Tony Fish
Tony Fish has been building hi-tech companies since his first IPO (OFEX) in 1994. He has an excellent grasp of strategic and economic issues relating to businesses, their growth and survival. Mobile Web 2.0: The Innovator's Guide to Developing and Marketing Next Generation Wireless/Mobile Applications is the second book he has co-written and provides a detailed strategic analysis of the changing relationships in mobile, media and communications as the market moves to open source. The book focuses on the advent of user-generated content and how this will affect the established economic models and force change from supply:demand to create:consume.

Trends: What trends will impact the move to Mobile Web 2.0?
Tony discusses how the seven principles of Web 2.0 extend to mobile devices. He addresses the pitfalls and opportunities in developing Mobile Web applications and in leveraging user-generated content relating to mobile devices. He also discusses the consumer trends both from a historical context and as they apply to the mobile web.

Grant Gordon
Grant Gordon is Creative Director of Key Gordon Communications. Copywriter by trade, Grant worked at several Toronto and Montreal ad agencies before realizing that selling processed food, rapacious investments and SUVs was a lousy way to earn a living. After a brief hiatus from advertising, Grant hooked up with environmentalist Michael de Pencier and created Key Gordon—a communications firm servicing sustainable products and services. Since founding Key Gordon, Grant has stuck to the motto ‘branding the good guys.’ Clients range from organic food and water purification to alternative energy and eco investing.

Trends: How do you tell an entire country to F—Off and get away with it?
Last winter amidst the warmest temperatures on record, a little advertising firm set out to create a movement to fight global warming. The team distilled a campaign to two simple words and an eye-popping logo. Result? The campaign was featured on virtually every newscast in the country. Grant tells the story of FLICK OFF.

Garrick Hamm
Garrick Hamm is Creative Partner at UK design consultancy Williams Murray Hamm. The ten-year business has been named ‘Design Agency of the Year’ twice, and is currently ranked Number 1 in the UK Design Week Creative Survey and the DBA Design Effectiveness Table. WMH work includes branded packaging, identity, multimedia, retail and exhibition both in the UK and for international markets. A winner of numerous design awards, including 2 Grand Prix winners at DBA, Garrick has been profiled in the Financial Times and Communication Arts, and he recently joined industry figures to celebrate British design at Buckingham Palace and had drinks with the Queen.

Inspirations: How do I learn to stop worrying and start loving ideas?
Williams Murray Hamm doesn’t copy; it innovates. Its tagline, Creating Difference, is the core idea behind the company’s design thinking. Garrick talks about his company’s often radical reinventions of food brands and packaging, all of which are completely original, simple and boast incredible success rates.

Dale Hart
Dale is Partner and Creative Director at Methodologie. For more than two decades, he has turned business strategies into design solutions for companies like Kraft Foods, The Coca-Cola Company, Jim Beam, Boeing, Washington Mutual and Xbox. Dale believes in keeping the energy high and the thinking fresh. His keen eye, good humour and passion ensure solutions that stand out for their originality, clarity and effectiveness. Dale frequently speaks on all things design for organizations such as the American Association of Museums, the Smithsonian, the International Association of Fundraising Professionals and Cornish College of the Arts.

Trends: Are you communicating your clients’ efforts in sustainability in the most effective ways possible?
Many organizations have invested in Corporate Social Responsibility for all the right reasons. Dale Hart shares practical tips on how to help your clients infuse sustainability into their communications to align more directly with their core brand values and communicate this effectively.

Grant McCracken
Grant McCracken holds a PhD from the University of Chicago in cultural anthropology. He is the author of Culture and Consumption I, Plenitude, Big Hair, Culture and Consumption II: Markets, Meaning, and Brand Management, The Long Interview, Flock and Flow and the soon to be published Transforming selves. He has been the director of the Institute of Contemporary Culture at the Royal Ontario Museum, a senior lecturer at the Harvard Business School, a Visiting Scholar at the University of Cambridge and he is now a Research Affiliate at MIT. He lives just outside New York City with his wife and cat.

Keynote: How does culture matter for designers?
The world of branding, innovation and design is now rocked by new development. Celebrity culture, social networking, new methods of marketing, chimera like Second Life, sure bets like Facebook, we are dealing with a world in flux. Grant McCracken offers an anthropological map of what our culture is and how to survive as a designer within it.

Abbott Miller
In 1989 Abbott Miller founded the multidisciplinary studio Design/Writing/Research where, in collaboration with Ellen Lupton, he pioneered the concept of “designer as author” undertaking projects in which content and form are developed in a symbiotic relationship. He joined Pentagram’s New York office as a partner in 1999. At Pentagram he leads a team designing books, magazines, identities, exhibitions and creating editorial projects. Abbott—together with Ellen Lupton—was awarded the first Chrysler Award for Innovation in Design. He is a contributing editor of Eye magazine and co-author of four books and soon to be published Open Book, a study of his collaborations with such artists as Yoko Ono, Twyla Tharp and Philip Glass and clients such as Harley-Davidson and Steuben.

Debbie Millman
Debbie Millman is a partner at the international brand consultancy Sterling Brands, where she has designed, as she states in her bio, “some things she is really proud of and lots of products that you have likely purchased in a big supermarket.” Debbie writes a column for Print Magazine and contributes regularly to the design blog Speak Up. She is writing two books: the first, How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer will be published in October; the second, Essential Principles of Graphic Design is being published in 2008. She teaches at the School of Visual Arts and produces a weekly Internet talk show, Design Matters.

