Speakers
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Jen Myers
Jen Myers
Designer, Developer, TeacherJen Myers is a web designer, UI developer and instructor at Dev Bootcamp in Chicago. She established and organized the beginner coder education program Girl Develop It Columbus in Ohio and regularly speaks about topics related to design, education and diversity in the technology field. She likes good film, comic books and frequently changing her hair color.
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Elle Luna
Elle Luna
Designer & ArtistElle Luna is a designer and artist in San Francisco who works with startups to bring beautiful, compelling user experiences to life through product, brand and storytelling. She is recognized as one of Silicon Valley's leading women designers by Fast Company, in part thanks to her work with The Designer Fund & her numerous talks on humanizing brands.
She recently launched Mailbox, a mobile-first email app for the iPhone, which is being heralded in the press as "The Best Email Management App You'll Ever Use." Prior to working with startups, Elle worked at IDEO. Her work includes re-imagining the sponsorship strategy for Brazil's 2014 World Cup, redesigning Target's video game buying experience & building a new US government agency as a part of Obama's Wall Street Reform Act.
When she's not designing, you can find Elle promoting design through AIGA, where she sat on the board of directors for three years, writing for Design Observer, and making a big mess in her studio, where she gets paint on all of her clothes and recently installed an indoor swing.
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Rob Loukotka
Rob Loukotka
DesignerRob is an artist, graphic designer, woodworker, optimist, and serial risk taker. The Fringe Focus workshop in Chicago is Rob's visual arts playground complete with a laser cutter, CNC router, power tools, and a literal metric ton of screen prints.
Rob's ACME Corporation poster is the second most successful graphic design project ever on Kickstarter after raising over $105,000. Rob's artwork can be found in galleries like Gallery1988 in Los Angeles, and Bottleneck Gallery in Brooklyn. Fringe Focus has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Wired, and probably some other places too.
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Max Shapiro
Max Shapiro
Director of Experience StrategyMax is currently a Director at VSA Partners in Chicago where he works closely with designers, writers and developers to create design strategy. Prior to VSA he worked at Ogilvy and SapientNitro. His list of clients includes IBM, John Deere, SC Johnson, Unilever, Hyatt, and Forrester.
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Susan Betteridge
Susan Betteridge
Group Creative Director, McGarry BowenSusan is a writer and a lover of ideas. She currently fosters integrated advertising campaigns that both build brands and drive activation as a Group Creative Director at McGarry Bowen.
Before joining McGarry Bowen, Susan was an SVP Creative Director at DraftFCB. Throughout her career she has created campaigns for Disney, Cox Communications, State Farm Insurance, Volkswagen, Kraft, Jim Beam, Kmart and more.
Susan is a graduate of Michigan State University and has served as a judge for the Addys and NSAC AAF student competition. In her free time she loves skiing, further defining the term "foodie" and running with her Weimaraner named Gunther.
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Lisa Congdon
Lisa Congdon
Illustrator & Fine ArtistIllustrator Lisa Congdon is best known for her colorful paintings and collages. Her vast catalog of work includes illustrations for The Obama Campaign, Chronicle Books, Land of Nod, Harper Collins Publishing, and Simon & Schuster, among many others. Lisa is also known for her hand-lettering and pattern design, and keeps a popular daily blog of her work called "Today is Going to be Awesome." She lives and works in Oakland, California. Visit her website at www.lisacongdon.com and follow her on Twitter at @lisacongdon
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Travis Life
Travis Life
LawyerTravis Life, founder of Life Law Office, is a Chicago-based entertainment attorney who holds various chair-level positions with the Chicago and American Bar Associations, including Membership Chairperson of the American Bar Association Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries. He holds over 10 years’ experience assisting music professionals with contracts, licensing, business formation, intellectual property and other legal counseling. Travis Life has organized many successful art businesses, such as record labels, music marketing companies, film production companies, online entertainment companies, music promotion corporations and music management companies. He is frequently asked to speak at local art events on how to own and manage a successful art business.
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Mare Swallow
Mare Swallow
Speaker, Consultant, AuthorMarianna ("Mare") Swallow is a professional speaker, corporate trainer, and founder of the Chicago Writers Conference. She hosts workshops throughout the year, and offers private coaching to her clients. Learn more at mariannaswallow.com or chicagowritersconference.org.
Mare's talk will address how you represent yourself – and why it matters no matter how good or talented you are. "Creative" does not mean "casual" or "sloppy"–let's button it up a bit!
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Max Temkin
Max Temkin
Designer & GamerMax Temkin is a designer from Chicago, Il. He works for good causes like Obama for America and makes the games Cards Against Humanity and Humans vs. Zombies. He recently opened a co-working space in Logan Square for cool people only. The Atlantic called him, "just some guy."
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Ann Friedman
Ann Friedman
Editor & WriterAnn Friedman is a magazine journalist who loves the internet. She used to be the executive editor of GOOD, and now she's a politics columnist for New York magazine's website. In 2012, she co-founded a magazined called Tomorrow with her former GOOD colleagues. She curates the work of women journalists at LadyJournos!, makes hand-drawn pie charts for The Hairpin, and dispenses animated advice for journalists at the Columbia Journalism Review. In July 2012, CJR named her one of 20 women to watch. Look for her work in The New Republic, NewYorker.com, Rolling Stone, Time Out Chicago, The Gentlewoman, The American Prospect, The Baffler, TheAtlantic.com, Refinery29, Bookforum, and on her personal site, annfriedman.com. Follow her @annfriedman.
Photo credit: Stephanie Gonot
