Bios of national board members

Julie Beeler is co-founder and studio director of Second Story, a distinguished creator of informative and entertaining interactive experiences, including media-rich storytelling presentations and interpretive installations. With a background in visual design, art history and the liberal arts, she leads the studio in shaping unique, innovative, interactive experiences that pique curiosity, spur discovery and inspire audiences. Beeler has defined and sustained an approach to interactive media design that focuses on reaching diverse audiences while pushing the limits of technological innovation. From concept through completion, she interacts with various industry disciplines, guiding the studio to realize holistic approaches to successful projects.

Since 1994, Second Story has been recognized as a leader in both online and on-site interactive media design. Beeler has collaborated with many of the world's outstanding cultural institutions, such as the Smithsonian, Library of Congress and National Geographic, to create compelling projects that have been featured in the popular press and in dozens of books. The studio's pioneering work blending interactive art, entertainment, and education has garnered many of the industry's top interactive design awards, including recognition in the National Design Awards. Beeler is a frequent speaker at various conferences and schools across the country on topics ranging from interactive design methodologies to usability and the marriage of rich content and technology.

Andrew Blauvelt is chief of communications and audience engagement and curator of architecture and design at the Walker Art Center, in Minneapolis, where he oversees the design, new media, marketing/public relations and education departments. At the Walker he has organized many exhibitions, public programs, and community projects about the role and value of architecture and design in our lives, many in partnership with local AIGA and AIA chapters and community groups. Blauvelt has been a professor at leading design programs in the United States and abroad such as Cranbrook Academy of Art, his alma mater, the Jan van Eyck Academie in the Netherlands, and at NC State University in Raleigh. He is a frequent lecturer at design conferences and schools around the world. Blauvelt’s work has received numerous design awards, including the National Design Award for Institutional and Corporate Achievement, and has been extensively published and exhibited in North America, Europe and Asia.

Blauvelt has written about design and culture for several publications including Eye, Emigre, Perspecta and Visible Language, and is a contributing writer for Design Observer

Blauvelt has been a member of AIGA since 1998 and was elected to the Alliance Graphique Internationale in 2007.

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Gaby Brink is the founder and executive creative director of Tomorrow, a creative agency that partners with clients to build the future of theirs brands and innovations. Brink leads a team of diverse talents to transcend tidy disciplines and create communication programs that turn heads and grab hearts everywhere that brands live. She works with a wide spectrum of top global marketers and emerging companies. And because she believes that design plays an important role in building a brighter future, she fervently applies her creative firepower to nurture environmental and social causes and help organizations with sustainability at their core to thrive.

Brink helps chart the organization's long-term vision and promote the integration of sustainability strategies to design and business communities at large-she is the driving force behind the development of The Living Principles for Design, the first integrated sustainability framework for the creative industry. Her three-year tenure as lead producer of AIGA's interdisciplinary design conference, Compostmodern, was instrumental in turning that event into the preeminent destination for sustainability programming for designers of all stripes. Brink's work has been celebrated globally and was most recently highlighted in the book Masters of Design: A Collection of the Most Inspiring Corporate Communications Designers in the World.

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Drew Davies is the founder and design director of Oxide Design Co., a communications and information design firm established in 2001.

A past president and advisory board member of the AIGA Nebraska chapter, Davies now serves as the design director for AIGA’s Design for Democracy program. DFD is currently involved in implementing nationwide ballot design standards for all elections.

Davies’s work has been awarded by every major national design competition, including One Show Design, the CLIO Awards, HOW, Print, AIGA:365 and Communication Arts. He also judged the Communication Arts Design Annual, an honor bestowed on only nine national designers each year. He is the only Nebraskan who has ever been selected as a judge in the 51 years of the competition.

Davies believes that the most effective method of creating positive change in the world is to clearly communicate the ideas that can make a difference: Clarity creates efficacy.

