It is with much gratitude and admiration that we celebrate the jury alumni members of the Core77 Design Awards.
Business Insider's 23 most powerful Queer / LGBTQIA+ intersectional people in tech, Ana is a craftswomxn with 25 years of experience. Ana has shown creative leadership in product management, product design, and creative direction across new technology surfaces for consumer electronics, lifestyle experiences, UX/UI systems, and ethics & AI. Her talents have been recognized by iF Design Awards, Good Design Awards, EISA Awards, and Cool Hunting. Formerly with Facebook, Samsung, Monohm, Sony & PlayStation, Theranos and Apple, Ana is currently a General Manager & Partner leading product design, human research, design engineering for AI + Research, Search & Ads across Microsoft.
Her values are grounded in principles that every experience crafted should be - Human. Simple. Authentic.
After many years working for industrial design consultancies worldwide and across a wide range of scales, Julie is now the co-founder of Approach Studio. Approach is a design agency developing hardware solutions using emerging technology for a mixture of startups and larger established brands. At Approach she also experiments on speculative and future technology usage.
After 30 years in various executive and design management positions in the automotive industry, Global Executive Director at General Motors in charge of the Design of the group's eight brands, and Renault Design Director for the Twingo, Clio & Scénic programs, Anne ASENSIO joins Dassault Systèmes in 2008 as Vice President Design Experience. She created the "Design" discipline and design research department of Dassault Systèmes as well as the DESIGNStudio entity, bringing together a multidisciplinary team in innovation strategy through design, experience design, upstream thinking, design research, design management.
Advocating a participatory approach with regard to new technologies and virtual universes, the DESIGNStudio supports Dassault Systèmes’ customers in fast-growing industrial sectors in their needs for transformation, digital and sustainable innovation, towards new business models for a circular economy, towards virtuous design processes, as a manifestation of their value proposition to their end customers. Anne collaborates with designers, artists, maverick thinkers, innovators in diverse industry and public sectors. Imagining alternatives strategies to transform the world we live in in a more sustainable and desirable one, Anne enables cross-thinking, colliding nature inspired and technological approaches through creation and ultimately leverage the value of design for users, citizens and humans’ well-being.
Erik is an Industrial Design Manager at NewDealDesign. Hands-on and fully committed to the craft, Erik strives to push design excellence through all phases of the process. Erik has worked on everything from wearables to autonomous vehicles, building relationships with both small startups and Fortune 500 companies. Notable works include Fitbit (Alta, Blaze, Charge2, Flex2), Helm Personal Server, Postmates Serve Autonomous Delivery Robot, and Solo Gelato.
A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, Erik moved to San Francisco in 2012 after spending several years in the medical industry at Keytech inc. When not at work, he can often be found on two wheels.
James Auger is a designer, researcher and lecturer whose work examines the social, cultural and human impact of technology and the products that exist as a result of its development and application. On graduating from Design Products (MA) at the Royal College of Art in 2001 James moved to Dublin to conduct research at Media Lab Europe (MLE) exploring the theme of human communication as mediated by technology. After MLE he worked in Tokyo as guest designer at the Miyake Design Studio developing new concepts for mobile telephones.In 2005 he returned to the RCA to teach on the Design Interactions program. During his time in DI he has been a Philips research fellow exploring the human experiential potential of smell as part of their probes program (2006-2007) and more recently completed a Ph.D (December 2012). The thesis questions the process through with emerging technologies enter everyday life using the robot as a focus for the study. James is a visiting professor at both the Haute +cole d'Art et de Design in Geneva and Musashino Art University in Tokyo. He is a partner in the speculative design practice Auger-Loizeau whose projects have been published and exhibited internationally, including MoMA, New York; 21_21, Tokyo; The Science Museum, London and Ars Electronica, Linz. Their work is in the permanent collection at MoMA. Before moving into the field of design James completed an Engineering apprenticeship at Rolls-Royce, Derby (aero engines) and worked for several years as a model-maker and special effects technician in the film industry.
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.
George co-founded Greater Good Studio to use design to heal, to be just, to be restorative, Previously, he spent seven years at a global innovation firm before being hired as the first human-centered designer at the Chicago Transit Authority. Since founding Greater Good he guides clients and teams through complex projects that honor reality, create ownership, and build power. He speaks frequently across the US and internationally. George holds the position of Full Professor (Adj) at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Lawrence Azerrad is a Los Angeles based Graphic Designer and Creative Director. Azerrad founded LADdesign, a graphic design studio dedicated to elevating our cultural experience through design excellence. Since 2001 LADdesign has created graphic design and comprehensive visual identity systems for clients such as Sting, Universal Music Group, UC San Diego, The Silversun Pickups, Esperanza Spalding, The Skirball Cultural Center, The Beach Boys, UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, Red Bull Sound Select, and over an Eighteen-year client relationship, spanning seven album packages for award-winning American alternative rock band, Wilco. Azerrad is the author of a Supersonic: Design and Lifestyle of Concorde, a design history of the aircraft to be published 2017. Azerrad is the chair for AIGA’s Design+Music program, a national initiative to explore how design thinking can can make a positive impact on the music industry and American culture at large through innovation and creative excellence.
