The Seattle Chapter Board /
Each member of the AIGA Seattle Board of Directors brings expertise and enthusiasm to our local chapter. The Board works to help build, sustain, and enliven the design community in Seattle. In return for their time and dedication, board members are rewarded with unique opportunities for growth, both personal and professional.
Board members serve for two-year terms of office. Have you always wanted to be part of the AIGA Seattle Board, but couldn’t commit to two full years? For the first time this year we’ve created several new one-year positions for chairs of specific events, initiatives, or areas of responsibility. By creating these new opportunities, we hope to open the board to a wider range of our members.
If you think you’d like to be considered for a chair-level position or any other volunteer activities, please contact our Volunteer Director. Please bring your passion, ideas, and energy to help us make AIGA Seattle more dynamic, responsive, and valuable for all of us!
Kevin is Partner and Creative Director of the Seattle design firm Graphiti Associates. With over 12 years of print and interactive design experience, Kevin has worked with a wide range of clients that include Hines Corporation, Nordstrom, Getty Images, The Washington Group, Seattle’s Best, Pyramid, and BECU.
From 2002–2006 Kevin served on board of the Link program, an organization dedicated to enriching the lives of high school students with a passion for art. Working with a group of board members, volunteers, and a part-time administrator, students are provided with a direct connection to creative professionals through monthly workshops, portfolio development, a gallery show, and scholarship awards for higher education.
As an active member of the Seattle design community, Kevin has a passion for design, experience in team management, and the determination to advance the design profession on all levels. On the Seattle AIGA Board, he has served first as Programming Director for three years and then as its Vice President for the past two years.
A proud alum of the University of Washington, Kevin received his BFA in Graphic Design in 1995.
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Aaron is a passionate designer and design educator who attributes his success in the field to his love of all things design and his strong focus on the conceptual creative.
Aaron holds a BFA and MFA in Graphic Design from the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia and has been working in the field along with teaching for over eight years. In addition to teaching full-time at the Art Institute of Seattle since 2008, Aaron is a freelancer with projects focused around web in addition to print.
Aaron has created a range of work for large brands like Target, Mississippi State, and NASCAR to small start-up companies. He has worked in publication houses, design agencies, and in-house for a large corporation. In addition he has had work featured in the New York Times, CMYK magazine, Communication Arts Visual, and Adobe. Aaron has also won a Silver Addy for his work when he partnered with Barefoot Design Group.
Aaron’s involvement in AIGA goes back to his days in college as an undergraduate and has evolved into the third of three board positions. The first position in the Charlotte, North Carolina chapter, where he served as the Education Coordinator for three years; since then he has served as Volunteer director for the Seattle chapter for the past two years.
Aaron has lived in Ohio, Georgia, Colorado, North Carolina, and now Washington. He is married and has a small cocker spaniel named Bella. When he is not teaching or designing he enjoys skiing, hiking, yoga, camping, fishing, basketball, boating, and pretty much anything active.
Sheri-Lou Stannard is the studio manager of the in-house design group at Russell Investments, a global financial services firm that serves investors in more than 40 countries. Sheri-Lou has provided project and studio management for Nordstrom, REI, Sierra Online, and Worktank. She is passionate about digital design, but loves nothing more than the feel of premium uncoated paper between her fingers.
Sheri-Lou has been managing designers for more than 20 years, and prides herself on her ability to tear down barriers between great ideas and great final products. Ask her why she’s in this business and she’ll simply say, “Because this is what I love.” From 2005–2006, Sheri-Lou worked on the steering committee that brought Icograda to Seattle.
When she’s not herding creatives, Miss Lou can be found in one of three places: at a fine restaurant, studying the wine list; at the gym, thinking evil thoughts about her trainer; or in her backyard, planting thyme between the stepping stones.
Practice Experience: Marty is a CPA at Sweeney Conrad, P.S., a public accounting firm in Bellevue, Washington. Since joining Sweeney Conrad in 2001, Marty has focused on providing value to his clients by understanding their needs. Marty provides tax compliance, planning and advisory services to high net worth individuals, entrepreneurs, non-profits and clients in industries such as real estate, manufacturing, construction, wholesaling, retailing, marketing, insurance, design and professional services such as doctors, dentists, architects and lawyers.
Affiliations: Washington Society of Certified Public Accountants, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
Community Involvement: Marty participates in the Bellevue Chamber of Commerce Young Executives Program and has educated youth about financial literacy through the Junior Achievement Program.
Interests: Marty enjoys spending time with his family. However, when he's not chasing his two kids around, he spends the majority of his free time obsessing about the Washington Huskies football program.