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Phil Hamlett has more than 23 years of experience in a wide variety of design and communications roles. Currently, he is ensconced as a design educator at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, the largest private art and design school in the country. Hamlett's students emerge from the MFA program as advanced design practitioners and go on to acquire positions at the highest levels of the profession. Prior to the Academy, Hamlett was communications director at Turner & Associates in San Francisco, and in a previous life, a principal and director of creative services for EAI/Atlanta. Regardless of where he is found, Hamlett is adept at identifying creative challenges, distilling core objectives and then facilitating the development of the creative teams, key messages, conceptual frameworks and communications vehicles best suited to address those challenges. Additionally, as the founder of Compostmodern and a co-author of The Living Principles for Design, he sets the agenda for sustainable business practices within the design community at large.

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Zia Khan is the founder and principal of Lucid Partners, a communication design firm in Atlanta. Founded in 1994, his firm has served clients such as AT&T, Coca-Cola, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Home Depot and Mohawk Industries, on engagements ranging from brand identity to stakeholder communication. In his 20-plus years as a designer, Khan has seen his work recognized by Communication Arts, Black Book AR100, HOW and Graphic Design USA, and has received several awards, including the prestigious Mohawk Show Award of Excellence.

Born and raised in Bangalore, India, his nontraditional route to the design profession included undergraduate studies in physics and geology; later on, he graduated from the Portfolio Center, in Atlanta. In recent years, Khan has developed a deep interest in issues at the intersection of business and design. One notable achievement during his two terms on the AIGA Atlanta chapter's board as the business outreach chair was the creation of the Brand Academy program, an executive course produced in partnership with the Emory University Business School. He has also served as adjunct professor at the Atlanta College of Art and currently teaches at the Portfolio Center.

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Jamie Koval is a principal and president of VSA Partners, a strategic design and brand consultancy with offices in Chicago, New York and Minneapolis. Since 1990, he has been instrumental in shaping VSA's multidisciplinary approach to brand and business communications, including work in identity, corporate reputation, interiors and web. VSA's clients include BP, Harley-Davidson, IBM, GE, Mohawk Fine Papers and Nike. Some of Koval's most notable achievements have been leading the visual identity for the Dalai Lama's visit to Millennium Park, the 2016 Chicago Olympic bid and the symbol “Jack” for Cingular Wireless.

Koval's work has been internationally recognized by more than 50 competitions and designations including ACD, AIGA, AR100, British Design Annual, Communication Arts, Graphis, I.D., the Los Angeles and New York Art Directors Clubs and the Type Directors Club. In addition, his work is in the permanent collection in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. He is a frequent lecturer and has taught at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

In addition, Koval has donated his time to several nonprofit organizations including Anderson Ranch Art Center, Dance Aspen and the Northern Suburban Special Education District.

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Deanna Kuhlmann-Leavitt began her design career in Los Angeles 21 years ago, after completing a degree in graphic design at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. She worked for Santa Monica-based Morava and Oliver Design Office and Douglas Oliver Design Office before forming Oliver Kuhlmann with her longtime mentor Doug Oliver. In 2001, she established Kuhlmann Leavitt, Inc., a St. Louis-based, multi-faceted firm known for its work in print, new media and design for the built environment. As principal of KLI, Kuhlmann-Leavitt has been recognized by AIGA, American Institute of Architects (AIA), New York Type Directors Club, Art Directors Clubs from New York to Los Angeles and AR100, including a Best of Show Award and the Mead Annual Report Show. Her studio's work has been featured in Communication Arts, Monsa books, International Trade Fair Design by Avedition and many other leading design publications. Design organizations across the United States and Canada have invited Kuhlmann-Leavitt to address their membership and to serve on juries for numerous regional and national competitions.

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Debbie Millman has been in the design business for more than 20 years, fulfilling her dream of working in branding and furthering the meaning, purpose and stature of brands in our culture. Millman is a managing partner and president of the design division at Sterling Brands, the largest independent brand consultancy in the country. She has been there for more than a decade, and has led long-term partnerships with global clients including Gillette, Kraft, Nestle, Pepsi, Campbell's, Johnson & Johnson, Glaxo-Smithkline, Pfizer and Unilever.

For 12 years, Millman also worked as the creative director for Emmis Broadcasting's Hot 97, where she helped transform the image of the radio station from a dance music format to the vibrant, hip-hop station it currently is.

