Jury Alumni

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  Alero Dawn Akuya

  Vice President of Global Brand, LEGO

  2024 Branding & Identity Jury Member

  While at Nike for 13 years, Alero was responsible for some of the most pivotal brand transformations for the sport and culture giant. Most notably, Alero created Nike's Purpose Marketing division, leading Nike's role in sport and social impact alongside key athletes Colin Kaepernick, Serena Williams, Kobe Bryant and many more. She led Nike New York where she orchestrated the launch of Nike's collaboration with Virgil Abloh at New York Fashion Week-- a first for the brand, and one of Nike's most successful collaborations of all time.
  Alero now serves as the Vice President of Global Brand for The LEGO Group. She is responsible for transforming the impact of the 89-year-old Danish brand globally to become a proactive cultural leader through play advocacy, inclusion, and innovation. She has led integrated brand strategy and global initiatives, and campaigns such as Rebuild the World, 90 Years of Play, Play Unstoppable, and Everyone is Awesome. Alero is committed to inspiring a world play movement to ensure creative play remains a birth rite to all children.
  

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  Taamrat Amaize

  Chief Strategy Officer, Collins

  2024 Branding & Identity Jury Captain

  I'm a strategist who doesn't believe in conned thinking.
  I like using provocative approaches and out-of-category parallels to arrive at solutions. I live for problem-solving and apply that kind of critical thinking to both business and brand challenges.
  My experience with established brand behemoths and scrappy start-ups— from technology to CPG, B2B and B2C—has given me an invaluable perspective.

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  Inês Ayer

  Creative Manager, Google Deepmind

  2026 Branding & Identity Jury Captain

  A humanist designer with a 360º approach to problem solving. Inês uses design as a shifter of society, through visual identity, concept and community. Recognized by Forbes for the list of 30under30. Born in São Miguel Island in the Atlantic Ocean between Europe and America, she graduated in 2016 from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon in the Communication Design course, where in the final year she was part of the development team of the finalist exhibition and collaborated with the atelier TVM designers. In 2017 she left for Berlin to do an internship at Superunion.
  
  Currently she is based in New York working as a Creative Manager at Google Deepmind, having worked previously at AKQA, Instrument for Google projects and at Pentagram. She is also developing project Aliquoti, focused on reducing neonatal mortality for BIPOC women in the U.S. She keeps her scope of interests broad with a keen interest in culture and engineering biotech. Advocating to generate discussions about democracy, climate change and social equity. Inês is also a member of Global Shapers Lisbon, an initiative of the World Economic Forum.

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  Lukas Bentel

  Chief Creative Officer, MSCHF

  2026 Branding & Identity Jury Member

  Lukas Bentel (b. 1992) is an artist and designer based in New York. He is a founding member and Chief Creative Officer of MSCHF, a conceptual art collective that uses mass culture, corporate systems, and consumer products as tools for critique.
  
  At MSCHF, Bentel has shaped the group’s artistic and conceptual direction, as well as its distinctive sense of humor. His work spans digitally native artworks, system-based interventions, and product releases that operate simultaneously as sculpture, media, and critique. Notable projects include Satan Shoes, a sneaker released in collaboration with Lil Nas X; Severed Spots, which dismantled and redistributed a work by Damien Hirst; Key For All, a participatory project in which 5,000 keys granted shared access to a single PT Cruiser that traveled coast to coast across the United States; and ATM Leaderboard, a public ranking system that transformed cash withdrawal into competitive spectacle.
  
  Bentel has also led a sustained footwear practice at MSCHF, including the Big Red Boot, Wavy Baby, and collaborations with Reebok and Crocs, treating shoes as both functional objects and cultural products. These works sit at the intersection of fashion, distribution, and virality, using scale and commerce as artistic material.
  
  MSCHF’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at The Getty and in a solo retrospective at the Daelim Museum. The collective is currently represented by Perrotin and has held two solo exhibitions with the gallery.
  
  Prior to MSCHF, Bentel founded Hello Velocity, an artist group and design studio that was part of NEW INC, the art and technology incubator founded by the New Museum. His work has been covered by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, TIME, CNN, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, The Guardian, ArtNet, the BBC, and other international publications.

