Marc Burckhardt
March 30th, 2007
Marc Burckhardt lives in Austin, Texas and his work has been commissioned by clients that include M&C Saatchi, Volkswagen, Rolling Stone, TIME, SONY Records, the New York Times, and Major League Baseball. His paintings have been exhibited at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and the Experience Music Project in Seattle, Are featured in the book "The Greatest Album Covers That Never Were," and can be found in the private collections of Oprah Winfrey, Ralph Lauren, Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner and the late Johnny Cash.

Modern Dog Design
October 20, 2006
Seattle's Modern Dog Design has become synonymous with the Seattle graphic design scene and is widely recognized as an inventive and often irreverent purveyor of popular culture. They are found on the pages of all of the major design magazines and books in the United States, receiving hundreds of awards from publications such as Graphis, AIGA, Type Directors Club, The 100 Show and Communication Arts. Their work has been exhibited around the world – from Bellingham to Brno.

Many of their posters are in permanent collections such as the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the Hong Kong Heritage Museum, Bibliotheque Nationale de France in Paris, Museum Fur Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg and the Warsaw National Museum among others.

Michael Doret and Laura Smith
November 10, 2006
Just in time for the fall chill, Northwest Arkansas Art Directors Club offers a steaming serving of Alphabet Soup. The special guest chefs for the evening, Designer Michael Doret and Illustrator Laura Smith, will share their recipes for tantalizing blends of lettering, illustration, and graphic design.

Doret, a graduate of The Cooper Union in New York City, opened his own design business shortly after graduation. He currently runs his small design firm out of Hollywood, California with partner Laura Smith. Doret creates letterforms from scratch with the intention of a truly unique solution to design problems. His partner, Smith, uses stencils and acrylics to create powerful design elements to effectively communicate the identity and purpose of their clients. When the two talents are combined, the resulting effect is a dynamic work of art that falls into the tradition of mid-20th century design; matchbook covers, enamel signs, theatre marquees, and various other artifacts of American Pop Culture.

A portion of Doret and Smith’s clients include The NBA, Major League Baseball, Walt Disney Imagineering, Warner Brothers, Universal Studios, Nike, United States Postal Service, Capitol Records, Columbia Records, and all the major US advertising agencies as well as many other clients.

Sandy Collora
August 18, 2006

Sandy Collora showed incredible artistic talent at a very young age, actually getting disqualified from art contests at school because his teachers thought his drawings were traced. He gravitated to film quickly, the early Spielberg films and the "Star Wars" trilogy being his early inspiration. Work for comic books and gaming magazines in his early teens led to a move to Los Angeles at 17 to pursue his dreams in Hollywood.

Landing a job at Stan Winton Studios in 1988 on "Leviathan," Collora honed his skills as a creature designer and sculptor, eventually going on to work with industry giants Arnold Kopelson, Rick Baker, and Rob Bottin.

After over a decade of concept design, sculpting, storyboarding, and art direction on major motion pictures, he made his directorial debut with his acclaimed short film "Solomon Bernstein's Bathroom." 1999 also saw the birth of his toy development studio, as well the small indie production company Montauk Films. Partnering with "Solomon..." producer Dave Fennoy to develop his film and television projects including the features "Hunter Prey," "Summer Of 57," and "Guardians of Atlantis."

His goal, he states, is to develop from a little known, energetic, creative company with loads of big plans, into the most highly valued idea factory in the world. "You've got to have passion for what your doing, everything else in life is just a by-product of the creative storm I call 'me'."

Sandy has also been working in directing commercials for Volkswagon and the Got Milk campaigns.

Gary Baseman
April 28, 2006

On April 28th, the Northwest Art Directors Club will host Gary Baseman: Pervasive Artist, Painter, TV/Movie Producer, Toy Designer, Humorist. Mr. Baseman is the three-time Emmy award winning creator and executive producer of "Teacher's Pet," the critically acclaimed animated television series and feature-length animated film.

His quirky and outlandish illustrations can be seen in major publications such as The New Yorker, Time, The New York Times, and Rolling Stone. His strong visual images have been commissioned by the corporate world with such international corporate clients as Nike, Chili's, Gatorade, Mercedes-Benz, Labatt, and Thomas Cook. Mr. Baseman created the visual identity of the award-winning, best selling game "Cranium."