The author of books such as How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer, Millman is a regular contributor to Print magazine, and chairs the master's degree program in branding at the School of Visual Arts. Since 2005 she has hosted the first live weekly radio talk show about graphic design on the internet, “Design Matters with Debbie Millman,” featured on the Voice America Business Network and as podcasts on iTunes. She frequently lectures on the virtues of brands and authenticity. She believes that the condition of brand reflects the condition of our culture and is bound and determined to further the causes of brand consultants everywhere.

In May 2006, Millman completed her term as secretary, treasurer and sponsorship chair of the New York board of AIGA, where she worked to raise money for the chapter, participated in many of the chapter's events and served as a mentor at the High School of Art and Design. She attended the inaugural AIGA Harvard Business School program “Business Perspectives for Design Leaders” in 2003. She was on the board of the AIGA Center of Brand Experience from 1998-2002, and in 2005 she presented the Corporate Leadership Award at the AIGA Design Legends Gala.

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Santiago Piedrafita is chair of the Department of Graphic Design and Industrial Design at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Previously, Piedrafita chaired the Design Department at Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD), teaching design at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Before joining MCAD, Piedrafita was senior designer in the Walker Art Center's design department, having worked with both present and former design directors Andrew Blauvelt and Laurie Haycock-Makela, respectively. At the Walker, Piedrafita designed and maintained a diverse array of communications materials and publications for the museum's multidisciplinary curatorial and institutional departments.

In New York, Piedrafita worked in studios such as the Museum of Modern Art's in-house design department, J. Abbott Miller's Design/Writing/Research (before becoming part of Pentagram) and Chermayeff & Geismar, Inc. (now C&G Partners and Chermayeff & Geismar Studio). Piedrafita's work has been featured in numerous publications including Eye, Graphis, Metropolis and I.D. magazines, and has received recognition and awards from the former American Center for Design, AIGA, I.D. and Communications Arts. He holds a master's degree in communications design from Pratt Institute in New York and a bachelor's degree in industrial design from ESDI, College of Industrial Design, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

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Doug Powell is a designer, entrepreneur and strategist. Together with his wife, Lisa Powell, he founded the Minneapolis-based Schwartz Powell Design in 1989. In 2004, following their daughter Maya’s diagnosis with Type 1 diabetes, the couple launched Type1Tools to bring well-designed, kid-friendly tools to the daily experience of managing this complex disease. Type 1 Tools was a recipient of an INDEX Design to Improve Life award in 2006. The success of Type1Tools led to the expansion of the business into HealthSimple, with a vision to help the millions of 
people living with chronic health problems. In 2007 HealthSimple was acquired by a division of Johnson & Johnson. Powell served as consulting creative director for HealthSimple through 2009, working closely with the Johnson & Johnson Global Strategic Design Office.

Currently Doug Powell helps a variety of partners in health and nutrition use design to advance their cause. Additionally, he organizes collaborative teams to develop and pursue self-initiated startup concepts.

Powell is a past member and treasurer of the national board of AIGA and a past chapter president of AIGA Minnesota. On his blog, Merge, Powell discusses new ways designers are working.

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Darralyn Rieth is a highly creative and resourceful design management professional with a successful 20-plus-year track record in large corporate settings and design consulting firms. Rieth is known as a design thinker and creative leader, providing brand communication and design expertise with responsibility for developing strategic design and brand communications that excite, inspire and engage consumers, influence their purchase decisions, and create compelling consumer experiences.

In her most recent role as director of global design for Campbell Soup Company, headquartered in Camden, NJ, Rieth has driven design direction for a multitude of Campbell Brands worldwide including Campbell’s Condensed Soup, Campbell’s Select Harvest and Campbell’s Chunky Soups; Swanson, Domashnyaya Klassica and Real Stock Broths; V8 Beverages, and Pace and Prego Sauces. Rieth also chaired the Women of Campbell Network, supporting women’s advancement to positions of influence and leadership by employing best practices around diversity, inclusion and engagement. Rieth’s leadership in this area helped secure the prestigious Catalyst Award for Campbell in 2010.

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Susana Rodríguez de Tembleque is the executive creative director of SYPartners, a firm that helps companies design their future.