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  Nicholas Fulcher

  Art Director & Designer, Atlantic Records

  2023 Branding & Identity Jury Member

  NickyChulo (Nicholas Fulcher) is an Art Director & Designer from Northern Virginia who currently resides in Los Angeles, California. Learning how to draw at an early age, Nicholas was drawn to graffiti, comic books, and video games. He continued to harness his combined love of art & design and attended numerous design classes in high school. Teachers quickly began to take notice and started to encourage his growth which helped cultivate his passion for visual communication. In 2010, Nicholas began freelancing in Washington D.C. and his primary focus was album art and apparel design. From 2013-2014 he attended Savannah College of Art & Design (Atlanta) studying toward his BFA in Graphic Design. After studying for a few years, and honing his craft, Nicholas made the move to New York City where he actualized his passion by becoming an Art Director at Atlantic records. He has carefully navigated his way through the industry and has grown into one of the most sought out visual artists.

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  Bryony Gomez-Palacio

  Co-founder, UnderConsideration

  2023 Branding & Identity Jury Member

  Born and raised in Mexico City, Bryony Gomez-Palacio is co-founder of UnderConsideration, a graphic design firm generating its own projects, initiatives, and content while taking on limited client work. Over the last two decades, Bryony has managed the behind-the-scenes of various blogs and design sites co-created with her husband and partner Armin Vit, including Brand New which is devoted to opinions on corporate and brand identity work.
  
  In 2010 the Brand New Conference, a two-day event on corporate and brand identity with some of today’s most active and influential practitioners from around the world, was created. In 2018, they conceived First Round, a one-day showcase of original presentations made to clients showing initial design explorations for logo, identity, and branding projects.
  
  When not hand-making materials for the Brand New Conference, organizing events, or working on client work Bryony can be found heading out of town where she loves to meet new people while conducting workshops, judging competitions, lecturing on all things design, or coaching others on all aspects of life and work.
  

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  Nu Goteh

  Principal, Room for Magic

  2024 Branding & Identity Jury Member

  Nu Goteh is a multi-disciplinary creative & designer who works in audio, visual, and written mediums. He is the co-founder of the strategy and design studio, Room for Magic, and co-founder and creative director of partner publication, Deem Journal. Nu’s practice is informed by his love for counter/subculture(s), his background as a Liberian-born refugee, and a lifelong dedication to building platforms that enable communities to engage in shared experiences.

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  Annika Hansteen-Izora

  Creative Director, School of Softness

  2026 Branding & Identity Jury Member

  Annika Hansteen-Izora is a queer Black designer, artist, and writer. Through their practice Softness Studios, they create digital and irl worlds rooted in softness and play. Their multimodal career has led them across a wide span of brand, product, and writing projects, from leading design at experimentive social startups, to publishing writing on digital gardens, to designing work with companies from MTV to HP. They have spoken on their design practice’s intersection with inclusivity, care, and connection at Princeton, MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, The Brooklyn Museum, and others. Their work has been featured by It’s Nice That, AIGA Eye on Design, and ICON Magazine.

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  Dian Holton

  Sr. Deputy Art Director, AARP

  2023 Branding & Identity Jury Member

  Dian Holton is a senior deputy art director at AARP where she oversees creative for TheGirlfriend.com, Sistersletter.com, and The Ethel. She routinely contributes art direction and design to AARP The Magazine and specifically cover stories and entertainment related. Her background includes book design, branding, retail installation, styling, and footwear design. Her passions include education, philanthropy, fashion, and pop culture.

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  Lais Ikoma

  Creative Director and Graphic Designer, Polar, Ltda.

  2026 Branding & Identity Jury Member

  Lais Ikoma is a Brazilian graphic designer and creative director. Co-founder of Polar, Ltda. — an award-winning design studio based in São Paulo and working globally, with clients including Nike, Google, and the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra.
  
  Founded estúdio arco (2018–2020), a highly specialized studio working at the intersection of graphic design, motion, and typography, which later merged with another friendly practice to form what became Polar.
  
  Multidisciplinary yet specialized, now focuses on branding, book and editorial design, and packaging, with a particular passion for all things print. Lais thrives on envisioning and executing projects, leading teams, collaborating, and working with a joyful attention to detail and craft.

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  Su Mathews Hale

  CEO and Chief Creative Officer, Hale Design

  2023 Branding & Identity Jury Captain

  For more than two decades, Su Mathews Hale has thrived at the intersection of design and brand strategy. Using the power of design to develop inspiring creations while solving business problems, Su has collaborated with a broad range of notable clients including Citibank, Disney, Chick-fil-A, eBay, Hawaiian Airlines, Hershey’s, Hyatt, IHG, Papa Johns, Sam’s Club, Samsung, Shutterstock, Taco Bell and Walmart.
  
