Ashley Arhart

Ashley Arhart is a partner at Arhart Creative. Her expertise covers retail brand strategy, creative and strategic development, and conceptualization of consumer-centric experiences for an array of clients in apparel, consumer products, general merchandise, health care, home furnishings, food service, manufacturing, and commercial real estate. Arhart has over 16 years of experience providing creative leadership in both corporate and consultative capacities, including the role of co-Creative Director of The Retail Group in Seattle. As Director of Creative Design and Visual Merchandising at Eddie Bauer, Inc., she led all creative conceptualization and execution for the brand's apparel, non-apparel, home, outlet and licensing divisions, to include go-to-market strategy, visual merchandising, in-store marketing, environmental graphics, fixturing, packaging and labeling, direct mail, and all brand collateral. She has driven creative strategy and design for a variety of clients, including Baskin Robbins, Boston Market, The Great Indoors, The Home Depot, Hewlett Packard, Kids R Us, Nike, Radio Shack, Safeway, Sears, Target, Tahitian Noni and Whirlpool. Arhart holds a BS in Advertising from the University of Texas in Austin.
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David Bates

David Bates has been in the design business for 20 years. The majority of his career has been spent at Seattle-based Hornall Anderson Design Works.

Bates co-founded BC Design in 1998 where he serviced an impressive list of companies, Adidas, Nike, MTV Networks and Starbucks and Target before returning to Hornall Anderson Design Works in late 2004. At Hornall Anderson, he has played a valuable team role in a variety of projects, including brand identity development, packaging, print collateral and three-dimensional environmental graphics.

His work has been published in leading design magazines including Communication Arts, the Type Directors Club, Graphics and Print Magazine.
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Gregory Beck

Gregory Beck, AIA, is a New York-based architect specializing in venues that combine narrative content and media technology. Recent projects include a retail environment for CNN at the Time Warner Center in Manhattan, and studios for the Brand Experience Lab, a research consultancy in Soho, New York. He is currently developing Here's Boston, a visitor film attraction in historic Faneuil Hall Marketplace.

Beck is the former director of architecture for Sony New Technologies, where he created interactive environments for Metreon, the urban entertainment center in San Francisco. He designed and managed the construction of the $60M motion simulation and IMAX theater attraction at Luxor Las Vegas. Beck has developed retail and brand attractions for clients including Swatch, the People Magazine Group, and Lockheed Martin.
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Kurt Bigenho

Kurt Bigenho is an independent Creative Director with over ten years of experience helping organizations align brand strategy and user experience. He is a strong consumer advocate, and creates designs that are clean, clear, elegant, and easy to use. Bigenho's work has received notice in Wired, NPR, Miami Herald, Artnet, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Weekly, Communication Arts, as well as countless blogs. He holds a degree in Architecture from UC Berkeley.
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Walter Herbst

Walter Herbst is chairman and founding partner of Herbst LaZar Bell Inc., the largest independently owned design firm in the country. Founded in 1962, HLB is recognized as "Experts in the Process of Product Development." Herbst holds over 85 patents in hardware, housewares, and medical products. He is listed in "Who's Who of American Inventors," is a frequent contributor of articles in various trade journals, and is a co-author of the PDMA Handbook of Product Development, which has become the industry standard. Herbst was recognized by Business Week magazine and the Industrial Design Society of America as one of the "Best of the Decade" for his design work with the Gillette Company.

Herbst is on the faculty of Northwestern University, where he serves as the Director of the Master of Product Development program and is a clinical professor in the mechanical engineering department of Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. He also serves as a clinical professor in the Marketing Department at Northwestern's Kellogg Graduate School of Management. Herbst holds a BFA in Industrial Design, University of Illinois, and an MBA, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.
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Tin-Man Lau

Tin-Man Lau is originally from Hong Kong and is a recognized global resource for industrial design projects. Lau worked for the Taiwan Kolin Co., Ltd. (a division of Mitsubishi) as an assistant engineer before his graduate study. In 1986, he joined the faculty at Auburn University, Alabama, where he is a full professor, teaching both undergraduate and graduate design courses as well as CAD in the Department of Industrial Design. Lau is also an independent design consultant specializing in developing consumer products. During his tenure at Auburn, he has directed design projects sponsored by NASA, Brother International, DOE, Frigidaire, and Gametime. He also participated in design research projects funded by IBM, SeikoMead, and NASA. Lau earned his BS in Industrial Design from the National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, and his MA in Industrial Design from Ohio State University.
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Erin Liman

Erin Liman is a user experience strategist with 16 years of strategic design and product development experience in enterprise and consumer software, e-commerce, hardware, hospitality, retail and new media industries. Passionate about human-centered design, she designs compelling, effective, and satisfying user experiences based on an understanding of articulated and unarticulated needs in context. Liman brings a holistic approach, crafting the experience from end-to-end to ensure products, services, branding, web presence, and marketing messages are aligned to deliver a consistently satisfying experience.

