Debbie Millman
Named “one of the most creative people in business” by Fast Company, and “one of the most influential designers working today” by Graphic Design USA, Debbie Millman is also an author, educator, curator, and host of the podcast Design Matters, one of the world’s first and longest-running podcasts and listed as one of the best podcasts in the world by Business Insider.
Debbie is the author of six books is currently working on an illustrated book for HarperCollins titled Why Design Matters, which will be published in 2020, along with and a documentary about the making of the book, produced by Adobe. She was a writer for the world’s first design blog, Speak Up, the Editorial and Creative Director of Print Magazine, and a columnist for N Magazine.
In 2009 Debbie co-founded the world’s first graduate program in branding at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Now in its ninth year, the program has achieved international acclaim.
Her illustrations have appeared in publications such as The New York Times, New York Magazine, Print Magazine, Design Observer, and Fast Company and her artwork is included in the Boston Biennale, Chicago Design Museum, Anderson University, School of Visual Arts, Long Island University, The Wolfsonion Museum and the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art.
For 20 years, Debbie was the President of Sterling Brands and was instrumental in the firm’s acquisition by Omnicom in 2008. While there she worked on the logo and brand identity for Burger King, Hershey’s, Haagen Dazs, Tropicana, Star Wars, Gillette, and the No More movement.
She is also President Emeritus of AIGA, one of five women to hold the position in the organization’s 100-year history. She is a frequent speaker on design and branding throughout the world and has been a juror for competitions including Cannes Lions, The Clio’s, the One Club, and many, many more. This year she will be the Jury President for the branding competition for the D&AD Awards in London.
Debbie is currently working with Law & Order SVU actor and activist Mariska Hargitay’s Joyful Heart Foundation to eradicate sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse, and the rape-kit backlog.
3 words to describe Nature?
Cosmic. Magical. Breathtaking
3 things Nature taught you?
Patience
Scale
Humility
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Pacific Northwest, United States
Machu Pichu, Peru
Easter Island, Chile
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Powerful
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Peaceful
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Awe
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Curious
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Safe
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Dramatic
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
All!
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
I was at a sleep-away summer camp; it was mid-late August, very early evening. I was in a meadow in upstate New York with my campmates. It had rained and the grass was wet. We all ran outside when we realized that a rainbow had suddenly appeared. We were in awe. I might have been wearing pajamas.
Michael Murphy
Michael Murphy is an American artist, sculptor and pioneer of the Perceptual Art movement. Murphy became widely known during the 2008 U.S. presidential election, after creating the first portrait of candidate Barack Obama in 2007 that influenced thousands of artists to contribute to the “Art for Obama” movement, documented in Shepard Fairey's book Art for Obama: Designing Manifest Hope and the Campaign for Change.
His approach is to challenge the viewer’s boundaries using multidimensional techniques in order to create three-dimensional renderings of flat images. His inventions of "Expanded Graphics", the "3D Halftone" and "Suspended Narrative Mobiles" have established an entirely new formula for rendering images.
His work has been featured in numerous publications including TIME Magazine and New York Magazine and can be seen in numerous permanent installations around the world. His client list includes some of the largest brands in the world including Google, Nike, The Jordan Brand, LG, Lexus, Subaru, The Big Ten Network, ESPN, Disney, and the Atlanta Hawks to name a few. One of his pieces, COME TOGETHER, is currently touring with an art instalation show known as "Point of View" hosted by Wonderspaces.
3 words to describe Nature?
Inspiring. Rejuvenating. Essential.
3 things Nature taught you?
The beauty of light.
The rewards associated with being present and observant.
How important it is to be a good steward of the earth.
3 most treasured Nature spots?
The woods in the backyard where I grew up in Ohio. I built this great treehouse and spent countless hours up in the tree looking over the trees. It was especially magnificent in the fall.
Mill Creek Park in Ohio where I spent much of my childhood hiking and exploring.
Central Park.
