BOARD

AIGA/NY Executive Committee: Willy Wong, Glen Cummings and Manuel Miranda
AIGA/NY Design/Relief Program Director: Laetitia Wolff
AIGA/NY Project Board: Rachel Abrams, Su Barber, Agnieszka Gasparska, Josh Smith and Matt Spangler

WILLY WONG, PRESIDENT

Willy Wong is Chief Creative Officer of NYC & Company, the City of New York’s official marketing and tourism organization. He leads the creative vision for branding, advertising, design, and strategic partnerships across major civic initiatives and global campaigns. Willy is an adjunct at NYU and a graduate thesis advisor at SVA in both the MFA Interaction Design and MFA Designer as Entrepreneur programs.

GLEN CUMMINGS

Glen Cummings is a graphic designer and the principal of MTWTF. MTWTF works with clients, partners, consultants and vendors to collaboratively create publication systems, identity systems, signage systems and environmental graphics. Glen is a lecturer in Graphic Design at Yale University School of Art and a founding partner of Safari 7, A Self-Guided Tour of Urban Wildlife along New York City’s 7 line.

MANUEL MIRANDA

Manuel Miranda is a designer and owner at MMP, a studio that provides graphic design and creative direction to civic, cultural, and commercial clients. He is a critic in graphic design at the Yale School of Art.

LAETITIA WOLFF, PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Laetitia Wolff is a design editor, curator and strategist, self-proclaimed cultural engineer, whose work focuses on design + the city. She recently led desigNYC, a volunteer organization connecting nonprofits to local designers, as its first executive director. Through her creative practice she provides a multi-faceted understanding of the cultural value and strategic dimensions of design, through integrated communications strategies and innovative, content-rich programming.

TEAM RED HOOK

ANKE STOHLMANN AND MGMT., DESIGNERS
Anke Stohlmann’s creative focus lies at the intersection of branding and publication design for print and digital media. For over 15 years Anke has worked as a designer, art director and creative director for many of New York’s leading agencies in graphic design and publishing, creating brand experiences across multiple platforms, from books and magazines to websites and digital publications.

Anke is the principal and creative director of Li’l Robin, the multi-disciplinary studio she founded in 2005. At Li’l Robin Anke has created brand identity systems, publications and websites for clients including LIFE Books, Sterling Publishing, The New York Times, Pratt Institute, Maxwax, IFP and Global Writes. Before establishing Li’l Robin, Anke was senior designer at Pentagram; creative director at Time Inc. Custom Publishing; founding art director at eDesign Magazine; and branding and new media designer at Red Sky.

in collaboration with MGMT.

MGMT. is a collaborative design studio based in Brooklyn founded by Alicia Cheng and Sarah Gephart. We approach all projects with substantive research and a conceptual rigor that is an integral part of our process. What we like most is taking complex information and translating it into visually effective and intelligent design solutions. Along the way, our studio has learned about topics as diverse as rotational grazing, global special-ops, and the optimal temperature to grow collard greens. And despite our affection for the internet, we still believe books are for reading and love creating objects that are tactile and real.

AMPLIFIER PROJECT, COMMUNITY OUTREACH STRATEGIST
Working in cities around the country, Amplifier is a nonprofit organization, founded by Jerome Chou, Stephen Zacks and James Andrews, that partners residents and a wide range of other stakeholders with artists and designers to transform communities. James Andrews is an artist, educator, organizer, curator, and arts producer whose work involves exploring new forms of social organization and experimental groups. Trained as a community organizer, urban planner, and landscape architect, Jerome Chou has facilitated community-driven projects in Baltimore, Flint, and throughout New York City. Stephen Zacks is an internationally recognized architecture and urbanism reporter, theorist, and cultural producer.

DAVID AL-IBRAHIM, STORYTELLER
Baltimore – born and raised – David was privy to a campy and diverse upbringing in a family built on the fusion of Midwestern and Middle Eastern backgrounds. Personally, professionally and artistically, David appreciates communication as both a means of solving problems and asking questions about why people do what they do, believe what they believe, and see what they see. As a communication designer, David has managed projects and campaigns in a range of industries, from economics to life sciences, urban farming to education.  He helps clients define their messages, craft their stories and engage their audiences. David received a B.A. in rhetoric from Bates College, which championed an interdisciplinary approach to exploring how discourse functions in society.  After six months studying European communication media in Copenhagen, David published his senior thesis on the use of narrative to communicate contentious environmental messages in BBC’s Planet Earth series.

