community built around art, play, and presence.

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.

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.

Gina Shin is a New York–based design director and art director. Her practice spans brand strategy, naming, visual identity, art direction, campaigns, exhibition design, print design, packaging, digital/web design, and image making. Her professional experience includes working at Apple, Nike, 2×4, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Base Design, and Pentagram. She is currently a Design Director at 2×4. Gina has also served as a critic at Columbia GSAPP, School of Visual Arts (SVA) portfolio classes, and Parsons School of Design senior thesis.

Vancouver born and ECUAD educated, with her early career in London, Kat is creative director and co-founder of Thackway McCord, a NYC-based brand strategy and creation practice focusing on corporate brand building plus work in the cultural and tech space. Kat is a visiting speaker, a mentor to early career designers and recently served on the board of AIGA NY, championing the future of design for all.

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).

Nikki (Niktari) Makagiansar is a New York-based designer, technologist, and educator. She currently leads interactive design projects for arts and cultural organizations at Morcos Key. Previously, she was a designer at Pentagram under partner Giorgia Lupi, where she helped develop algorithmic and data-driven identity systems. She is a member of New Museum’s NEW INC, an incubator program for artists, technologists, and designers. Nikki teaches coding and interaction design at Parsons School of Design, The Cooper Union, and SVA. She has given talks and workshops at the New Museum, Typographics, and Rhizome, and was a juror for the International Creative Awards in the website category.

Working at the intersection of editorial design, motion graphics, image-making, and illustration, I operate collaboratively and independently across contexts in entertainment, news, technology, and pop culture. I’ve made work for and with Pentagram Design (teams Emily Oberman and Matt Willey), MTV, The New York Times, A24 Films, MSCHF, The New Yorker, Nike, The Atlantic, IFC Films, WIRED, Billboard Magazine, The Shed, and more. My work has been recognized by Type Directors Club, The Society of Illustrators, The Society of Publication Designers, Art Directors Club, International Motion Art Awards, and American Illustration. As part of my practice I teach time-based design courses at Parsons School of Design, where I’ve been a faculty member since 2015, and at Yale University, from where I received an MFA in Graphic Design.

Amelia Nash is a Canadian, now New York–based designer, brand strategist, and creative director with over a decade of experience building sustainable, purpose-driven brands. She is the Brand & Marketing Manager for the School of Visual Arts Masters in Branding program, Senior Staff Writer at PRINT Magazine, and serves on the Boards of Directors for both Canada’s RGD and AIGA NY. Amelia has led award-winning branding and digital design projects, guided cross-functional teams, and mentored emerging designers through education, workshops, and industry programs. Her work focuses on crafting meaningful brand identities that balance creativity, strategy, and sustainability.

Kelly Clawson is a multidisciplinary creative director based in New York City. She leads a creative team at The Museum of Modern Art as Associate Creative Director, specializing in art direction, photography, design, typography and digital. With over a decade of experience, she brings a unique perspective to brands and campaigns, having worked with clients in art, fashion, beauty, direct-to-consumer, food/beverage and tech for companies like MoMA, Sephora, Urban Outfitters, Thirdlove, 160over90 and Sagmeister & Walsh. She studied design and typography at Tyler School of Art and SVA’s Masters Workshop in Design.

Brian Gartside is an award-winning designer and typographer/letterer who has built his career delivering visually impactful, effective design work for some of the world’s most celebrated agencies and companies. He currently serves as the Global Design Lead of Iris Worldwide. Time and again, Brian’s work has earned top honors from the industry’s most prestigious awards organizations, including the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, The Type Directors Club, The One Show, The CLIO Awards, The Andy’s, and ADC. His work has been featured in the Smithsonian and Boston’s Museum of Science, and he won the prestigious ADC Young Guns award in 2014.

Raven Mo is a New York–based identity designer, letterer, and researcher driven by the enduring pursuit of typographic excellence. As an advocate for multi-script design accessibility and representation, she is deeply engaged with the social relations and cultural infrastructures shaped by type. She currently designs brand identities at Mackey Saturday, collaborating with Fortune 500 companies and high-growth startups to craft systems rooted in clarity and longevity. Previously, Raven designed for e-commerce brands at Elevate and co-led the AIGA NY Mentorship Program, advancing the organization’s mission to foster meaningful connection and growth within the design community. Earlier, she served as Programming Chair at AIGA Chicago, developing inclusive, community-driven initiatives for designers across the city.

Nora is a Lead Designer at SYLVAIN. She has helped clients solve a wide range of creative problems, from brand identity & packaging design to brand & design architecture and product implications. Her most recent work in these spaces has been with brands like Amazon, Nike, AMEX and The New York Times.