The National Portrait Gallery in D.C. and the Museum of Modern Art in Rome feature his work in their permanent collections. He continues to have solo gallery exhibitions with his paintings in New York, Los Angeles, Rome and Tokyo. Mr. Baseman continues to lecture international venues such as the School of Visual Arts in NY, the Royal College of Art in London, and Art Center in LA. His limited edition art toys are in the forefront of this new Art Toy movement, selling out around the world.

Entertainment Weekly Magazine named Baseman as one of the 100 Most Creative People in Entertainment. His 352 page book of his art, titled "Dumb Luck" was just published by Chronicle Books.

Mark Robert Halper
February 17, 2006
Based in Los Angeles, Mark has been shooting since 1989 with projects on local, regional, and national levels for clients based all over the United States and Europe. Mark's first big break was a 1989 assignment for a teen magazine, which quickly turned into a regular client. He also cut his teeth doing portraits for the Los Angeles Daily Journal photographing some of the most famous lawyers and judges in the country. During that time, he continued to build his client base with magazine and corporate clients such as Sanyo, Hitachi, Business Week, Xerox and Paramount Pictures. Mark has built a diverse business that includes everything from advertising to annual report to editorial clients. He also teaches classes at UCLA. “I'm a photographer because there is nothing else I would rather do.”

Chopping Block
November 18, 2005
Thomas Romer of Chopping Block Studios to speak. Thomas graduated at The Cooper Union School of Art in New York City in 1992 and stayed on there for an extra four years pursuing his love for typography. Since then he has spent his time at Chopping Block whose recent client list includes Snapple, COSMOgirl, MTV Movie awards, XM and many more.

Kyle Cooper
March 18, 2005
Kyle Cooper has directed over 150 film title sequences, and has been credited with single-handedly revitalizing the main-title sequence as an art form. He is the founder of two internationally recognized film design companies, Imaginary Forces and Prologue Films. Cooper earned a M.F.A in Graphic Design from the Yale School of Art, where he studied independently with Paul Rand. Cooper is a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale and holds the honorary title of Royal Designer for Industry from the Royal Society of Arts in London.

GUM Creators
November 11, 2004
GUM was founded by two award-winning designers who’ve known each other for over 18 years. Kevin Grady and Colin Metcalf have provided progressive design work for a broad range of clients, including Sony PlayStation, Truth, Converse and VH1. Since its initial release last year, this unique new annual--covering art, design, pop culture, music, social issues and more--has attracted a very loyal fan base. In a market fl ooded with gorgeous art books short on substantive content at one end and content-driven publications lacking a sense of humor and aesthetic savvy at the other, GUM bridges the gap between style and content. GUM 2 features legendary author Ray Bradbury, Nancy Sinatra, artists Dalek, Nonconceptual, Chris Yormick, designer Rudy VanderLans, musical acts Interpol, Cornelius, RJD2 and much more.
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FOSSIL
Brought Hog Caller’s Ball October 8, 2004
Fossil, Inc. was founded in 1984 at a time when watches were created for function rather than fashion. To fi ll this void, the company began designing watches as fashion accessories. Today Fossil offers a growing line of watches, apparel, and accessory items, and its renowned design team continues to study emerging fashion trends to bring consumers unique products. Promoting its innovative products and providing marketing support for distributors worldwide requires producing volumes of catalogs, point-of-sale materials, ads, signage, and other marketing materials. About 300 collateral projects are active in any given week, and nearly 50 full-color catalogs are produced annually.
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ANITA KUNZ Spoke September 24, 2004
Born in Toronto in 1956, Anita graduated from The Ontario College of Art in 1978. Since then she has lived in London, New York and Toronto, working for magazines, design fi rms, book publishers and advertising agencies in Germany, Japan, Sweden, Norway, Canada, South Africa, Portugal, France and England. Her clients include Time magazine, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, GQ, The New York Times, Sony Music, Random House Publishing and many others. Articles about her work have appeared in Graphis and Novumgebrauchsgrafik magazines (Switzerland), Communication Arts and Step by Step magazine (USA), Idea, Illustration and Creation magazines (Japan), Applied Arts (Canada), Nuvo (Canada) and The Design Journal (Korea). From 1988 to 1990 she was one of two artists chosen by Rolling Stone magazine to produce a monthly illustrated History of Rock ‘n Roll end paper. She has produced cover art for many magazines including Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, Time magazine, Newsweek Magazine the Atlantic Monthly and The New York Times Magazine. She has also illustrated more than fi fty book jacket covers. Anita frequently teaches workshops and lectures at universities and institutions nationally and internationally including the Smithsonian and the Corcoran in Washington DC.

