Steven is graphic designer, art director, design critic and author. He has held the position of senior art director at New York Times Book Review and is also a prolific writer, having authored and co-authored over 200 books about the history and practice of typography, illustration, graphic design, popular culture and propaganda. He also worked as an editor for the prestigious AIGA Journal of Graphic Design. He is the co-founder and co-chair (with Lita Talarico) of the MFA Designer as entrepreneur program at the School of Visual Arts in New York, where he lectures on the history of graphic design and teaches a writing class in SVA Design Writing, Research and Criticism. He also was co-director for ten years of SVA’s Modernism & Eclecticism: A History of American Graphic Design symposiums. With Seymour Chwast, he co-founded Push Pin Editions, a packager of visual books, including the forthcoming "Hell: The People & Places" illustrated by Chwast; and with his wife Louise Fili he has produced over twenty books and design products for Chronicle Books, PA Press and other publishers. Steven is the recipient of the Smithsonian Institution National Design Award for "Design Mind," the AIGA Medal for Lifetime Achievement, among other honors. And in 2017, the annual Steven Heller Prize for Cultural Commentary was created to spotlight individuals who best exemplify the tradition of prolific writing and boundless curiosity. In Fall 2022 his book, "Growing Up Underground: A Memoir Of Counterculture New York" will be published by PA Press. About AIGA Design Adjacent AIGA Design Adjacent is a monthly podcast series with AIGA’s Executive Director, Bennie F. Johnson, in conversation with industry leaders who are innovating and designing the future. These conversations expand beyond the design community, encompassing industries and areas that intersect with design and shift the ways in which we think about and interact with each other and the world around us. About Bennie F. Johnson Bennie F. Johnson is the Executive Director of AIGA, the professional association for design. Bennie thrives on the connections between marketing, technology, education, and innovation. With experience in strategic and consumer marketing, brand management, and innovation management, he is drawn to opportunities that allow him to lead and create new modes for business engagement. He has broad experience growing brands, businesses, and organizations with a special focus on venture launch and brand relaunch business environments.

About Matt Mullenweg Matt Mullenweg, founding developer of WordPress, the Open Source software used by over 40% of the web, including this site. WordPress is a part of who Matt is; he can’t not work on WordPress. The company celebrated 15 years in 2018. The project touches a lot of people, something he’s recently begun to appreciate and he considers himself very lucky to be able to work on something he loves so much. In late 2005, Matt left WordPress to found a company called Automattic, which is now the force behind WordPress.com, Jetpack, WooCommerce, Simplenote, Longreads, The Atavist, and many other products. The company’s mission—make the web a better place. About AIGA Design Adjacent AIGA Design Adjacent is a monthly podcast series with AIGA’s Executive Director, Bennie F. Johnson, in conversation with industry leaders who are innovating and designing the future. These conversations expand beyond the design community, encompassing industries and areas that intersect with design and shift the ways in which we think about and interact with each other and the world around us. About Bennie F. Johnson Bennie F. Johnson is the Executive Director of AIGA, the professional association for design. Bennie thrives on the connections between marketing, technology, education, and innovation. With experience in strategic and consumer marketing, brand management, and innovation management, he is drawn to opportunities that allow him to lead and create new modes for business engagement. He has broad experience growing brands, businesses, and organizations with a special focus on venture launch and brand relaunch business environments.

Join host Lee-Sean Huang for Design Future Live, an interview show about how the design industry is changing as a discipline and opportunities this creates for the design community. In this episode, we will be talking with Michael Arndt about his upcoming book, Snails & Monkey Tails A Visual Guide to Punctuation & Symbols. This interview was originally livestreamed on Tuesday, March 15, 2022. Order Snails & Monkey Tails from Amazon or wherever you get books: amzn.to/3JhYqEh Michael Arndt is an award-winning graphic designer and author and illustrator of several books including Cat Says Meow and other animalopoeia, My Heart Grows, Minimal New York City: Graphic, Gritty, and Witty, One Yellow Sun, Thoughts Are Air, and rAinbowZ. His love of language and typography inspired this book. Michael lives in New York City with his dog Clooney and his cat Greta. In his spare time, he can be found online correcting other people’s punctuation.

