It is with much gratitude and admiration that we celebrate the jury alumni members of the Core77 Design Awards.
Jeni is an experience design strategist based in New York City. Born and raised in Australia, she established a design business at the age of 24, which thrived in Australia and Canada before she embarked on a new journey in New York City a decade ago.
Driven by a keen interest in strategic decision-making, Jeni transitioned into design and research roles within consultancy and in-house settings. Her experience encompasses both Customer Experience (CX) and Employee Experience (EX), where she has spearheaded strategic design initiatives and digital transformation programs across various industries. Her portfolio boasts an array of national and global brands, including Samsung, Meta, Square, IKEA, AIG, Better.com, and KraftHeinz, among others.
In January 2023, fueled by her entrepreneurial spirit, she founded Peoplemade LLC, a Service Design and UX Research consultancy.
Outside of work, Jeni finds joy in taking her dog on long walks and hosting dinner parties featuring seasonal produce sourced from farmers' markets.
Jeni is an experience design strategist based in New York City. Born and raised in Australia, she established a design business at the age of 24, which thrived in Australia and Canada before she embarked on a new journey in New York City a decade ago.
Driven by a keen interest in strategic decision-making, Jeni transitioned into design and research roles within consultancy and in-house settings. Her experience encompasses both Customer Experience (CX) and Employee Experience (EX), where she has spearheaded strategic design initiatives and digital transformation programs across various industries. Her portfolio boasts an array of national and global brands, including Samsung, Meta, Square, IKEA, AIG, Better.com, and KraftHeinz, among others.
In January 2023, fueled by her entrepreneurial spirit, she founded Peoplemade LLC, a Service Design and UX Research consultancy.
Outside of work, Jeni finds joy in taking her dog on long walks and hosting dinner parties featuring seasonal produce sourced from farmers' markets.
Anton Ljunggren is a Director of Global Design and Innovation at PepsiCo where he works on building new businesses to unlock behavior change in health and environmental sustainability. Prior to PepsiCo Anton was the head of design at, clean energy startup, BioLite, bringing electricity, lighting and clean air cooking to hundreds of thousands of users in emerging markets. He also worked at frog and Smart Design where he designed products and experiences for companies including Cisco, Disney, Google, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Nike, Panasonic and Skype. His work has garnered global recognition winning awards including from CES, Core77, FastCo, IDSA, IF, Spark and Red Dot.
Jeff has over 35 years of experience in editorial, color correction, VFX, virtual, and augmented reality. He has worked on over 100 films and numerous award-winning productions including: Titanic, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Fifth Element, Avengers, Spiderman, Harry Potter, and Armageddon.
Jeff has worked as part of the creative, production, and post-production teams for numerous companies including Disney, Dreamworks Animation, Marvel, Sony, Warner Bros., Digital Domain, Universal, and New Line. Jeff has also worked on virtual reality projects for the NFL, NBA, and MLB. He is an expert at creating workflows for media projects.
Jeff also worked for Autodesk and was part of Flame, Smoke, and Lustre product launches. He has lectured for universities all over the world speaking about post-production and virtual reality.
Having moved 8 times to 8 different states before the age of 17, Lesley learned at a young age to embrace change, optimism and the cultures of many. This influenced her path as an architect and interior designer to take a wide angle view and operate as generalist in a seemingly very specific world. She designs across higher education, science & technology and corporate markets, ultimately blending influences of each sector into the next. This blurring helps her bring clients bold ideas deeply rooted in place and project understanding. Lesley is the glue that holds complex teams together by bringing nationally recognized, award winning design leadership, and an empathetic, hands on approach.
Lesley is a frequent guest speaker and critic at local universities. She is also a dedicated mentor to many young women, helping them develop careers while giving her a deeper look into their cultures. Lesley also has a deep love for art and travels the world with her family drawing and painting; Both of her children held paint brushes before the ever holding a pencil.
Gretchen spent the first part of her career in design consulting for firms like frog, Cooper, and LUNAR. Currently, she is head of design at PG&E, California’s largest energy company where she’s helping to build the energy company of the future. Previously, she led the design of the hardware and software of a next-generation surgical system and was VP of Product at GreatSchools.org.
Gretchen is a frequent speaker on design topics including the changing role of design in the age of artificial intelligence and bridging physical and digital design. Gretchen has also taught design methods and design thinking in a variety of settings including Stanford and UC Berkeley.
Her past clients include Virgin Records, Samsung, Johnson & Johnson, and Starbucks. Gretchen is a Bay Area native who left only long enough to get a bachelor’s degree from Harvard in History & Literature.
Paul Gardien is Vice President of Philips Design and as member of the Philips Design Board responsible for both the strategic development of the global design function and the Design Research & Innovation program. In his strategy role, he has been instrumental in transforming Philips Design from a service unit into a global function. The Design Research & Innovation program creates new design competences, future visions and new propositions for Philips and has won numerous awards. The drive in the program is to create meaningful and relevant propositions based on a solid understanding of how these will evolve in the future, while ensuring that the propositions land in the various businesses increasing their hit rate of innovation.
Paul has spent his entire professional career at Philips Design, working in many different areas ranging from product-, multimedia- and internet design, to different management and development functions. He is and has been a member of various boards, juried in multiple renowned design competitions. He’s also a frequent speaker at international design and innovation conferences. Paul studied industrial design engineering at the Delft University of Technology and holds a PhD in Design Innovation from the Eindhoven University of Technology.