Inspirations: What is creative leadership?
We are now living in what Business Week calls a “creative economy.” However, more than ever before, design will be called upon to deliver a return on investment. How can you truly quantify your talent and develop strategic, competitive intelligence? How can you quantify differ- entiation in a world fi lled with design firms, creative strategists and brand gurus? Debbie Millman explains how to develop design leadership in a world of constant innovation; how to create a meaningful philosophy to guide your practice; how to craft a design strategy to help develop more powerful design solutions; how to create more persuasive, honest and effective design presentations and how to speak about design in the “real” world with more success.

Stefan Sagmeister
Sagmeister, a native of Austria, received his MFA in graphic design from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and, as a Fulbright Scholar, a master’s degree from Pratt Institute in New York. He formed the New York based Sagmeister Inc. in 1993 and has since designed graphics and packaging for the Rolling Stones, David Byrne, Lou Reed, Aerosmith and Pat Metheny. His work has been nominated four times for the Grammies and has won most international design awards. In 2001 a monograph about his work titled Sagmeister: Made You Look was published by Booth-Clibborn editions.

Keynote: What things I have learned in my life so far?
Astonishingly, Stefan Sagmeister has only learned 20 or so things in his life so far. But he did manage to publish these personal maxims all over the world: as billboards, projections, light-boxes, magazine spreads, annual report covers and, recently, as giant inflatable monkeys. Stefan throws his diary, a lot of design and a little art together with a pinch of psychology and a dash of happiness into a blender and pushes the button. It tastes yummy.

James Victore
James Victore is a self-taught independent artist and designer. His clients include Moet & Chandon, Aveda, Apple, The New York Times and The School of Visual Arts. Currently, James is designing a limited edition plate for Design Within Reach, as well as a line of hand-painted surfboards. Awards include an Emmy for television animation, a Gold medal from the Broadcast Designers Association and the Grand Prix from the Brno Biennale. His designs are in the permanent collections of the Palais du Louvre and the Library of Congress. Recently a book of his work was published in China. He teaches graphic design at The School of Visual Arts in New York City.

Inspirations: Why has graphic design become so damn boring?
Creating controversy whenever he speaks, James’ presentation will not be for the faint of heart. As he mentions in a 2006 interview in Step Inside Magazine, “Swearing for me is like punctuation.” But his work and ideas are as inspiring as they are uncompromising. As Sean Adams writes in the Step interview, “Never follow James Victore as a guest speaker. I made this mistake once, and I felt like Mister Rogers next to Che Guevara. James tran- scends the easy classifi cation of designer. He is an unrepentant communicator and activist. James clarifi es the idea of personal vision and perspective, and reminds us of the importance of communication in a pluralistic society.”

Jenn + Ken Visocky O’Grady
Jenn + Ken Visocky O’Grady cofounded Enspace, a creative thinktank where designers, writers, marketers and even the occasional historian collaborate to enhance communication. Aspiring design evangelists, Jenn + Ken have traveled North America jurying competitions and presenting. They also spin daily chalk talks on the value of design in the classroom though there, they practise solo—Jenn at Cleveland State U, Ken at Kent State U. A Designer's Research Manual: Succeed in Design by Knowing Your Clients and What They Really Need is their first book. They are currently working on The Information Design Handbook, due for release in 2008.

Strategies: What is research-driven design?
Businesses recognize now more than ever how important design is to financial success. However, clients are looking for assurances that their communications dollars will be spent wisely. Incorporating research into the creative process, documenting findings and articulating their value to clients is key. Jenn and Ken Visocky O’Grady explore a variety of frameworks and illustrate them with international case studies.

Alex White
Alex W. White, managing director of The Alexander W. White Consultancy, works with advertising and editorial art directors as well as editors and advertisers to guide them to more effective design for their targets. He is author of Advertising Design and Typography, Thinking in Type: The Practical Philosophy of Typography and The Elements of Graphic Design: Space, Unity, Page Architecture, and Type, all from Allworth Press. He teaches at Parsons The New School of Design in New York City.

Strategies: Do targets want our messages?
Not just no, hell no! We have to sell every single message. How do we do that? By revealing their relevance to our targets, giving them stopping power and making them interesting. Client's and colleague’s whim often contributes to a message's diminished impact. Is there a better way to define quality in a design, and can we get those around us to buy into it? Alex helps you decide.

Patrick Whitney

Patrick Whitney is Director of the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology and a Professor of Design. He has published and lectured throughout the world about how to make technological innovations more humane, the link between design and business strategy and methods of designing interactive communications and products. He has consulted corporations including Aetna, McDonald’s and Texas Instruments, and has conducted private education programs for executives in the US, Europe and Asia.

Keynote: How do we adapt to the shift from a push to a pull economy?
The balance of power has shifted from producers to consumers, who have unprecedented choices in communications, products and services enabled. Companies need design to respond to the new balance of power and succeed in this new environment. Patrick discusses the processes and frameworks that help identify the unarticulated needs of users and create related business strategies.

© Copyright 2007 The Association of Registered Graphic Designers of Ontario

This collection was produced with financial assistance from Canada's Digital Collections Initiative, Industry Canada.