Join host Lee-Sean Huang for Design Future Live, an interview show about how the design industry is changing as a discipline and opportunities this creates for the design community. In this episode, we will be talking with Ian Lynam about his book, The Impossibility of Silence: Writing for Designers, Artists & Photographers. This interview was originally livestreamed on Wednesday, March 9, 2022. Watch the video version of the interview here: https://www.aiga.org/inspiration/talks/ian-lynam-design-future-live-with-ian-lynam Buy The Impossibility of Silence on Artbook.com. Use code AIGAMEMBER25 for 25% off: https://www.artbook.com/9789493148390.html  From the publisher of The Impossibility of Silence: Despite the seemingly common expectation that art should be able to speak for itself, creators are often asked to explain the process behind their work, their experiences in their vocation, and, perhaps most dauntingly, the meaning conveyed by any particular piece. Drawing upon his own unique career trajectory across multiple fields as a writer, designer and teacher, Tokyo-based artist Ian Lynam offers readers a variety of approaches to writing about creative fields.Called “the Hunter S. Thompson of design writing,” Lynam uses his industry knowledge and sharp sense of humor to convey his philosophy on writing specifically in a professional creative setting. This volume is not so much a straightforward how-to guide on how to write an artist’s statement as it is an honest meditation on how difficult—and how important—it is for creators to have the facilities to articulate the ethos behind their own work. Lynam encourages readers to think of the blank page as another sort of canvas, a space of potential, a landscape on which an artist may explore themselves and their work farther than they thought possible. Lynam provides both inspirational text as a jumping-off point for readers as well as concrete techniques in terms of craft.

Join us for a new episode of Design Adjacent were we talk sustainability, evolving behaviors, future considerations, and designing recycling. What is the future of sustainable design and how do we implement realistic change? As Head of Sustainability at Pearlfisher, Brandi Parker, challenges designers to find answers to those questions. About Brandi Parker Brandi Parker is Head of Sustainability at Pearlfisher. Sustainability is fundamental to how Pearlfisher operates and creates, and is the foundation of the work of all of their teams. In her role, Brandi challenges Pearlfisher's designers to think about the end game at the start, and encourages their clients not to problem-solve based on ease, but on brand experience and environmental impact. She is revered by both for offering innovation and problem-solving, grounded in practicality, which comes from her many years of experience and expertise in technical realization. She firmly believes that the future of sustainable design does not just come down to materials – and managing waste – but implementing realistic and incremental change through a multi-disciplinary approach. By understanding changing culture, continuing to innovate with cutting-edge materials and processes, and joining this with the power of design, Brandi believes we can help change people’s behavior and encourage more sustainable actions and choices. This is where tangible, positive and long-term change will come from. About AIGA Design Adjacent AIGA Design Adjacent is a monthly podcast series with AIGA’s Executive Director, Bennie F. Johnson, in conversation with industry leaders who are innovating and designing the future. These conversations expand beyond the design community, encompassing industries and areas that intersect with design and shift the ways in which we think about and interact with each other and the world around us. About Bennie F. Johnson Bennie F. Johnson is the Executive Director of AIGA, the professional association for design. Bennie thrives on the connections between marketing, technology, education, and innovation. With experience in strategic and consumer marketing, brand management, and innovation management, he is drawn to opportunities that allow him to lead and create new modes for business engagement. He has broad experience growing brands, businesses, and organizations with a special focus on venture launch and brand relaunch business environments.

This episode is the audio version of Steven McCarthy's article in Dialectic (Volume III, Issue I): "Design Thinking? Thank an Engineer, read by Lee-Sean Huang.  Dialectic is an open access scholarly journal of thought leadership, education and practice in the discipline of visual communication design published by the AIGA Design Educators Community and Michigan Publishing.  DOI: https://doi.org/10.3998/dialectic.14932326.0003.102  Abstract: The methodology of Design Thinking is pervasive across design disciplines, and to some degree business culture, with many crediting its origins to the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design — the “d.school” — at Stanford University. The d.school was preceded however by decades of curricular innovation, studio practice and research by faculty in Stanford’s Department of Mechanical Engineer- ing and Department of Art as they hosted the Joint [Graduate] Program in Design. Three engineering professors in particular developed concepts in “creative engineering,” “visual thinking,” and “concep- tual blockbusting” that will be shown to be foundational to design thinking. Their ideas influenced Stanford design alumnus David Kelley whose company IDEO brought design thinking to corporations and institutions globally. Biography: Professor Steven McCarthy (MFA, Stanford University) has been on the University of Minnesota graphic design faculty since 1998, and recently achieved emeritus status. He taught graphic design at Northern Kentucky University for nine years prior to this. His long-standing interest in theories of design authorship as both scholar and practitioner has led to lectures, exhibits, publications and grant-funded research in a dozen countries. McCarthy’s creative work has been in over 135 juried and invitational exhibitions, and has been awarded inclusion in the AIGA annual and in Graphis Poster. Institutional ‘special collections’ that have acquired McCarthy’s work include these universities and art and design academies: Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Virginia Commonwealth, Minnesota, Cincinnati, Ohio State, the Art Institute of Chicago and Washington (Seattle). He has published written work in Design Issues, Eye, Visible Language, Visual Design Scholarship, The Poster, and Visual Communication among others. His book on the topic of design authorship, The Designer As... Author, Producer, Activist, Entrepreneur, Curator and Collaborator: New Models for Communicating was published in 2013 by BIS Publishers, Amsterdam.  

