Drew Hodges is founder and CEO of SpotCo, New York’s most innovative full-service advertising agency for the theatrical industry.  SpotCo began as Spot Design in 1987, an award-winning design studio specializing in entertainment graphics.  Spot Design’s extensive client list includes ABC TV, Paramount Pictures, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, SKG Dreamworks and Sony Music.  Mr. Hodges launched SpotCo in 1997 and has since created the branding and advertising campaigns for countless Broadway and Off-Broadway shows such as Rent, Chicago, Doubt, The Color Purple, The Drowsy Chaperone and Avenue Q as well as productions debuting in the 2008 season such as Young Frankenstein, Shrek and Billy Elliot.  SpotCo has been honored with awards from the Art Directors Club, The American Institute of Graphic Design, Print, HOW, Communication Arts, and the Broadcast Design Awards, and has represented 6 Pulitzer Prize winners.  The agency’s work has been featured in numerous publications, including 30 Modern Masters of Poster Design (Rockport) and Graphic Wit (Watson-Guptill).  Mr. Hodges works extensively with Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS as well as The Actors Fund.  He has taught graphic design at the School of Visual Arts, lectured at Columbia University and served on the board of directors for the American Institute of Graphic Arts/New York.

Rob Giampietro is a principal at the award-winning design firm Giampietro+Smith, which he founded with fellow designer Kevin Smith in 2003. Giampietro+Smith's clients include cultural institutions like Gagosian Gallery and the Art Directors Club, internationally-known artists like Damien Hirst and Marcel Dzama, and global nonprofit organizations like the United Nations and The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB & Malaria. Prior to founding the studio, Rob worked at Winterhouse, Pentagram, The New York Times Magazine, and Hearst Publications. In addition to his work at Giampietro+Smith, Rob is active as a teacher and critic. He has written for Dot Dot Dot, Design Observer, BusinessWeek, and Emigre; participated in lectures and panels at the Type Directors Club, Yale University, and NPR; and lectured in the graduate graphic design program at RISD. He currently teaches at Parsons School of Design in New York and is a board member and co-creative director of Topic Magazine. Rob is a graduate of Yale University.

Giampietro+Smith's projects are shown at studio-gs.com. Rob's work as a teacher and critic is collected at linedandunlined.com.

Liz is equal parts information architect, usability analyst, and editor. With ten years of experience as a user experience professional, she makes information useful and usable for websites of all shapes and sizes. She’s organized site information across industries, including retail, publishing, nonprofit, and financial services. She oversees editorial for Rosenfeld Media, publisher of user experience books.

Liz is former chief editor for Boxes and Arrows, a website for information architects has taught design at the New School and FIT. She’s on the advisory board of The Information Architecture Institute and has directed experience strategy for AIGA and the IA teams at BN.com and Razorfish.

Sam Potts, as the owner and operator of Sam Potts Inc., has been designing books, websites, identities and the occasional can of antimatter since 2002. Some notable projects include the Metropolitan Museum's catalogue for "The Gates" by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the identity for the IFC Center theater, a website for children's book author Jon Scieszka, the design of "The Areas of My Expertise" by John Hodgman, and virtually everything for the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co. and 826NYC, a writing and tutoring center in Brooklyn.

Sam has worked as a designer for Eric Baker Design Associates and Simon & Schuster, and attended Portfolio Center from 1998-2002. Prior to becoming a designer, he was an editor of college English textbooks for St. Martin's Press. He thinks you look great no matter what color your hair is.

Ian is Design Director of nymag.com, where he oversees the visual design and user experience of the website of New York Magazine. Since 1994, Ian has woven a career out of work in interaction design, information architecture, editorial design, identity, strategy, illustration, time-based media, DJ’ing, diorama-building, and—in case it’s not obvious—distraction.
 
That career has included: shaping interactive and video experiences for Microsoft and the MIT Media Lab; organizing information for Samsung and the U.S. House of Representatives; consulting on user interfaces for Verizon and Boeing; creating environmental graphics for Nike; and designing websites for clients huge and tiny. Ian was also the founding Art Director of Slate.com. His drawings, patterns, lettering, and typographic illustrations have appeared on numerous record covers as well as on the pages of domino and the New York Times Magazine.
 
