Speakers

Katherine and Michael McCoy
High Ground

The McCoys are internationally recognized for their unique multi-disciplinary design education methods that give designers the tools and methods to collaborate in creating compelling and satisfying design experiences.

As Directors of Design at Cranbrook for 24 years, Distinguished Visiting Professors at London's Royal College of Art, Senior Lecturers at IIT's Institute of Design and Partners in High Ground Design Workshops they have developed effective methods for professionals to work together to develop visions for the future of design.

They have received over 200 awards for their work in graphic, product, furniture, signage, exhibit and interior design including the IDSA Gold Award, ID Magazine's Best of Category, Interior Design Magazine's Best Office Design, The IBD Award, and The European Ergo Design Award. Michael's work includes Knoll's best selling Bulldog Chair, Details Accessories for Steelcase and electronics for Philips and NEC. Katherine's graphic design work includes "Graphic Radicals" for Chronicle Books, "Cranbrook Design/The New Discourse" for Rizolli and many posters and publications for Cranbrook Academy of Art. Their work and writings have been widely published and exhibited and they lecture on design theory at conferences around the world.

Their pioneering methods in design education have earned them the Chrysler Award for Innovation in Design, The Industrial Designers Society of America Education Award, The American Center for Design Education Award, The American Institute of Graphic Arts Gold Medal (for Katherine) and Honorary Doctorate Degrees from Kansas City Art Institute.
www.highgrounddesign.com

Fred Murrell
Chair of Design, RMCAD

Fred Murrell is the Chair of Design at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design and works as a design consultant to major corporations. He left Sapient in 2002 where he was vice president of experience design in the Denver, Colorado office. Partnering with Clement Mok, he helped build a global design leadership team that created design communities, creative design strategy, and experience design initiatives for Sapient worldwide.

For over 20 years Fred has been providing senior management for major corporations a new understanding of the value of strategic design programs by implementing integrated identity systems, interactive web experiences, information design environments, and user centered design programs. He has held the position of director of design worldwide at Texas Instruments, Corning Incorporated and Tenet Healthcare where he managed internal design teams that worked closely with design consultants like Doblin Group, IDEO, and Meta Design, to produce integrated communications programs, user interactions, and product experiences that created breakthrough design solutions to business problems.

Fred has served on the AIGA National Board, American Center for Design National Board, Design Management Institute Advisory Board and the AIGA National Experience Design Steering Committee and was the first President for the New York AIGA Chapter (Rochester, NY). Design awards for his work have been awarded from the AIGA, ACD, Graphis, New York Art Directors Show, Print, Communications Arts, United Way, and Creativity. He has lectured at the IIID (International Institute for Information Design) in Schwarzenburg, Austria; UIAH (University of Art & Design), Helsinki, Finland; AIGA National Conference, Seattle, WA; AIGA Business Conference, New York, NY; Design Management Institute, Corporate Identity Conference, Montreal, Canada; Rochester Institute of Technology and SUNY Fredonia, New York. Fred was also the first Director for the School of Design at the Kansas City Art Institute as well as the Joyce C. Hall Distinguished Professor, and Chair of the Design Department. Previously he has taught at Alfred University, Rochester Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon University. Currently Fred is President of AIGA Colorado and on the Board of the Design Council for the Denver Art Museum. He is a graduate of the University of Washington, in Seattle, Washington and the College of Design in Basel, Switzerland. He presently lives in Englewood, Colorado with his wife and three daughters.
www.rmcad.edu

Hugh Dubberly
Dubberly Design Office

Hugh Dubberly is a principal in Dubberly Design Office which focuses on communications systems, interaction design, and information design. At Apple Computer in the mid 80s and early 90s, Hugh managed cross-functional design teams and went on to manage creative services and corporate identity for the entire company. While at Apple, he served at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena as the founding chairman of the computer graphics department. He later moved to Netscape and became Vice President of Design. Hugh has also taught classes in the Graphic Design Department at San Jose State University, at the Institute of Design at IIT, and in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University.
www.dubberly.com

Hugh Graham
Hugh Graham Creative

Hugh Graham is an interaction designer and creative strategist who uses narrative techniques to craft user-centered design solutions. Hugh’s focus on the intersection of story and design comes from extensive experience in film, video, music and theater, including projects for MGM/Universal, Paramount, Viacom, and the Walker Art Center, combined with a dozen years working in interaction design, including projects for Universal Studios, US West, Qwest, Janus, Aspen Ski Company, the Limited Express, American Friends Service Committee, Maytag, Virgin, the Colorado Rockies, Budget Rent A Car and Heifer International.

Hugh is a former Director of User Experience for Sapient Corporation and Director of Content Strategy at iXL, and is an award winning performance and media artist, including awards from the Denver Mayor’s Office of Art Culture and Film and the Colorado Council for the Arts. He has served as Director of Strategy for the American Institute of Graphic Arts Colorado Chapter, and is the principal of Hugh Graham Creative. Hugh is also an active digital storyteller, and is pursuing this interest through "Mile High Stories", a collection of stories about the City of Denver, its inhabitants, landmarks and history.
www.hughgrahamcreative.com

Chris Hacker
Aveda

Chris Hacker is senior vice president of Global Marketing and Design for Aveda The Art and Science of Pure Flower and Plant Essences. In this role, he is responsible for all aspects of marketing and design for the company, including product development and brand positioning. In addition he is responsible for visual merchandising, packaging, store design and advertising as well as Aveda’s global marketing and consumer marketing domains. He joined Aveda in July 2000 as vice president creative director and was promoted a year later to his current position. Prior to joining Aveda, Christopher was creative director for Dansk International Designs, Steuben Glass and Warner Bros. studio stores. He also ran a brand/design consultant business with clients that included Sony Corporation, The Walt Disney Company, Mattel and The Autry Museum of Western Heritage in Los Angeles. Earlier in his career, Christopher was design director for Aramis, a division of Esteé Lauder and executive design director for Visual Merchandising and Store Design for the Esteé Lauder Companies. He was trained as an industrial designer at The University of Cincinnati School of Design Architecture and Art (now known as DAAP).