About Maurice Cherry Maurice is a designer, strategist and podcaster located in Atlanta, GA. He is principal and creative director at Lunch, an award-winning multidisciplinary studio he created in 2008 that helps creative brands craft messages and tell stories for their targeted audiences, including fostering relationships with underrepresented communities. Maurice is also a pioneering digital creator who is most well-known for Revision Path, an award-winning podcast which is the first podcast to be added to the permanent collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. Maurice’s projects and overall design work and advocacy have been recognized by Apple, Adobe, Blavity, NPR, Lifehacker, Design Observer, Entrepreneur, PRINT Magazine, AIGA, the Columbia Journalism Review, Forbes, Fast Company, and many other print and digital outlets. Additionally, Maurice is an educator, and has built curricula and taught courses on web design, web development, email marketing, WordPress, and podcasting for thousands of students over the past ten years. Maurice is a Maryland Institute College of Art 2021 William O. Steinmetz designer in residence, the 2018 recipient of the Steven Heller Prize for Cultural Commentary from AIGA. Maurice holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Morehouse College and a Masters degree in telecommunications management from Keller Graduate School of Management. About AIGA Design Adjacent AIGA Design Adjacent is a monthly podcast series with AIGA’s Executive Director, Bennie F. Johnson, in conversation with industry leaders who are innovating and designing the future. These conversations expand beyond the design community, encompassing industries and areas that intersect with design and shift the ways in which we think about and interact with each other and the world around us. About Bennie F. Johnson Bennie F. Johnson is the Executive Director of AIGA, the professional association for design. Bennie thrives on the connections between marketing, technology, education, and innovation. With experience in strategic and consumer marketing, brand management, and innovation management, he is drawn to opportunities that allow him to lead and create new modes for business engagement. He has broad experience growing brands, businesses, and organizations with a special focus on venture launch and brand relaunch business environments.

About Pek Ponpaet Pek is the founder of Impekable, a digital product studio that helps enterprise and B2B SaaS companies create better products through user experience design. Impekable has designed and created products for X, Alphabet’s moonshot factory, Adobe, Twilio, Pentair, two startups acquired by Palo Alto Networks. Impekable has been recognized as one of America’s fastest growing businesses on the Inc. 5000 list 3 times in a row. Prior to Impekable, Pek designed and developed next generation user interfaces at Accenture Technology Labs’ HCI group, and created interactive experiences for clients including Tesla and USAF at digital agency Roundarch Isobar. Pek loves helping startups and is a product mentor at accelerators and incubators including TechStars, 1871, and Bosch’s Chicago Connectory. He also has a design podcast called What is UX where he interviews design leaders from companies such as Tesla, Netflix and Youtube on the topic of user experience design. He helps enterprises and startups achieve their goals through product strategy, world class user experience design, software engineering and app development. He is also a mentor, helping others by sharing his story and offering advice to those in startups and product development. Pek's podcast: What is UX? https://whatisux.co/  About AIGA Design Adjacent AIGA Design Adjacent is a monthly podcast series with AIGA’s Executive Director, Bennie F. Johnson, in conversation with industry leaders who are innovating and designing the future. These conversations expand beyond the design community, encompassing industries and areas that intersect with design and shift the ways in which we think about and interact with each other and the world around us. About Bennie F. Johnson Bennie F. Johnson is the Executive Director of AIGA, the professional association for design. Bennie thrives on the connections between marketing, technology, education, and innovation. With experience in strategic and consumer marketing, brand management, and innovation management, he is drawn to opportunities that allow him to lead and create new modes for business engagement. He has broad experience growing brands, businesses, and organizations with a special focus on venture launch and brand relaunch business environments.