Mr. Adelman holds a BFA in Industrial Design from the Rhode Island School of Design and is an X-Acto expert. He takes himself very seriously and loves to write about himself in the third person.
 

Keira Alexandra worked as a designer at M&Co, Bureau, Number 17, as a broadcast designer at MTV, as creative director at Sundance Channel, and is a critic in the graduate graphic design program at Yale. She works for art with partners in crime as Love & War and works for commerce for others as Employee Number 1.

Jake Barton is founder and principal of Local Projects. Local Projects is an award-winning hybrid physical/design firm focused on museums and public spaces. Currently, Local Projects is partnered with Thinc Design to design The National September 11th Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center. Local Projects is also creating a cell-phone tour for the Statue of Liberty, three commissioned films for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, media for the new Museum of Chinese in America with architeture by Maya Lin, and media design for the National Museum of American Jewish History, with architecture by James Polshek.

Jake was a finalist for a National Design Award in Communications in 2006 and attended the White House reception hosted by the First Lady and the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. His work has received two gold, one silver, and one bronze medal from the IDSA Industrial Designers Society of America, as well as five awards from ID Magazine, and three from AIGA. He has a master's degree from NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, where he currently teaches the master's thesis class. Before founding Local Projects, Jake worked as an exhibition designer for Ralph Appelbaum Associates.

Tina is currently co-founder of two entities: Little Fury, a design studio, and Start Here, a product design company. Little Fury specializes in branding, identity, and packaging systems for a wide range of clients. Start Here has recently launched it's first product: an innovative line of linkable notebooks and accessories (www.starthereny.com). The notebook system has been featured in Dwell, Blueprint, Esquire UK, and Theme magazines. Both companies were founded with designer Esther Mun in 2005.  

After graduating from the School of Visual Arts in New York, Tina began her graphic design career at Pentagram. She then continued to expand her range working as a Senior Designer at MTV, a design consultant for The Public Theater, and a Senior Art Director for Kids: Fun Stuff to Do Together, an award-winning Martha Stewart magazine. She also taught at the School of Visual Arts for several years.

Deanne Cheuk is an art director, illustrator and artist from Perth, Western Australia, the most isolated city in the world. She got her first job as a magazine art director at the age of 19 (at one of only 2 magazines being published from Perth) the same year that she graduated from university with a degree in graphic design. Since then Cheuk has art directed or designed many magazines, including most recently Tokion Magazine.

Cheuk's art direction has been heavily influenced by her illustrative work and she is renowned for her illustrative typography. She has been commissioned by such companies as Nike, Converse, Target, ESPN and MTV2 and she is a contributor to Nippon Vogue, Dazed and Confused, The Fader, Blackbook, Flaunt, The Guardian and The New York Times Magazine. She has worked with David Carson, Doug Aitken and Conan O'Brien.

In 2006 Target launched a line of products designed by Deanne Cheuk. 2005 saw the release of her first book, ‘Mushroom Girls Virus’ which sold out worldwide in 3 months. Cheuk's artwork has been exhibited worldwide, most recently in Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Beijing.

Cheuk  sometimes self-publishes a non-profit contributor based graphic ‘zine called ‘Neomu’.

Launching  Doyle Partners twenty three years ago with the idea of merging graphic design with marketing, Stephen Doyle says he just wanted to get the inevitability of his  own failure behind him. For that he is still anxiously waiting. Designing before there even were pixels, Doyle continues to search for memorable ways to make ideas and language visible, and is unafraid to wield a glue gun if it helps tell a story. He has designed identities for Barnes & Noble, Martha Stewart, Tishman Speyer, St. Regis and The US Green Building Council among others. Their range of work includes packaging, publishing, installation works, film titles, editorial work and illustration.

Previously, Stephen was the art director at M&Co.  Collaborating with Tibor was eye-opening, thrilling, infuriating and hilarious. And he was color blind. There, he learned an important design lesson: Why have a personality if you’re not going to use it? Earlier stints at Rolling Stone and Esquire  ingrained in him the idea of the narrative in design, not to mention speed while designing, which earned him the nickname "Lightning."

