Championing the future of design for all.

Lyanne Dubon-Aguilar is a designer and creative director specializing in brand identity at Etsy in Brooklyn, NY. At Etsy, she leads a team of designers in creating brand experiences that foster creativity, community, and Etsy’s mission to Keep Commerce Human. Her projects include the launch of Etsy Studio, the Etsy IPO, and Etsy Wholesale. Originally from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Lyanne has worked across a range of disciplines for The Museum of Modern Art, Pentagram, and Local Projects. Lyanne holds a B.F.A. in Graphic Design from The School of Visual Arts where she teaches as an adjunct faculty member.

Archie Bell, II spent much of his childhood memorizing commercial jingles and replicating the wit of cartoonist Gary Larson. Since then, he has been inspired by visual artists like Romare
Bearden, Faith Ringgold, Ed Ruscha, and Kara Walker as well as graphic storytellers Aaron Douglas, George Lois, Saul Bass, Barbara Kruger, and Emory Douglas – all brilliant minds who
mastered the art of weaving meaning into a single, magnificent visual. Still a fan of stories told simply, Archie leads Spotify Advertising’s Creative Studio as its Global Director.

The first ten years of Archie’s career began as a silent madman at advertising agencies such as Publicis, Y&R, BBDO, and Arnold NYC — crafting ads and driving business results for iconic brands. Prior to Spotify, Archie spent 12 years in media – building two of the most inventive branded content studios in the industry, One X Studios at Urban One, LLC and the Content Innovation Agency at NBCUniversal.

As an award-winning, multidisciplinary creative with degrees in graphic design, advertising and brand strategy from Howard University, The Portfolio Center and School of Visual Arts (respectively), Archie continues to look for fresh, unexpected ways to illuminate truth and beauty. Outside of directing art + sound, absorbing pop culture and perfecting his sports analogies, he enjoys spending time with his family at their Brooklyn home.

Ashley Brimsted is the Brand Initiatives Lead at IBM. She oversees the quality and consistency of branded artifacts produced internally for IBM, supporting project teams in creating and expanding their branding and visual identity. Ashley grew up in England and graduated from the University of Reading with a BA in Typography and Graphic Communication. In 2018, she moved to New York City, where she now lives, works, and creates.

Jane Kim is a Product Manager and a community builder, who has a particular passion in curating meaningful connections by building platforms that bring people together. Currently, Jane is the lead Product Manager for Startup & Cloud Partnerships at IBM, where she leads the overall product strategy and end-to-end partnership experience to bring the power of emerging technology to thousands of startups and SMBs around the world and help them achieve business growth. Prior to transitioning to her current strategic business role, Jane started her career in UX Design and led various B2B payment platforms design at IBM. In addition, Jane is a co-creator and Director of AIGA NY Mentorship Program (launched in 2019), a program designed to help professionals in the NY creative industry achieve personal, career and leadership growth through pairings with quality mentors. Jane also volunteers as a Digital Strategy mentor at various Healthcare innovation initiatives such as MIT Hacking Medicine and Yale Center for Biomedical Innovation and Technology (CBIT).

Sarah Williams is Partner and Chief Creative Officer of Beardwood&Co, a branding agency based in New York City. She believes courageous creativity leads to big ideas that have the power to make the world more equitable, healthier, and more sustainable. By setting the vision for a multi-disciplinary design team at Beardwood&Co., she delivers award-winning work that brings strategy and innovation to life. Sarah has led branding and creative for clients such as Hyatt Hotels, Danone, Sperry, Hill’s, S’well Bottle, Honest Tea, Sabra, Eos, and Enterprise Community Partners. Sarah began her career at Landor Associates and graduated from Western Michigan University with BFA in Graphic Design.

Katie Henderson is the founder of Hondo Creative, a dynamic creative studio that partners with clients and agencies to develop strategy-led design for environments, advertising, and branding. Her work has spanned rebrands for international companies; immersive experiences for award winning entertainment properties; and political campaigns for progressive candidates.

Previous to going out on her own, she cut her teeth at agencies like Pentagram and Huge. She holds a B.F.A. in Graphic Design from Rochester Institute of Technology and a M.F.A. in Design Criticism from The School of Visual Arts. She is also the co-author of Typography Referenced from Rockport Publishers and has taught design at RIT.

When not designing, you can usually find her photographing, illustrating, or down an internet rabbit hole of useless knowledge.