Liman has directed user experience projects for numerous companies including SAP, PeopleSoft, PointCast, Omni Hotels, and Lotus Development, where she secured a patent that was later acquired by IBM. She is a member of the Bay Area special interest group for Computer-Human Interaction, the Bay Area Association for Psychological Type and the World Future Society. Liman earned an MBA from F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College.
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Carl Mazer

Carl Mazer has over 20 years of experience in branding, design, lettering and illustration. Formerly a design director at Landor Associates, Mazer has been working independently since 1999. Using his strategy, design, illustration and lettering skills, he has created branding solutions for such clients as Pizza Hut, PepsiCo, Taco Bell, Publix, Javo, Sapias, Gifts.com, Wacom Technologies, Healthline, Apple Computer, and Florida State Tourism, among others. Mazer has taught at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco and has guest lectured at the University of San Francisco on branding and design issues. Originally from the East Coast, he is a graduate of Parsons School of Design in New York, and has studied at L'Ecole Cantonale des Beaux Arts, in Lausanne, Switzerland.
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Jeneanne Rae

Jeneanne Rae is a nationally-renowned thought leader on innovation management and design strategy. She is President and Co-Founder of Peer Insight, a research and consulting firm focused on services innovation and customer experience design. She has worked with dozens of leading companies to establish innovation programs and organizational development strategies that have resulted in millions of dollars of new revenue streams and profitable growth. In acknowledgement of her tremendous talent and knowledge, Rae has been formally recognized as one of the "Magnificent Seven Innovation Gurus" in 2005 by BusinessWeek. Described as the "Doyenne of Service Innovation," Rae also teaches at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, where she is an adjunct professor of Marketing in the MBA Program. Rae forged her understanding of design, innovation, and business as a senior management member of IDEO, the leading design consultancy. She holds a B.S. with concentrations in Marketing and Finance from the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia and received her MBA from Harvard Business School.
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Ken Raymond

Ken Raymond is a seasoned entrepreneur and designer practicing in the architectural community. He was founder and managing partner of the boutique architectural design firm RBG in San Francisco, garnering national recognition for corporate tenant, hospitality, and historical restoration work, such as President Richard M. Nixon's birthplace. His work is published in professional magazines such as Interior Design, Architectural Record, and various business school textbooks.

Branching off from the architectural industry in the early 90's, Raymond was an early participant in the World Wide Web as a partner in Novo Media, an interactive web services company with Fortune 100 clients, subsequently bought out by Bcom3, an international ad agency. Most recently, Raymond has been the managing director of a $100 million capital development division of an international non-profit organization and managing partner of a regional development company. He did his undergraduate work at Principia College, and advanced work at the University of California, Berkeley.
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Sunita Richardson

Sunita Richardson is Director of Strategy for Hornall Anderson, where she provides strategic analysis and direction for projects spanning naming, brand strategy, brand voice, brand architecture, brand positioning, and messaging. Her recent work has included projects for Intel, T-Mobile, PayPal, Microsoft, Vulcan Capital, Schnitzer West, Frito Lay, Nintendo, Hasbro, Kagome and Talking Rain. Her naming experience includes naming for multiple T-Mobile handsets, various new brand ventures, Safeco’s retail store, and Getty Images’ services and programs. Prior to joining Hornall Anderson, Richardson managed large-scale creative and interactive campaigns for Getty Images and Martini Design. Her experience covers product naming, design and development of print and collateral, as well as interactive games and global promotions. In her role with Getty Images, she was responsible for key initiatives, including a company-wide re-brand, from conceptual development to launch. Richardson holds undergraduate degrees in Ecology and Marketing from Indiana University, and a Masters in Marine Affairs from the University of Washington. Her graduate work specialized in the protection of endangered species within project design.
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