Born and raised in Mexico City, Armin Vit is a graphic designer and writer now living in Bloomington, IN. He is co-founder of UnderConsideration, a graphic design firm generating its own projects, initiatives, and content while taking on limited client work. He eats bad logos for breakfast. No, literally, he does, as the sole writer for Brand New, a blog publishing opinions on corporate and brand identity work, always around breakfast time.

Carly Ayres is a writer using language and interaction to engage people in new and interesting ways. Currently, she does that on the Google Design team. She was previously a partner at HAWRAF, an interactive design studio in New York, and before that, worked humanizing AI and evolving the Google logo. She’s on the board of AIGA NY and is the founder of 100sUnder100, a community of hundreds of creative people under a hundred years of age. It manifests in the form of a Slack group (run, in part, by a wonderful group of admins), as well as through various in-person events and happenings. Photo by BridgetBadore.

Caroline Bagley is a brand and editorial designer based in San Francisco, California, where she is currently a Senior Designer and Art Director at Some Days. Previously she was with Collins SF, Nike Global Brand and Sagmeister and Walsh, and is a graduate from the Rhode Island School of Design. 

She’s worked with a variety of clients and partners, including Nike, Exploratorium, Mailchimp, Converse, Jordan, Open, Sonos, Museum of the Moving Image, Dropbox, Facebook, Seed, Instagram, among others. Her work has been recognized by the Type Director’s Club,  Art Director’s Club, Cannes Lions, Graphis, One Show, The New York Times, Fast Company, and Communication Arts. 

Elliott Moody is the Founder and Creative Director of The Brand Identity, a graphic design platform and resource that he started after finding himself watching paint dry when interning in a London studio in 2015. Since then, The Brand Identity has had two websites, published two books about the design process, launched a collection of templates in collaboration with German art director Maurice Masson, written about nearly 1000 projects, interviewed more than 70 studios and attracted an audience of over 400,000 on social media. Elliott resides in Cambridge in the UK and has a close working relationship with local design practice The District.

Jessica Hische is a lettering artist and author. Her clients include Wes Anderson, The United States Postal Service, Alaska Airlines, Target, and Penguin Books and her work has been featured again and again in design and illustration annuals both in the US and internationally. She’s been named to Adweek’s Creative 100, was a Print Magazine New Visual Artist (20 under 30), one of Forbes 30 under 30 in Art and Design, an ADC Young Gun, and a “Person to Watch” by GD USA. She is the author of two New York Times best-selling children’s books (Tomorrow I’ll be Brave and Tomorrow I’ll be Kind) and In Progress, which showcases her lettering work and creative process. Additionally, she is also the creator/“3d printer” of three small humans. Photo by Helena Price.

Michael Bierut of Pentagram has a storied career and is a recipient of many design accolades. A distilled look at his accomplishments include working with high profile clients such as The New York Times and MIT Media Lab, serving as president of the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) from 1988 to 1990 and is president emeritus of AIGA National. He also serves on the boards of the Architectural League of New York and the Library of America and was awarded the profession’s highest honor, the AIGA Medal, in 2006. 

Bierut is a senior critic in graphic design at the Yale School of Art and a lecturer in the practice of design and management at the Yale School of Management. He is a cofounder of the website Design Observer and is the co-editor of the five-volume series Looking Closer: Critical Writings on Graphic Design published by Allworth Press. Michael’s book 79 Short Essays on Design was published in 2007 by Princeton Architectural Press. Photo by Jake Chessum.

Nishat Akhtar is a Creative Director at Instrument, an Adjunct Professor at Portland State University and a working illustrator. She has worked with Google, Nike, the NBA, the NYTimes and more. Lately Nishat has been exploring how art can facilitate connection between strangers and has conducted workshops on the subject globally in the US, Canada and Japan.