In 2001 she was invited to speak at ideacity, a think tank of luminaries from the fields of medicine, politics, science and the arts hosted by Moses Znaimer in Toronto. She showed a collection of her works at the Library of Congress in Washington DC in the fall of 2003. In 2001 and again in 2003 she served on the Board of Directors of the Illustration conference. She is also currently serving as chair for the Society of Illustrators Museum of American Illustration annual exhibit. Anita was recently named one of the fi fty most infl uential women in Canada by the National Post newspaper. Examples of her work can be seen at www.anitakunz.com.
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New York City Art Directors Club 82nd Annual Award Winner’s Exhibit
Over 300 award-winning designs from the Art Directors Club of New York’s 82nd Annual Awards competition will be on exhibit for two weeks. The competition, which was initiated in 1920 and is the oldest and largest of its kind in the United States, celebrates the best work in advertising, interactive media, graphic design, illustration and photography. This same exhibit has been shown in universities and galleries all over the world, including Brazil, China, Croatia, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Thailand and Turkey.
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MK12 Spoke April 2nd, 2004
This amazing multimedia company brought their award winning and stunning presentation from the Guttenberg Museum Exhibition all the way to Fayetteville, Arkansas. MK12 is an artist collective and design lab based in Kansas City, MO. Founded by art school fugitives Ben Radatz, Jed Carter, Matt Fraction and Tim Fisher.
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LOWELL WILLIAMS of Pentagram
Spoke on March 11th, 2004
As a Pentagram partner, Lowell and his team continue to develop expertise in corporate communications and identity design. He frequently collaborates with partners in other offices and generally brings a distinctive sensibility to diverse projects and programs. Lowell is a past president and director of the Art Director’s Club Houston, and was a director of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) Texas Chapter. In addition to speaking engagements at various trade seminars and organizations, he has judged numerous regional, national and international design competitions.
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CHIP KIDD Spoke February 6th, 2004
Chip Kidd is a graphic designer and writer in New York City. His book jacket designs for Alfred A. Knopf (where he has worked for over fourteen years) have helped spawn a revolution in the art of American book packaging. His work has been featured in Vanity Fair, Print (cover story), Entertainment Weekly, The New Republic, Time, The New York Times, Graphis, New York and ID magazines. He has been the design consultant for the Paris Review since 1995, and in 1998 he was made a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationalle. Chip Kidd has also written about graphic design and popular culture for Vogue, The New York Times, The New York Observer, Entertainment Weekly, Details, Arena, 2WICE, The New York Post, ID and Print. His fi rst book as author and designer, “Batman Collected” (1996), was given the Design Distinction award from ID magazine, and has just been issued in paperback by Watson-Guptill with an additional 16 pages of new material. His second book, “Batman Animated” (1998) garnered two of the comic book industry’s Eisner Awards.

Mr. Kidd also designed the acclaimed trilogy of “Superman: The Complete History,” “Batman: The Complete History” and “Wonder Woman: The Complete History” for Chronicle Books. Chip Kidd’s fi rst novel, “The Cheese Monkeys,” was published by Scribner.
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MARC ENGLISH Spoke September 18th, 2003
His studio has been featured in Graphic Design America 2 and his work can be found in the collections of the Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, Germany and the Merril C. Berman Collection, New York. With a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art, English serves in a professional capacity as a Director of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, and has served as President of both the Austin and Boston chapters of AIGA. Besides his many professional accomplishments, English is an Adjunct Professor at Southwest Texas State University and has taught in the same capacity at the Massachusetts College of Art and New England School of Art and Design.
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