Ashlyn Stewart Cavitt is a multidisciplinary designer currently working at The New York Times. She recently graduated with an MFA from SVA’s Designer as Author and Entrepreneur program. Her thesis project focused on how design and data visualization could provide financial literacy to students taking out loans for college. Ashlyn is passionate about collaborating with companies using design to bring new products to market and do good in the world. She has worked with emerging brands like Dig Inn, July Air Conditioners, and Zuul Kitchens to create design systems that communicate brand goals and connect meaningfully with customers.

Brendan Griffiths is a graphic designer, programmer, and educator living and working in New York City. He is a partner in the design practice ZUT ALORS! where he works with a range of clients including Bloomberg View, Creative Time, Deitch Projects, The New York Times, Time Magazine, Condé Nast, Performa, The City of New York, Print Magazine, Socrates Sculpture Park, and Johnson & Johnson. He has been teaching design in New York since 2012 and currently serves as Assistant Professor of Interaction Design at Parsons School of Design where he was also the founding director of the MPS Communication Design program. He has also led workshops and served as a visiting critic at Yale University, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach, Pratt Institute, and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He holds a BFA in Multimedia Design from the University of Oregon and an MFA in Graphic Design from Yale University.

Carlo Diego is a Texas-born, NYC-raised Mexican American digital artist and educator. He has worked as a designer and animator in the NYC area for over 13 years, focusing on transmedia projects that embrace a multidisciplinary approach. Currently, Carlo is a professor of Animation and Motion Graphics at CUNY BMCC in TriBeCa, where his focus in academia fosters an equitable education that hopes to open the door to media-related jobs for non-traditional students. He received his MFA in Digital Media from Lehman College, where he discovered his passion for teaching the next generation of digital artists. In addition to BMCC, Carlo has taught at Sarah Lawrence, Lehman College, Hostos Community College, and Skillshare.

Carlo is constantly looking for ways to challenge his creative output. He creates multi-media artworks, installations, and short films using AI and film and television, industry-standard workflows (e.g. – GPU rendering and Unreal Engine) to push the boundaries of DIY storytelling.

Dave Rodriguez is a designer and creative director with over 20 years of experience working across several industries, including publishing, music, and media. He currently serves as Global Design Lead for Bloomberg Media Studios. In this role, he oversees the design and development of all creative executions including animation, digital experiences, documentary video, branded spaces, digital product design, and visual branding systems produced by Bloomberg’s multidisciplinary design teams across the U.S., APAC and EMEA.

A native New Yorker, he holds a BFA in Computer Art from School of Visual Arts in NYC and a Masters Degree in Communication Design from Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design in London, UK. Prior to joining Bloomberg he served as Creative Director for Agenda NYC, a boutique design agency located in Hell’s Kitchen and as Art Director for the Knitting Factory in NYC and LA.

Laura Scofield is a Brazilian-born, New York-based graphic designer, creative strategist, and educator. She’s currently Sr. Design Manager at The Atlantic Re:think, Part-Time Lecturer at The New School (US) and Design Professor at UNI-BH (Brazil). Previously, she had worked at Pentagram and DesignStudio. Laura holds an MA from the School of Visual Arts in Design Research, Writing and Criticism, a MA in Design, and a BA in Graphic Design. Her work has been recognized by D&AD, Cannes Lions, Red Dot, Print & How, iF and Brazil Design Awards. She’s a devoted educator and stays an active part of the design community in the USA and Brazil. Laura is currently mentoring recent design grads, lecturing at design universities and sitting on the jury of design awards. In her free time, you’ll find her researching and writing about vexillology (the study of flags).

Troy Vasilakis is a designer, a lover of typography and conversations — despite stuttering — and currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.

A ’20 pandemic graduate from the Fashion Institute of Technology, he’s currently a designer at WØRKS in New York City. Previously he’s worked in the luxury fashion industry at Tibi, helped develop and design a webspace for FIT’s Graphic Design program, worked with the incredibly talented and mindful team at ThoughtMatter, spoken to younger students as part of a panel at FIT, and designed TEDx events for his previous universities. Troy’s work has been awarded by the Type Directors Club and Graphis, recognized by Cargo and AIGA NY, and received FIT’s Graphic Design Departmental Medal in honor of his achievements, leadership, and overall contributions to the community/major at FIT.

In his free time, you’ll find him endlessly researching, tinkering with a new gadget, or sitting in the middle of a park.

Jessica Moon is an Associate Program Director focused on shaping curriculum and learning paths in continuing education for UI/UX design. Previously, Jessica was a practicing designer with nearly 15 years of experience, spanning across industries from print through digital, working in multi-disciplinary studios, agencies and product companies. Early on in her career, Jessica also took on managing and mentorship roles and helped build teams. She is a life-long student who aims to share her collective experiences and learnings as well as build and be a part of various communities that thrive on the practice of people first.