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Invigorated
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Calm
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Fragile
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Like I’ve been up too late. No really it makes me appreciate the beauty of the earth and its relationship to the sun
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Excited. I love thunder and lightning. As a child my family and I would always gather on our porch to watch thunder storms. It’s one of my most fond childhood memories.
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
I get a rush of excited from strong winds.
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Oceans, mountains, and forest.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
When I was a child I used to lie on my back in the grass and watch the clouds roll by searching for naturally occurring images. This is the inspiration for much of my work. To date I’ve spent hundreds of hours filming and photographing clouds.
Michael Rosenblum
For more than 30 years, Michael Rosenblum has been on the cutting edge of the digital ‘videojournalist’ and Citizen News revolution.
During this time, he's led a drive for video literacy, and the Democratization of Video and Video news. His work includes: the complete transitioning of the BBC's national network (UK) to a Vj-driven model, starting in 2002; the complete conversion of The Voice of America, the United State’s Government’s broadcasting agency, (and the largest broadcaster in the world), from short wave radio to television broadcasting and webcasting using the ‘VJ” paradigm (1998-present); the design behind Current TV in partnership with former US VP Al Gore; the construction of a national hyperlocal citizen journalist network with Verizon; and the construction of NYT Television, a New York Times Company and the largest producer of non-fiction television in the US.
He has partnered with a number of major media companies including The Guardian (UK), USA Today, New York Magazine, The Travel Channel and others to create video ‘Academies’ where anyone can learn to report, shoot, edit and produce video on their own.
In 2009 he co-founded TheVJ.com, along with his wife, Lisa Lambden, an online video training site.
He has also designed, built and implemented VJ-driven news channels around the world, including Time/Warner’s New York 1, Associated Newspapers (UK) London based Channel 1, Young Broadcasting stations in the US, Switzerland’s largest commercial TV broadcaster, TeleZuri, as well as a host of smaller projects such as Eritrea’s ERI-TV and Sri Lanka’s SLBC. His consulting clients include The BBC, McGraw-Hill, TV-24/Germany, TV4/Sweden, Oxygen Media, National Public Radio, Danmarks Radio (DK), TV-3 Sweden, Norway & Denmark, Tokyo Broadcasting, Korea Broadcasting.
As a producer, Rosenblum has produced or overseen production on more than 3000 hours of programming for both network and cable. His shows have included the long-running TRAUMA: LIFE IN THE ER, Paramedics, Police Force, Labor and Delivery, Science Times. These series have aired on TLC, Showtime and National Geographic. He has also produced for ABC, CBS, Oxygen and the BBC. Most recently his groundbreaking 5Takes series for Discovery has completely rewritten the production paradigm. The company currently has more than 350 hours in production for this year alone.
He has conducted his unique VJ training classes and boot camps all over the world, from Thailand to Marrakech, and has lectured extensively both overseas and in the US. He recently entered into a partnership with Discovery Communications to set up the Travel Channel Academy, a national training facility open to anyone. For 8 years he was an adjunct professor of communication at New York University, where he taught “Television and the Information Revolution”, a course of his own design and at The Bauhaus in Germany. Prior to that he taught at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. His Brussels based Rosenblum Institute trains European journalists to work as vjs. He is the author of Videojournalismus (germany) and iPhone Millionaire (McGraw Hill, 2013).
He and his wife live both in New York and in the UK and teach at Oxford University in Britain.
3 words to describe Nature?
Real. Unmediated. Honest
3 things Nature taught you?
Who I was
Who I am
Who I could be
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Coast of England at Northumbria
Middle of Sahara Desert
Lamu, Kenya
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel…?
Humble
When you see a forest, it makes you feel…?
Connected
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel…?
Terrified
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel…?
Grateful
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel…?
Alive
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel…?
Connected
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Ocean
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
When I was about 10 years old, my father had a friend named Eddie Durban who had a wood Lightning sailboat - 19 foot. No motor. One day, he took me out for a sail and we turned up into a series of small estuaries that ran in the wetlands that are now almost gone on the East Coast. The boat was silent, but it ghosted along, and as we drifted in the marsh, the whole place around us seemed alive and vibrant.