Prior to opening LADdesign, Lawrence was an art director at Warner Bros Records, creating packaging and artwork for artists such as Miles Davis, and The Red Hot Chili Peppers. He has taught Graphic Design at Art Center College of Design, He currently serves as an Advisory Board Member for the Los Angeles chapter of the AIGA.
Lisa Babb comes from a rich history of activism and social justice through engaging citizens. She has worked in the Graphic Design field and has taught Graphic Design at the collegiate level for more than twenty years. Lisa came from Brooklyn (before it became the brand that it is now) and has lived in Atlanta for more than fifteen. She has a Master’s from Pratt Institute and a Bachelor’s from Baruch College. The same year she finished Pratt, she became a graphic design professor after September 11 changed the world for everybody.
She started at a Corporate Design firm specializing in award-winning Annual reports. Some stops along the way include a commercial catalog company, a marketing group for Seagrams, two sizeable pharmaceutical advertising agencies, a commercial magazine in advertising, museums, and museums. She has designed things as small as a button, as vast as a congressional campaign, and as big as a billboard. She has also designed things as unconventional as a float for the Bud Billiken parade and as functional as a point of purchase display.
Within design education specifically, she has created a Graphic Design department from the ground up. This design leader has made a point of teaching in places that encourage diversity in demographics, ideologies, and models. She started teaching Design at schools in New York City, the last one being PACE University in the Master’s program, before coming to Atlanta and teaching at SCAD and now Georgia Tech. She lives by the mantra “if you want a better world, make one” and truly believes that design and especially design education is one of the few things that can change lives. It is hard even to blink once you have graphic literacy and finally see.
Judith Baehner, concept maker and plant-architect, is the founder and owner of Het Groenlab. Fascinated by nature and the relationship of humans with nature. she is a plant-guru, plant-poet, designer, and teacher. She combines her experience as a plant expert with being a stylist and editor for magazines with her passion for plants to create inspiring and inventive green experiences. Her designs, articles, books, pictures, videos, lectures, workshops, and plantings are stylish and personal. Judith wants to inspire you to love all things green as much as she does. She wants to show you how easy it is to grow plants and enjoy them. All across Europe she leads projects, talks and workshops in which you can really feel her passion and her story. Alongside the work in the ‘lab’, Het Groenlab helps individuals and companies create green living and working spaces for a happier and healthier lives. The plantings made by Het Groenlab are about cultivating personal spaces, and are planted with love and care.
Kim Baer, principal of Los Angeles-based design studio KBDA is a strong believer in the power of design as a strategic tool. Her firm has created research-driven work for for-profit clients as diverse as Hyatt, and Nike, as well as nonprofits such as The Getty, the Hammer Museum, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, and the LA Phil.
KBDA specializes in helping organizations hone their positioning. Once that messaging has been crafted, KBDA is well known for its focus on audience experience, whether it’s experienced online, in print or in an environment.
Consistently honored by every major design organization in the country, KBDA has produced work that has been featured in the Library of Congress and regularly published in design anthologies. Premiere design magazines such as Communication Arts and HOW have regularly showcased the firm’s work and methodology.
Kim Baer served on the national board of the AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) and received the Fellows Award from the Los Angeles chapter of AIGA in honor of lifetime achievement. She is the author of Information Design Workbook from Rockport Publishers, an in-depth look at best practices in information design from around the world. She is also on the Advisory Board for Art Center’s MFA Graduate Graphic Design program.
Estelle Bailey-Babenzien is of British and Ghanaian descent and was born and raised in the UK. She graduated from Central Saint Martins in London, with an honors degree in Fashion- communication and promotion, and moved straight to New York City. Since then, she has built her career as a creative director in the fields of music, fashion, and interior architecture and design. In 2015, she cofounded the men's/unisex clothing brand Noah with her husband, designer Brendon Babenzien. Noah has two stores in the United States, two stores in Japan, and shop-in-shops in three Dover Street Market stores globally. Simultaneously, Estelle continues to grow her design studio, Dream Awake Design, which focuses on experiential and interior design, and creative direction for commercial and residential projects and brands. She lives in Brooklyn, NY, with her husband and their six year-old daughter, Sailor.
Angela Bains currently serves as the Acting Associate Dean within the Faculty of Design at the OCAD University (OCAD U), Toronto, Canada. Her previous role involved serving as the Graduate Program Director for the Strategic Foresight & Innovation (SFI) program. Notably, a member of the Solid Black Collective research group at OCAD U. She is the co-creator of the SFI’s Decolonising Futures BIPOC Speakers Series, and Black SFI (Strategic Foresight & Innovation). In addition to her academic roles, Angela holds the position of Co-Founder and Strategic Director at TransformExp, an esteemed commercial and social change strategy and design firm located in Vancouver, Canada.
Originating from the United Kingdom, Angela brings with her more than three decades of extensive experience in the creative industry. Her professional achievements extend to being a sought-after speaker and host, notably participating in events such as The State of Black Design, Design Management Institute - Diversity in Design Conference, Association of Registered Graphic Designers (RGD) – International DesignThinkers Conference and Black Design, Past, Present & Future. Furthermore, Angela has dedicated her expertise to part-time teaching in Strategic Design at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT). This multifaceted professional background underscores Angela Bains' substantial contributions to the fields of design, strategic foresight, and innovation.