SYPartners uses the fusion of systems thinking and creativity to inspire their clients to go through the transformation that will lead them to greatness. Rodríguez de Tembleque is responsible for pushing the originality and creativity of SYPartners’ teams and work. She sets the overall creative vision for the firm and leads her team of multidisciplinary designers to conceptualize and then bring to life the rare, transformative strategies, stories and ideas—be it through print or digital experiences, environments, products, films and more. Rodríguez de Tembleque also plays an active role in the work itself—helping the Gap brand reimagine its store environment and customer experience, assisting GE with cultivating a culture of innovation, and most recently working with IBM to design a series of exhibitions, films and printed pieces illuminating and explaining the idea of progress.

Prior to joining SYPartners, Rodríguez de Tembleque was a creative director of Wired and a design director at VSA Partners. She is an active voice in the design industry, a recipient of every major design award and has been recognized by STEP as one of the “Ten Women to Watch.”

Growing up in Spain in a family of bankers with a secret penchant for the arts, Rodríguez de Tembleque quickly developed a passion for design and its power to move people, solve problems and express what words can’t. Today, she remains passionate about the role design and powerful storytelling can play in challenging the status quo of business and society as a whole.

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Nathan Shedroff is the chair of the groundbreaking MBA in Design Strategy at California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco. This program prepares the next generation of innovation leaders for a world that is profitable, sustainable, ethical and truly meaningful. The program unites the perspectives of systems thinking, design and integrative thinking, sustainability and generative leadership into a holistic strategic framework. Students learn to create innovative products, services and policy, as well as new business models.

Shedroff is a pioneer in experience design, interaction design and information design, speaks and teaches internationally, and is a serial entrepreneur. His many books include Experience Design 1.1, Making Meaning, Design Is the Problem and the upcoming Make It So.

Shedroff holds an MBA in sustainable management from Presidio Graduate School and a BS in industrial design from the Art Center College of Design. He worked with Richard Saul Wurman at The Understanding Business and, later, co-founded vivid studios, a decade-old pioneering company in interactive media and one of the first web services firms on the planet. Vivid’s hallmark was helping to establish and validate the field of information architecture, by training an entire generation of designers in the newly emerging web industry.

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Angela Shen-Hsieh pursues forms of communication and information delivery that fascinate, inform and prompt people to think. Having graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1991, she is inspired by her training in architecture and a vision for the way in which design can dramatically improve the quality of our lives. Through her company, Visual i|o, her work explodes the boundaries of how people interact with the increasingly overwhelming amounts of data now accessible. Visual i|o is a venture-backed data visualization software company founded in 2002. Visual i|o focuses on “the last 18 inches”-getting data from the computer screen into the human mind-bridging the divide between raw data and actionable meaning through an entirely new graphical language for navigating and interpreting data.

Before founding Visual i|o, Shen-Hsieh founded a women's clothing company called Edits. Designing and developing the Edits line, Shen-Hsieh honed her business edge and combined it with the same passion for visual communication and innovative design.

Her work has been published in Metropolis, Harvard Design Magazine, eDesign Magazine, New Media Creative and other trade and design publications. In its June 2004 Design issue, Fast Company profiled her as one of four rising stars “charting the future” of business and design innovation. In 2006, she was chosen by BusinessWeek as one of 10 “cutting edge designers pushing the limits of design.”

Shen-Hsieh holds a Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and a BA from Barnard College of Columbia University. She sits on several not-for-profit boards, and lectures frequently on issues related to design, business and data visualization.

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Robin Tooms is the principal, managing director and brand/web strategist for Savage in Houston. Tooms works closely with clients to develop brand positioning, core messaging, marketing strategies and brand identities. She is dedicated to staying at the forefront of innovative technologies that enhance communication and business. In her role as managing director, Tooms is responsible for keeping internal operations at Savage running smoothly, especially in areas regarding human resources-managing, recruiting, training, mentoring and professional development for its talented employees. Tooms has been with Savage for more than a decade working with clients such as Baker Hughes, Devon Energy, General Motors, Imperial Sugar, Tenaris and Weingarten Realty. Tooms is an alumna of the University of Houston and holds an MBA from the Rice University Jones Graduate School.

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