Pichaya Puttorngul is an independent industrial designer from Bangkok, Thailand. A hands-on practitioner with diverse experiences in Design Innovations, Material Experimentations, and Traditional Crafts.
Through 18 years of industrial design experience, Pichaya collaborated with global and local innovators realising their visions for a positive future, producing award-winning designs with aspirations in longevity, sustainability, and beauty.
Prior to his permanency in Bangkok, Pichaya was the design director of Fuseproject New York
Yesim Kunter is a recognized play expert and a creative strategist who understands the behavior of people to create new experiences and define new opportunities.
As a consultant; develops “playful” experiences for Fortune 500 Companies, Universities, and Communities by applying ‘Play Philosophy’ to products, environments, communities, and culture creation as well as market research with future scoping; She has facilitated numerous successful ‘PlaytoInnovate® Workshops’ in training organizations with diverse backgrounds from kids to professionals for leveraging Creative Thinking and held talks at prestigious conferences.
Previous to her consultancy she had worked for Toys R Us, Lego, and Hasbro as a play futurist.
Mike currently serves as Director of Product Design at Playground Global, which is a venture investment firm with an added studio of product development and technical experts. Here he blends his consulting, product design, and entrepreneurship experience to help aspiring hardware startup companies create great products and strong businesses. Prior to joining Playground, Mike worked for Google where he built a team and managed the product design and mechanical engineering efforts first with Android and the Nexus line of products and then adding projects with Chrome and Chromecast. Before that, Mike led product design efforts for startups, created new products and businesses at Lunar Design, and ran his own consulting practice. Through these experiences, he has helped develop products across industries and for many clients such as Apple, Danger, HP, Motorola, and SanDisk.
Mike first realized his passion for designing and inventing products while earning his degree in the Product Design program at Stanford. He later went on to fuel his interest in business and entrepreneurship by obtaining an MBA at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Mike grew up in Montana, and he loves to return to his home state for skiing, fishing, and simply taking in the Big Sky.
Archie Lee Coates IV is a co-founder and partner at PLAYLAB, INC., a New York based creative studio that uses art, architecture, and graphic design to initiate ideas around themes that interest them. Past projects include 30' inflatable flowers for Midtown Manhattan, a re-brand of America for SFMOMA and a compilation of all the times Joaquin Phoenix has walked in his films, titled Walking Phoenix. In 2011, he co-founded the quarterly publication CLOG, and in 2010 he co-founded + POOL, an initiative to build the world’s first water-filtering floating pool in New York with Family New York. Archie is also a thesis faculty at School of Visual Arts’ Design for Social Innovation program, where he teaches how to bring ideas to life.
Gill has pioneered the use of design in strategy and innovation for 20 years. She was educated as a designer at Manchester Metropolitan University; has an MA in Design Innovation and Strategy from Brunel University; and recently held Carnegie Mellon School of Design's Nierenberg Chair for 2 years.Her early career was as a researcher and developer of public services in play, youth and social action contexts. This used a people-centered practice of connecting local needs, networks and agencies called the community development approach.She created the design strategy agency Plot in 2004 after four years as a Design Manager at the UK Design Council. Plot has provided innovation labs, workshops and consultancy for a wide variety of public, private and third sector clients at different stages of their lifecycle.Right now, Gill's attention is focused on Upstarter the nomadic design-led incubator she has founded. It's mission is to stimulate embryonic enterprises using strategic design thinking, innovation and design methods. The Upstarter programme is active with partners in London, Bristol and Barcelona, and helps bring a mix of social, commercial and creative industry startups to life.
Silas Munro is a Partner of Polymode, a studio that leads the edge of contemporary graphic design for clients in the cultural sphere. Collaborations include the City of LA Mayor’s Office, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, Getty Museum, David Kordansky Gallery, Mark Bradford at the Venice Biennale, MoMA, and MOCA. Munro’s writing appears in the book, W. E. B. Du Bois’s Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America featured in Smithsonian Magazine, The New Yorker, and Black Perspectives. Munro expanded this research as a co-author of the first BIPOC centered Design History course: Black Design in America: African Americans and the African Diaspora in Graphic Design, which will be published in book form in 2023. Munro holds an MFA from CalArts and a BFA from RISD. Munro is Founding Faculty and Co-Chair for the MFA in Graphic Design at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Johanna is CEO at Pond Design, a Stockholm School of Economics alumni and former Bocconi University student. She’s received several international awards over the last few years such as gold and silver in Pentawards as well as wins in the Dieline and D&AD awards.
With professional experience in architecture, marketing and advertising, before her career started at Pond Design some twelve years ago, Johanna has developed a holistic approach in her work. She has the ability to look at packaging design and brand strategy from both a business perspective as well as the creative sides of it – working hands on when developing Pond’s award winning designs. Johanna’s portfolio includes iconic local brands and global heavy weights such as Absolut Vodka, Jameson Whiskey, Unilever, Barilla and Eckes-Granini – all whom she’s delivered international packaging, innovation and strategy to, which has contributed into making Pond Design one of Sweden’s most successful design agencies over the last decade.