Michaela Mucha is a Mexican-Filipina American graphic designer and art director currently making fun things at The Walt Disney Studios. She is a creative-at-heart with over a decade of experience in graphic design, and currently works on award-winning marketing campaign creative for Walt Disney Studios theatrical and Disney+ streaming movies and series. When she’s not photosynthesizing from the light of her Macbook screen, you can catch her scrolling through TikTok at 12am, mapping the nearest McDonald’s, or snapping shots of an egg-sellent afternoon-brunch benny.

Shar Biggers is the creative director and founder of Provoke Design, a branding studio. In her extensive experience, she has worked with Fortune 500 companies, led design for Amazon rebrands like Amazon Fashion and Amazon Diversity, and helped more than 10 million Americans say “I’m with her” for Hillary Clinton.

Shar has a proclivity for communications design, from ideation and strategy to branding and digital design. While working in advertising, she was tasked with overseeing several design projects, fell in love, then left the advertising world for design. Dedicated to her craft from the start, she went from pulling all-nighters on a cot in design school to launching multiple businesses and designing for top brands.

Today, Shar is a visionary who has made problem-solving her business. Her passion is to help bring equality and increased opportunities for ambitious bootstrapped startups, women-led companies, and businesses owned by people of color. To that end, her ultimate goal is to design for good and those most undervalued. A native of Atlanta, by way of St. Louis, Shar holds an MBA in business management and is a graduate of Miami Ad School’s Portfolio Center of Design. She is thrilled to share her story and inspire others, especially the next generation of female and minority creatives.

As the Founder and CEO of A—B, Andre Banks brings his creativity and curiosity to help leaders find the courage and confidence to lead with equity and unlock transformational ideas.In this capacity he aspires to be the ultimate hands-on practitioner, working everyday between strategy, campaigning, operations and design to lead teams to the urgent breakthroughs our moment demands.

Over the past 20 years, Andre has been driven by a creative obsession to understand how power works and to change who it works for. In 2020 he incubated and led Win Black, a new model in political infrastructure that successfully convened and coordinated hundreds of organizations to inoculate against racist disinformation campaigns weaponized against Black and Latinx voters in 20 states. Andre also co-founded and led All Out, one of the largest organizations in the world focused on the global push towards LGBTQ equality. Previously, Andre was a Founding Partner and Director of Strategy at Purpose, a global strategy consultancy, creative agency, and social movement incubator; and Executive Vice President for Social Impact & Philanthropy at the national public affairs firm BerlinRosen. He currently serves as the chair of the board at Color Of Change, the largest racial justice organization in the U.S., where he was also an early staff member.

Andre lives in Brooklyn and when he’s not CEO’ing or luxuriating in Airtable, he spends as much time as he can escaping with his black lab Penny to his A-frame cabin in the Catskills.

Kate Fisher is a design strategist and service designer for an equitable and responsive public sector. Kate is currently at the Lab at OPM, a federal government team that uses design research and participatory methods to strengthen government services. Before joining the Lab, Kate worked to design policy, services, and processes with the United Nations, New York City public agencies, and various nonprofits. Kate holds a MFA in Transdisciplinary Design from Parsons, a MS in Urban Policy at CUNY, and a BFA in Design from Columbia Chicago.

Nicole Motta (she/her/hers) is an Art Director based in NYC with over 8+ years of experience working in art direction and creative production in the photo, design, tech, music, and publishing industries. She is currently an Art Director at Meta, Facebook App, and was previously at Apple and Selman. She is a Peruvian-American creative, passionate about the intersectionality between tech, design, visual communications, and the future of the photographic medium; while focusing on pushing the boundaries of visual literacy by continuing to amplify voices for more representation for the underrepresented creatives and communities.

Nicole has a BFA in Photography & Imaging from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, a minor in Business of Entertainment, Media and Technology from NYU Stern School of Business, and a certificate in Art Direction with Droga5’s D5in10 advertising program.

Raven Mo is a New York-based designer committed to pushing the boundary of typography while building a diverse, bold and inclusive future. Her work focuses on the intricate social relations and infrastructures built by type. Raven is eager to learn about how people with various political and cultural identities utilize design to brand and inform. As a creative system builder who experiments with interdisciplinary principles, Raven loves exploring unfamiliar territories, constantly challenging and nuancing her creative process with a systematic approach to produce rich and robust works. Previously, Raven worked at VSA Partners, MATTE Projects, and Elevate Brands. Raven holds a BFA in Visual Communication Design at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and is currently attending School of Visual Arts’ MFA Design program.