Sigi Moeslinger
Antenna Design, New York Inc.

After studying industrial design in Austria, Switzerland and the US, Sigi graduated from Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, then joined Ideo Product Development in San Francisco in 1991. There, she worked on projects for clients such as NEC, Matsushita and GM/Hughes. The work included development of new corporate product design languages, user-centered design for consumer products and future scenarios for new technology products. After receiving a Masters from New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program in 1996, Sigi worked as an Interval Research Fellow at NYU and at Interval in Palo Alto. Her research work centered around the creation of “hybrid” objects, encompassing both the physical and the virtual realm. In particular she explored the narrative qualities physical and tactile interactivity can provide in order to evoke compelling experiences.

Sigi has received many design awards including IDEA Gold & Silver Awards, ID Magazine Awards and a German IF Award. Her experimental projects have been featured at various venues like the Digitale in Cologne, Germany, the CHI conference in Atlanta, and the Thread Waxing Space in New York City.

She is also an Associate Professor at New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program teaching interaction design.
www.antennadesign.com

Rick Robinson, PhD.
Global Director, NOP World

Rick E. Robinson is the Global Director for NOP World’s observational and ethnographic practice. For nearly 15 years, Rick has been a leader in developing and applying observational research as a basis for new product, service and strategy solutions. Rick is an interdisciplinary social scientist who holds a Ph.D. in Human Development from the University of Chicago. He was a co-founder of E-Lab, a research and design consultancy, which pioneered ethnographic and observational research approaches for understanding the interactions between people and products. In 1999, E-Lab was acquired by Sapient, where Rick became Senior Vice President & Chief Experience Officer. Among his clients have been leading companies in many different business sectors, including BP/Amoco, BMW, Ford, General Mills, General Motors, Hallmark, Intel, McDonald's, Nabisco, Samsung, Schick, Sony, Tropicana, Unilever, Warner-Lambert and Wells Fargo. His contributions to the development of business applications for ethnography have been written up in academic and marketing publications, profiled in Business Week, Fast Company, Business 2.0, The Financial Times and many others, as well as on CNN’s Business Unusual.

Dr. Robinson publishes and lectures widely on ethnographic practice and design research methodology, the value of understanding everyday life, and the role of social theory in design. He is the co-author of The Art of Seeing with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He is on the editorial board of Design Issues and the advisory boards of the Design Management Institute and the California College of Arts and Crafts.

Masamichi Udagawa
Antenna Design, New York Inc.

Masamichi graduated from Chiba University in Japan, then joined the Yamaha Product Design Laboratory in 1987. There he designed electronic musical instruments, including the award winning YS200 synthesizer. After receiving his MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1991, he worked at Emilio Ambasz Design Group in New York. From 1992 to 1995 Masamichi was a senior designer at Apple Computer Industrial Design Group in Cupertino, CA, where he designed a number of products such as the PowerBook 5300/3400 series. He was also working closely with Apple’s research laboratory, Advanced Technology Group, on research projects addressing novel user experiences. From 1995 to 1997, he ran a New York satellite studio of Ideo Product Development.

Masamichi is the recipient of numerous design awards including IDEA Gold Awards, ID Magazine’s Best-of-Category and First Prize of Japan’s Good Design Award. His designs as well as his essays have been widely published in design magazines internationally. Masamichi has an extensive experience in the field of product development with focus on a user-centered design approach. He has consistently been exploring the relationship between new technology and its meaning in mass-society, where new technology alters our environment and our perception.

He has also been involved in design education since 1993. Currently, he teaches user-centered design process at New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program as an Associate Professor.
www.antennadesign.com

Mikon van Gastel
Imaginary Forces

Creative director Mikon van Gastel heads the New York office of Imaginary Forces (IF), an innovative leader in movie titles, broadcast design and commercials. Imaginary Forces has created movie titles for Seven, Gattaca, Sphere, Mission Impossible and many others. Additionally, over the last several years IF has emerged as a leader in architectural media and event designs. Recent projects include BMW Welt, a center for brand experience and car delivery for BMW in collaboration with CoopHimmelblau, and IBM Innovation Center, environments and 24-hour content that spans a full city block in New York’s Time Square. In 2002 van Gastel spearheaded IF’s collaboration with United Architects, one of six consortiums chosen to submit a design to redevelop the former World Trade Center site.

Originally from the Netherlands, van Gastel graduated from the Utrecht Academy of Art, followed by a year of graphic design at the University of Florida. He then earned an MFA in Design from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, an experience that shaped his work style and collaborative enthusiasm. Since then his ground-breaking work has evolved into the interdisciplinary space between graphic design, film-making, and architecture.