TEAM ROCKAWAY

PLACEMENT PUBLICATION, DESIGNER
Danielle Aubert, Lana Cavar and Natasha Chandani are graphic designers who met in the MFA program at Yale University, and are based in Princeton, Zagreb and Brooklyn, respectively. Their collaborative group, Placement (formed in 2009) examines the interaction of people with places, which they define as both specific sites (Lafayette Park, Detroit) and more broadly as types of locations (the beach, downtown, bus stops). Their first project, Thanks for the View, Mr. Mies, a book about Lafayette Park, Detroit, (Metropolis Books, 2012) was selected by the AIGA as one of the 50 best book designs of 2012. It was described by architecture historian Phyllis Lambert as “a superb field guide” to the neighborhood. Their current project is a location in Croatia.

in collaboration with

PARTNER & PARTNERS (Greg and Zach Mihalko), a design practice focusing on interactive, print, exhibition, and identity work with clients and collaborators in art, architecture, public spaces and activism. They have worked with The Center for Urban Pedagogy, AIGA, Eyebeam, Storefront for Art and Architecture, The Jacob Burns Film Center, UnionDocs, Local Projects, Empire Drive-In and Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture.

DANIEL LATORRE, FOUNDER, THE WISE CITY, COMMUNITY OUTREACH STRATEGIST
Daniel is a tech for engagement product and communications consultant. He is currently focusing on building communities of practice around place based campaigns, arts, advocacy, and open source urbanism. He is the Senior Fellow for Digital Placemaking, a program for bottom-up, human-centered civic engagement media he started at Project for Public Spaces, a nonprofit planning, design and educational organization dedicated to helping people build stronger communities. With 18 years of professional experience at Razorfish, Rockstar Games, Funny Garbage and other companies. His current focus is on civil society, previously for open educational technology at Scholastic, and sustainable urbanism at Streetsblog/OpenPlans. Daniel offers talks, presentations, and trainings, recently at Columbia University GSAPP, School of Visual Arts, Center for Architecture, and MAPP International. In 2012 he founded The Wise City, a civic engagement service design and product strategy practice. He is also a desigNYC advisor, a steering committee member for the NYC Participatory Budgeting project, and active in community organizing around his Brooklyn neighborhood.

CAROLYN LOUTH, STORYTELLER
Carolyn Louth excels at developing ideas. An art director and muse, she revels in the collaborative process and loves a good brainstorming, almost as much as a southern thunderstorm. Born in Louisiana, Carolyn discovered her passion for the arts and architecture in New Orleans where, from a young age, she was a regular at gallery openings in the Warehouse District and at music venues all over. She has since pursued her own creative talents and seasoned her sense of place, first in college at LSU and a stint in Paris, then in Atlanta,  and now in NYC. A determination to do good work led her to complete the IMPACT! Design for Social Change program at SVA where she learned to apply her professional experience and fascination with cities towards revitalization efforts.

in collaboration with

Rich Tu, an award winning artist based in New York City. He received a Master’s degree from the School of Visual Arts in 2009 and has exhibited at galleries and festivals in New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, as well as the prestigious SCOPE Miami festival, during Miami’s Art Basel week. Commercially, his clients include The New York Times, The New Yorker, Business Week, Alfa Romeo, Bombay Sapphire, G-Shock, National Public Radio, NorthFace Purple Label, Skype, Fuse TV, among others. Currently he is an Art Director at AKA NYC.

TEAM SOUTH STREET SEAPORT

YEJU CHOI, NOWHERE OFFICE, DESIGNER
Yeju Choi is a graphic designer living and working in New York City. She makes printed matter, environmental graphics, identities, websites, and motion graphics. She is interested in exploring relationships between graphic design and viewers in this three-, or four-dimensional world, shifting the focus from what we see to how we see things.

She holds BFA in graphic design from Seoul National University and MFA in graphic design from Yale University, where she received Norman Joondeph Prize and Phelps Berdan Award. Her work was also recognized and introduced by New York Type Directors Club, Communication Arts, :output award, CMYK Magazine, Page Magazine, étapes Magazine, Yale Daily News, etc. She was selected as one of the Next Generation Design Leaders by the Korean Institute of Design Promotion & the Ministry of Knowledge and Economy in 2009.

Previously she worked as Art Director at Barneys New York, and Graphic Design Director / Senior Designer at WXY Architecture + Urban Design, and Graphic User Interface Designer for LG. Currently, she runs her design studio NowHere Office in New York, focusing on projects in cultural / public realm, and teaches at Yale University School of Art and Stern College for Women at Yeshiva University. She has been a visiting critic at Parsons the New School for Design in both graphic design and urban design department, and Center for Urban Pedagogy. She is a Designer-In-Residence for Performa 13.

