Gather: Words to the Wise

Meg Lewis is a Freelance designer, comedian, and performer specializing in creating positive emotional connections between happy companies and their audience through design, podcasts, educational videos, classes, and more! Her clients include Slack, Dropbox, VICE, Bloomingdale’s, VOX, Target, Condé Nast, BuzzFeed, & more!

Zipeng Zhu is a Chinese-born designer, art director, illustrator and animator in New York City who wants to make everyday a razzle-dazzle musical. His clients include Apple, Adidas, Adobe, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Twitter, Netflix, New York Times, Harry’s, Viacom, The New Yorker, Fox, Away, Animal Planet, CNN, MTV, Refinery29, Chobani, and Samsung. He was one of the Art Directors Club Young Guns 13 winners and has been recognized as Print magazine’s New Visual Artist and The One Show Young Ones. His work has been exhibited all over the world including New York, Barcelona, Dubai, Mumbai, Shanghai and other major museums and institutions. Now he runs his creative practice Dazzle Studio and gift shop Dazzle Supply to push dazzle to the next level.

David Jon Walker, MFA is a Professor of Art in Graphic and Web Design at Austin Peay State University and owner of Rhealistic Design Group. Active locally and nationally in the community, Mr. Walker works with political candidates, PACs, non-profits, governmental entities, and varying businesses lending his talents to their marketing efforts to increase awareness and further campaigns. Political clients range from Democratic US Representative races, TN State Senate and House race, local Judgeships, Mayoral races, City Council races and more. Such non-political clients include the Tennessee Governor’s Office, Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, Middle Tennessee State University, Ohio State University Tennessee State University, Tougaloo College, the University of Houston, the University of Memphis, The Links, Incorporated, National Alliance of Black School Educators, Operation Stand Down of TN, The Dixon Gallery and Gardens, the TN Power Together Group (TN Women’s March).

Frankie Ratford is a full time adventurer obsessed with design, travel and business. She heads up The Design Kids and spends her spare time coaching her favourite Graphic Design businesses across the globe.

Naresh Ramchandani is a writer, partner at Pentagram and co-founder of environmental non-profit Do The Green Thing.

Manchester based Vicky Carr is a an Associate Lecturer at the University of Salford, and co-founder of Textbook Studio. Soon after graduating she founded Textbook, a design studio specialising in print projects, alongside fellow designers John Newton and Chris Shearston. Working out of Manchester’s highly collaborative shared workspace The Engine House, Textbook have built a reputation for work that employs handmade and low-fi techniques, with clients ranging from a local brewery to a socially focused research group.

Mitch Paone is a Partner & Creative Director at DIA, a New York and Geneva based creative studio specialising in kinetic identity systems, graphic design and typography. Beyond his work with DIA, Mitch is a performing jazz pianist, composer, type designer, lecturer & educator.

Maddi is a Strategist at Made Thought, and Co-Founder at ‘Not Only — But Also’, a platform that sheds light on the other roles in the creative industry, past Graphic Designer, in order to open up conversations and create new opportunities that wouldn’t have existed otherwise. It’s for young creatives who don’t yet know the lay of the land or who don’t quite know where they fit.

Mitch Goldstein is a designer, artist, and educator based in Rochester, NY.