“Mentorship” is one one of those warm fuzzy words. We know we want it. We know it’s a good thing. But what exactly does mentorship mean, and how do we make it work for our own unique needs? How can we be more effective mentors and mentees?  We explore these questions in this special edition of the AIGA Design Podcast, where we revisit the voices of experts who have spoken to our community over the last few years. We also do a deep dive into AIGA NY’s Mentorship Program to understand what it takes to structure and sustain meaningful professional relationships. https://aiganymentorship.org/   This episode was produced and hosted by Lee-Sean Huang, director of design content and learning. Additional production assistance by Tanvi Bihani. Special thanks to Stacey Panousopoulos. View the full transcript of the episode here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/artllnubjirixo0/AIGA-Podcast-MoreMentorship.txt?dl=0   Here are all of the guest voices you will hear on the show (in order of first appearance): Julia Lamm, PwC Meaghan Dee, AIGA DEC / Virginia Tech Gaby Hernandez, AIGA DEC and DEI / University of Arkansas Art Taylor, BBB Wise Giving Alliance Jane Kim, AIGA NY / Salesforce Caspar Lam, AIGA NY / Synoptic Office Janine Toro, AIGA NY / Instrument Michael Bierut, AIGA Medalist / Pentagram Kaleena Sales, AIGA DEC / Tennessee State University, Neeta Verma, University of Notre Dame Pek Pongpaet, Impekable Robert Smith, Think Smith Andy Budd, design founder and advisor David Asari, AIGA SF / California College of the Arts Ram Castillo, designer, author, advisor

Cheryl Heller is a leader, designer, scholar, business strategist and an author. Her experience spans corporate, philanthropic, nonprofit, and academic worlds, and in each role and organization, she has created and grown groundbreaking programs. She founded two companies and created successful new programs at the School of Visual Arts in New York and Arizona State University. She has taught creativity to leaders around the world, helped grow clients’ businesses from small regional enterprises to multi-billion global market leaders, launched category-redefining divisions and products, reinvigorated cultures, and designed strategies for hundreds of successful entrepreneurs. About Cheryl Heller Cheryl Heller is a leader, designer, scholar, business strategist and an author. Her experience spans corporate, philanthropic, nonprofit, and academic worlds, and in each role and organization, she has created and grown groundbreaking programs. She founded two companies and created successful new programs at the School of Visual Arts in New York and Arizona State University.  She has taught creativity to leaders around the world, including the USA, UK, Kenya, Mexico, Ghana, Sierra  Leone, India, China and South Korea. She has helped grow clients’ businesses from small regional enterprises to multi-billion global market leaders, launched category-redefining divisions and products, reinvigorated cultures, and designed strategies for hundreds of successful entrepreneurs. Cheryl’s most recent position was ASU’s Director of Design Integration and Professor of Practice in Innovation U, she launched the first transdisciplinary STEM MS program in innovation and venture development, relaunched and scaled a transdisciplinary undergrad program, and developed curriculum for an engineering design program. Prior to joining ASU, Cheryl launched and chaired the first STEM master’s program in Design for Social Innovation at the School of Visual Arts in New York. She has also led a multi-year project using design to support youth as they age out of foster care and she recently completed her doctoral research on the  performative role that language plays in our ability to design for social equity. And, in 2014, Cheryl was awarded the AIGA Medal for her contribution to the field of design: “Recognized for deftly embodying the many dimensions of communication design and for inspiring and guiding people and organizations to use design for social innovation as a strategic tool to improve the human experience.” About AIGA Design Adjacent AIGA Design Adjacent is a monthly podcast series with AIGA’s Executive Director, Bennie F. Johnson, in conversation with industry leaders who are innovating and designing the future. These conversations expand beyond the design community, encompassing industries and areas that intersect with design and shift the ways in which we think about and interact with each other and the world around us. About Bennie F. Johnson Bennie F. Johnson is the Executive Director of AIGA, the professional association for design. Bennie thrives on the connections between marketing, technology, education, and innovation. With experience in strategic and consumer marketing, brand management, and innovation management, he is drawn to opportunities that allow him to lead and create new modes for business engagement. He has broad experience growing brands, businesses, and organizations with a special focus on venture launch and brand relaunch business environments.