FRANCESCA BIRKS AND JOSH TREUHAFT, ARUP
COMMUNITY OUTREACH STRATEGIST
Francesca Birks leads Foresight + Innovation for Arup Americas. She plans and facilitates strategic and visioning workshops for several of Arup’s businesses and clients but with a current emphasis on hospitality, education, healthcare and retail. She is the editor of Arup’s first online magazine, Arup Connect, for the Americas. Francesca is particularly interested in human-centered foresight, design thinking and in engaging public stakeholders in collaborative design processes to improve the outcomes.

She comes from a strategic planning background in media and advertising and has a strong interest in social sustainability, social media and social innovation. Her MBA is from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and her BA is in Modern Culture and Media/ Semiotics at Brown University. Some of the relevant key projects at Arup have been the authoring and production of the topical Drivers of Change : Demographics card set, designing and developing the Campus of the Future workshop program, and designing and developing the Hotel of the Future workshop program.

with Josh Treuhaft is a crossbreed – a designer, a strategist and a sustainability advocate – interested in tackling complex social and environmental challenges. He’s a creative problem solver, a storyteller, and a collaborator, and believes very strongly that all of those skills are critical to creating change. He studied Industrial Design at the Umeå Institute of Design in Sweden. And in a past life, he was a strategic consultant at The Futures Company, where he helped Fortune 500 companies discover and act on consumer insights and global trends. Most recently, Josh has been working at the intersection of design and sustainability: He helped re-brand a revolutionary sustainable materials company (with DSI); served as the Design Director for a startup composting company (NYCOMPOST); designed low-cost, ergonomic farm tools for small farmers in India (with Design Impact), and helped design interactive exhibits to promote conservation at a new Great Ape Center (with Thinc Design). When there’s time to spare, you can also find him running, swimming and taking photos, generally in Brooklyn.

CRISTIAN FLEMING and STEPHANIE LUKITO,
THE PUBLIC SOCIETY, STORYTELLERS

The Public Society is a design and branding firm. We believe that because design has the power to mold action, it is our responsibility as designers to do our part, through design and visual communication, to improve not only the bottom line for our clients, but for everyone they touch, and the planet as a whole.

FILM CREW 

MESHAKAI WOLF is an artist, photographer and documentary filmmaker. His most recent film, Flames of God: The Gypsy Poetry of Muzafer Bislim, screened at film festivals internationally, closing the Margaret Mead Film Festival in New York City and winning best documentary at the Rolling Film Festival in Kosovo. He is currently working on a feature length documentary about the legendary Long Island music club, My Father’s Place. He lives and works in New York City.

ZAC NICHOLSON  is documentary and narrative filmmaker from New York City. His work as a director, cinematographer and editor has been seen nationally and internationally in world-renowned film festivals, commercially in theaters and on television. Most recently he was a cinematographer on No Place On Earth (2012), the story of five families of Jews who survived the holocaust by hiding in a cave for over five hundred days. The film had a strong theatrical run and will be on The History Channel in 2014. He is currently in production on two new films with the director of No Place On Earth and is also the cinematographer on a feature project directed by Meshakai Wolf about an iconic former music venue on Long Island during the 1970s and early 80s. Zac also works commercially and with non-profits including Robin Hood, Riverkeeper, New York Road Runners, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Randall’s Island Park Alliance to name a few.

DESIGN VOLUNTEERS

CARREN E. PETROSYAN is a conceptually-driven graphic designer with several years of wide-ranging experience in branding, print, type and interactive design. After getting his honorary BFA degree in Graphic Design from the School of Art and Design, LSU, he moved to NYC where he freelanced for various design companies (The Fold, Zago Design, among others), and took studies at SVA in Advanced Conceptual Graphic Design and Typography. Later he followed with several years of full-time employment as a Senior Graphic Designer at Pro-Am, and PS New York, both NYC based branding/graphic design studios. www.creativefever.com

Special Thanks to Sean and Alex for their help creating our new Creative Placemaking Tumblr
SEAN OAKES, SOS BROOKLYN, Founding Creative Director
Sean founded SOS in 2000, a specialized creative studio based in Brooklyn, NY, devoted to pioneering new ways to communicate through technology and focused on how digital tools can affect business goals, learning and social change. Prior to SOS, Sean held Design and Art Director positions at New York start-ups and agencies throughout the 90′s. He is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. www.sosbrooklyn.com

ALEX  LEZBERG, VSA PARTNERS, Senior Designer
Alex Lezberg is a Graphic Designer by trade, living in Brooklyn and working in Branding & Communication at VSA Partners in New York. In her free time, she’s probably tackling a new recipe or wandering the woods upstate with a backpack and some good snacks. See what else she’s been up to at www.alexlezberg.com.