Stephen currently teaches in the graduate program at SVA, and he has taught at Yale, Cooper Union and NYU. 

John Gall is the Vice President and Art Director for Vintage/Anchor Books where he has worked for the past ten years. His book cover designs for Alfred A Knopf, Grove Press, and other publishers along with CD packages for Nonesuch records have been recognized by AIGA, Art Directors Club, Print, Graphis, and ID Magazine and are featured in the books: Next: The New Generation of Graphic Design; Less Is More; and  By Its Cover: Modern American Book Cover Design.
 
He has also written about graphic design covering an array of topics from the history of Grove Press to contemporary skateboard graphics. He is the author (with Gary Engel) of Sayonara Home Run! The Art of the Japanese Baseball Card published in 2006. He will be teaching at the School of Visual Arts beginning Fall 2008.

Greg Hahn is the proud owner of Gretel, a small but fruitful design company in NYC, which focuses on motion design but has dabbled in print and web design.  In the two years since it's opening in 2005, Gretel has done network branding, show titles, network promos, commercial web branding, and installation design.  Greg is involved in all aspects of the business pulling from his 15 years in the design industry, where he's worked as a freelance designer and art director for some of the top companies in the field.

Calder's work at the Whitney and the building of the Citicorp Tower were landmarks of Greg's childhood in NYC. This early exposure to art and design ultimately lead him to drop out of college to pursue design as a career. His freelance work for client's like MTV, Showtime, AMC and Vh1, have earned Greg an Emmy Nomination, awards from the Art Director's Club, The Type Director's Club, BDA, and the British D+AD.

Jennifer Kinon is a senior designer at Pentagram in New York City. Working with Pentagram partner Michael Bierut, her clients include Saks Fifth Avenue, IMG Fashion Week, Gehry Architects, the New York Jets and the Museum of Sex, among other academic and cultural institutions. Prior to joining Pentagram, Jennifer was design director of New York City's 2012 Olympic Bid. She has also worked as brand consultant to Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and art director for design publishing house Graphis Inc. 

Jennifer studied at the School of Visuals Arts MFA Design Program from 2001 to 2003. She is the first SVA MFA Design program graduate to join the faculty.

Helen Steed was born in London in 1968. At school she was always good at art and despite her mother’s wish for her to become a teacher, she became a designer. She studied graphic design at Norwich School of Art and then an MA at The Royal College of Art, London. After graduating, Helen joined Newell and Sorrell, London. A year later she moved to their Dutch office, working on identity projects for Hogeschool van Utrecht and Hero Motors, India. She then returned to London to work on projects for The Royal Mail and British Airways.

In 1997 she set up her own design consultancy, SHOP. Clients included Tate Modern, Habitat, The Body Shop and Christian Aid. She moved to New York ‘just for a year’ in 2000, to fulfill a new year’s resolution, where she joined Addison Design. In 2002 she was invited to join Bumble and bumble for her ‘perfect job’. She is now the Executive Creative Director of a very talented design team who create everything from razors to buttons, bottles to magazines.

Anke Stohlmann established her own firm, Anke Stohlmann Design, in 2003. Anke Stohlmann Design specializes in identity, editorial and print design. Her clients include DLA Piper, Hourglass Group, IFP, Maxwax, and Sanctuary Grenada. Previously, Anke was creative director at Time Inc Strategic Communications, overseeing a staff of designers, photo researchers and production artists to produce magazines for clients such as the New York Stock Exchange, Citibank, and Nestlé. She was the founding art director of eDesign magazine, for which she won a "Magazine of the Year" silver medal and an "Entire Issue" gold medal from the Society of Publication Designers. Anke started her design career at Pentagram, where her clients included Anne Klein, Ballet Tech, Le Parker Meridien Hotel, The Public Theater and The Asia Society. Anke earned her degree in visual communication/graphic design at the Fachhochschule Düsseldorf, and has an MA in design management from Pratt Institute.