Education: University of Washington - Undergrad, Golden Gate University - Masters
Jim spent the last 10 years with Getty Images, most recently holding down the fort as Design Director. His days (and more nights than he'd care to admit) were spent providing hands-on leadership to an award-winning team of in-house creatives in Seattle, New York and London, as well as overseeing a diverse roster of external agencies. He's currently freelancing as a Creative Director, collaborating with a variety of local studios and clients.
Jim came out of the design program at the University of Washington in 1995 with a whopping student loan and two degrees: a BFA in Graphic Design and a BA in Art based on his painting, drawing and photography work.
Now, with 15 years of experience under his belt, Jim’s diverse skill base runs the gamut from client relations, to creative strategy and straight through execution. His work spans web and digital, print, motion graphics and video, advertising, identity and brand development. And finally, Jim's long-term relationship with the AIGA as a member has now blossomed into service on the board.
While his true passion is design, booze (or more accurately mixology) follows as a close second. Jim can often be found cozied up to the bar, cocktail in hand, exchanging recipes with bartenders and regaling fellow patrons with tales of the great rum runners and obscure facts like the five (and ONLY five) ingredients used to make bourbon.
He lives in Ballard with his wife, young son and Leonberger, Lena.
And fear not, Jim seldom talks about himself in the third person like this.
Kristine Johnson is the co-founder and director of design at Cognition Studio, Inc., a Seattle firm focused on providing the biomedical community well designed, scientifically accurate visual communications that make complex procedures, services and products understandable. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Art in BioCommunications, Master of Associated Medical Science, and several years of post-graduate study at the School of Visual Concepts.
Her role is one of aggregator/filter/editor/curator within any particular client engagement. A constant awareness of the complex considerations inherent in working with scientifically inclined clients keeps her engaged; a thirst for constant learning keeps her asking the right questions. Working for a wide variety of clients that include Children's Hospital, Gilead, Fred Hutch, Kineta, NWABR, Pathway Medical, Southern California Center for Neuroscience and Spine, Standford, Swedish, Theraclone Sciences, UW Medicine, and VentiRx.
Kristine is an active volunteer and a leader within several design-related organizations. Currently serving on the board of directors for the Seattle Chapter of AIGA, as the Sponsorship Director.
She is a member of AIGA, AMI, ATypI, SOTA, and the Designer's Accord. Her work has been honored by the Global Awards for Healthcare, Graphis, GDUSA, the Association of Medical Illustrators and the ADDY's. Recent guest lecturer at the University of Illinois, Pacific University and University of Washington HCDE.
Becky has been living and working in Seattle for two years. After freelancing around town for six months she took an art director position with The Hacker Group, a direct/digital marketing agency in downtown Seattle with clients such as AT&T, Carnival Cruise Line, Western Union, Netflix, and companies in the health insurance sector.
Before moving to Seattle, Becky worked in Tulsa, Oklahoma at a small, award-winning studio, David Clark Design, with local and regional clients. She graduated from Oklahoma State University with a fine art degree in Graphic Design.
Becky was on the AIGA OSU student board as well as the Art Directors Club of Tulsa board, holding the top office of President a year before her move to Seattle. She loves being part of a larger design and art society here in Seattle. In her spare time, Becky loves screen printing at home and photographing the city.
Dave Miller is currently a Senior Account Manager and Lead Recruiting Manager for 24 Seven INC, a talent agency that helps Designers, Developers and Marketing professionals find both freelance and full time opportunities in the Seattle creative market place.
When Dave’s not reviewing portfolio’s, coaching careers or making powerful introductions - he operates as a freelance designer, offering services that include Strategic Branding, Web and Print Design, Marketing, Messaging and Research.
He lives in Capitol Hill with his wife Danielle and cat Bodhi. He’s known for making a great cocktail and owning to many plaid shirts.
Bryan creates visual solutions in the areas of corporate identity, print, interactive/web design, and information design. He uses a combination of research, strategy, inquisitiveness, visual acuity and a smattering of obsessive compulsive disorder to create highly-engaging, functional and appropriate design. He currently works at Hornall Anderson in the interactive group and was previously at Turnstyle. Bryan also teaches Intermediate Graphic Design at the School of Visual Concepts. Clients have included Nordstrom, Starbucks, Microsoft, DRY Soda, Chef'n, the University of Washington, Teague, Coinstar, Frito-Lay and Big Buck Hunter Pro. His work has been recognized by PRINT, HOW, STEP, AIGA and the Seattle Show. He was awarded Most Persistent in kindergarten. When not designing, he's riding his gold, vintage motorcycle. Rain or rain.
John Close is the principal and creative director of Push Design, a multi-disciplinary design studio located in downtown Seattle. With more than fifteen years of experience in branding, identity, print, and interactive, John has worked with clients such as Adobe, AIGA, Airborne Express (now dba DHL), Apple, Arcade, AT&T, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Icograda, Nordstrom, Nike, Nissan, Microsoft, Starbucks, and T-Mobile.