  Currently as CEO and Chief Creative Officer of Hale Design, a branding agency she opened in 2019, Su recently led her creative team on Papa Johns refreshed brand identity – the visual reflection of the new tone set by the brand - a more modern, bold, fun, fresh and tasty experience. The friendly, streamlined logo reflects the pizza chain's momentum, introduces flexibility to scale digitally and positions Papa Johns for continued success and growth.
  
  Prior to Hale Design, she was a former associate partner at Pentagram, New York, and a senior partner and creative director in design at Lippincott, where Su led global projects spanning the full gamut of brand creation and identity development. While at Lippincott, she served as creative director on the famed Walmart rebranding – a massive brand repositioning and revitalization engagement that contemporized the global retail giant while retaining the values of its heritage. Su also serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, CA.

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  Nermin Moufti

  Design Director + Partner, Field of Practice

  2024 Branding & Identity Jury Member

  Nermin is a brand alchemist, design director, and co-founder of Field of Practice, a women- and member- owned creative studio that designs for change.
  
  A whole-hearted champion for form, function and care, Nermin translates thoughtful strategies into holistic design systems. She’s reinvigorated hyper-local to global brands and led boundary-breaking campaigns for Karam Foundation, Planned Parenthood, Type Directors Club, Dentologie, and the Collaborative for Gender and Reproductive Equity. Her work has been recognized by the STA 100, Typewolf, Brand New, Communication Arts, and Fast Company Innovation by Design. She holds a BSc in Visual Communications from the American University of Sharjah (UAE), and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts, Media and Design from OCAD University. She’s living and working from her Chicago home.

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  Alex Naghavi

  Creative Director, Block

  2026 Branding & Identity Jury Member

  Alex Naghavi is a Creative Director and AI-driven designer based in Los Angeles. For over 17 years, she has worked at the intersection of brand, digital product, and emerging technology—designing brands and experiences that are culturally resonant and strategically grounded.
  
  She is the former Executive Creative Director and Partner at Josephmark, a global design and venture studio where she led brand and product work for clients including Google, Spotify, Sony, Redbull, Hasbro, AMC, XPRIZE, and Twitter. During that time, she helped shape platforms such as We Are Hunted (acquired by Twitter), Clipchamp (acquired by Microsoft), and led the Myspace redesign in 2012 and the RCA Records brand refresh in 2021.
  
  Her work has been recognized by D&AD, Webby Awards, ADC Awards, SXSW, Awwwards, and Fast Company. She has served as a juror for the ADC Awards, Webby Awards, Awwwards, One Screen Film Festival, and the Leo Imagination Fund.
  
  Alongside her client and leadership work, Alex is building Seamless Studio—an AI-powered mockup platform crafted for brand designers. She is also an emerging AI filmmaker whose films have been screened internationally and awarded at Runway’s Gen:48 and the OMNI Film Festival.
  
  Alex is a first-generation Australian of Persian and Dutch heritage. Her practice is rooted in curiosity, cultural awareness, and pushing creative tools toward more expressive, human outcomes—especially as design enters a new era shaped by AI.

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  Jennifer Sterling

  Founder & Creative Director, Jennifer Sterling Design

  2023 Branding & Identity Jury Member

  Founder of Sterling Design in 1996, Jennifer is a creative director, designer, animator typographer, illustrator, photographer, and educator. Her work is part the permanent collections of The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Library of Congress, Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Museum Fur Kunst Und Gewerbe, Hamburg, and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art hosted a three-month solo show entitled "Jennifer Sterling: Selections from the Permanent Collection of Architecture and Design". The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museums Triennial Exhibit showcased the creative work of 83 designers and companies including Jennifer Sterling, Apple, Nike, and Martha Stewart.
  Her work has been featured in over 180 magazine and book articles, Graphis Magazine named her "One of the Top Ten Designers in the World." GD:USA Magazine named her one of the "Twelve Designers to Change Design into the Millennium". Clients and projects include creating an interactive online design to promote the worldwide distribution of aids awareness and medical distribution to third-world countries for Yahoo Inc. as well as creating the worldwide brand "Vital Voices" for Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright. In 2016 she created campaign collateral for Hillary Clinton's 2016 Presidential Campaign. Jennifer has served as an adjunct professor at CCA (the California College of the Arts / San Francisco), AAU (Academy of Art University / San Francisco), and SVA (School of Visual Arts / New York).