Over the years, John has collaborated with other design firms in the Seattle Area, including: Methodologie, Hornall Anderson Design Works, Phinney Bischoff, Turnstyle, and WongDoody. He has been a guest lecturer at the University of Washington. In 2006, he was on the executive committee in charge of the design for the 2006 AIGA/Icograda Design Week held in Seattle.
John's work has been honored by a variety of publications and organizations, including the ACD 100 Show, Adobe Magazine, AR 100, Communication Arts, Graphis, How, ID Design Annual, ID Annual Interactive, NIRI Seattle, Print’s Design Annual, The Seattle Show, and the Type Directors Club.
Prior to forming Push Design, John was a creative director at Leonhardt:Fitch until 2003. Before moving to Seattle, John worked at MetaDesign in San Francisco.
John graduated from California College of Arts & Crafts, in San Francisco, where he received a BFA with distinction in graphic design.
For the last ten years he has lived on Bainbridge Island with his wife and three boys.
Jenny is a co-founder of Jackson Fish Market, a small software startup focused on making beautiful software experiences. Their latest product is A Story Before Bed - the first and only service that lets parents, grandparents, and children record video of themselves reading children's books and play it back as often as they like on the Mac, PC, or iPad. Before Jackson Fish, Jenny worked at Microsoft from 2001–2007 as Creative Director of the Windows User Experience team. When she isn't running her startup, she teaches and serves on the advisory board for Portfolio Center School for Design in Atlanta and works on national & local organizations to foster the next generation of creative design talent headed for the tech industry. She was named one of the Top 100 Most Influential Women in Technology by the Puget Sound Business Journal and was awarded Seattle 2.0 Best Startup Designer in 2010
Fiona Robertson Remley is an energetic, passionate, driven team builder and leader with a proven track record in strategic planning and execution. Fiona is President of GetFiona (www.GetFiona.com), a marketing campaign that evolved into an ongoing venture, providing brand development and strategic project support. She is a consultant for Microsoft's SMSGR group, and has worked at several of Seattle's award-winning brand development agencies. When not looking for ways to increase efficency and reduce costs for her clients, Fiona buys and sells vintage couture, travels extensively and indulges in gourmet vegetarian cooking. She is known for being direct and passionate and has a wicked sense of British humor. Fiona's business philosophy is simple: outside the box thinking always starts with a box.
In 2008 Corbet Curfman launched his own design company, Riverbed LLC. Corbet partners with companies and organizations that work with environmental and social causes at a local, national, and global level. After a year as the Illustration Director for AIGA Seattle, he is excited to have participated in the decision to initiate the new position of Sustainability Director for AIGA Seattle, which allows him to give back to the design community while also helping to further the issues he is most passionate about.
Corbet Curfman earned a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 1996. During his years at MarketFitz, 1999-2008, he worked for a variety of industries and companies, but found his interests lay closer to working with nonprofit organizations. These projects have included brand development, design, and strategy for Seafair, Virginia Mason, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Theatre Puget Sound; and event marketing, design, and illustration for Northwest Folklife, Benaroya Research Institute, Seattle Children's Theatre, Pacific Science Center, and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, among others.
Greg is owner of Bear Group (www.beargroup.com), based on Queen Anne in Seattle. Founded in 2007, Bear is a web development firm specializing in tailored Drupal content management and Magento Commerce deployments, bringing a supported open-source experience to hundreds of client sites.
Bear doesn’t do any in-house graphic design — rather it’s a proud partner to fine graphic designers across the Northwest and in the Chicago area. Part of the extended AIGA design community as an implementation partner, Bear often plays a supporting role to designers, providing coding and technical expertise on complex web and CMS projects.
Greg spent his formative years in the soybean capital of the world, Decatur, Illinois. He trained as a jazz pianist/composer at Berklee School of Music, and finished a CS degree at Evergreen State College. He has an MBA from University of Washington.
Greg has lived in Seattle since 1993. Prior to Bear Group, Greg was a co-founder of three local start-up companies, and worked for Microsoft and Catalysis. He and his wife have three awesome boys (ages 8, 5, and 18 months).
Owner Tracy Strand started Blue Dot Management in 1998 to provide marketing and association management services to various nonprofit organizations and companies. Tracy has over thirteen years of marketing experience and six years of association management. As administrator for AIGA Seattle, Tracy is responsible for general administrative services, attending all events, corresponding with national AIGA, and providing bookkeeping services.
“I absolutely love my job and all the people I work with,” says Tracy. Besides her part-time job, Tracy enjoys being a mom, running, reading, and gardening.
