Design Visionary Kickstarter Since its launch in 2009, Kickstarter has become a key piece of the internet’s creative infrastructure, serving as a powerful tool for designers and other creative people to take their ideas directly to the public, bypassing traditional gatekeepers. Its first funded project, “Drawing for Dollars,” raised $35 from three people. Since then,...

Climate Action Sponge Park by Susannah Drake Designed by DLANDstudio, the Gowanus Canal Sponge Park™ in Brooklyn, New York is a proven new form of green infrastructure that captures and cleans dirty urban stormwater runoff and addresses the global problem of contaminated streams, rivers, aquifers, and oceans. Completed in 2016, the Sponge Park™ is in...

Emerging Designer Studio One Eighty Nine Co-founded by Rosario Dawson and Abrima Erwiah in 2013, Studio One Eighty Nine is an artisan-produced fashion lifestyle brand and social enterprise. The luxury brand creates African and African-inspired content and clothing, working with artisanal communities in Africa that specialize in traditional craftsmanship techniques and focusing on empowerment, job...

Architecture Snøhetta For over 30 years Snøhetta has designed some of the world’s most notable projects integrating architecture, landscape, interiors, branding, and product design. The firm is dedicated to building equitable and sustainable places to enhance human society and natural habitat. With seven offices across the globe, Snøhetta’s noteworthy projects include the Library of Alexandria...

Communication Design Scott Dadich Scott Dadich is a founder and co-CEO of Godfrey Dadich Partners, a communications design and strategy firm headquartered in San Francisco, California, that helps organizations tell better stories—from documentary films and longform journalism to corporate strategies and brand marketing campaigns. He has led work with Nike, Apple, The Obama Foundation, IBM,...

Digital Design Design I/O Founded in 2010, Design I/O is a small studio passionate about creating immersive interactive environments, new forms of storytelling, and developing prototypes that lead toward a more magical future. Led by partners Emily Gobeille and Theodore Watson along with Nicholas Hardeman and Anna Cataldo, the studio takes a playful approach to...

Fashion Design TELFAR BECOME A QUEER, BLACK 18 YEAR OLD, TRAVEL BACK TO 2004 AND ESTABLISH A 100% NON-GENDERED FASHION LINE OUT OF YOUR FAMILY APARTMENT IN LEFRAK CITY, QUEENS. MAKE CLOTHES THAT DO NOT EXIST ON THE MARKET — JUST LIKE YOU DON’T EXIST IN THE WORLD. DON’T HAVE ANY MONEY. PERSIST FOR A...

Landscape Architecture  OJB Landscape Architecture  OJB Landscape Architecture is a collective landscape architecture and urban planning practice inspired to create beauty and find unexpected moments in the natural world. Founded by James Burnett in 1989 in Houston, Texas and led today by Burnett and his partners in offices around the country, OJB shapes public spaces...

Product Design Catapult Design Founded in 2008, Catapult Design is a nonprofit design consultancy that works with organizations around the globe to support the development of market-based solutions for sustainable well-being and resilience. Through its work, Catapult Design addresses the challenges facing humanity, such as food security, water and sanitation access, quality healthcare, mobility, and...

Susan Kare Susan Kare is a pioneering graphic designer based in San Francisco, California. For over thirty-five years she has designed many notable icons and graphics that have become familiar to anyone who uses a computer. Her early work was developed using a minimalist grid of pixels and constructed with mosaic-like precision; despite the low...

Mark Chambers Mark Chambers is an architect and director of sustainability for the City of New York. He leads the design and development of policies and programs to enable a resilient, zero-carbon built environment and a fair, healthy future for all 8.6 million residents of the largest city in the United States. This future vision...

Patricia Moore Patricia Moore is an internationally renowned designer, gerontologist, and leading authority on consumer lifespan behaviors. From 1979 to 1982, Moore traveled throughout North America disguised as elder women—her body altered to simulate the normal sensory changes associated with aging—to better respond to people, products, and environments. Moore’s clients include Johnson & Johnson, Maytag,...

MIT D-Lab MIT D-Lab has become a global leader in participatory design, empowering thousands to address the daily challenges of poverty through design and social entrepreneurship. Founded in 2002 by MIT senior lecturer Amy Smith, D-Lab began as a single course known as The Haiti Class, which sought to apply engineering and design principles to...

Thomas Phifer Thomas Phifer founded his New York studio in 1997. He has completed projects such as the Glenstone Museum expansion in Potomac, Maryland, the Corning Museum of Glass expansion in Corning, New York, and the Raymond and Susan Brochstein Pavilion at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He is currently engaged in the design of...

Tobias Frere-Jones Tobias Frere-Jones is one of the world’s leading typeface designers, creating some of the most widely used typefaces, including Interstate, Poynter Oldstyle, Whitney, Gotham, Surveyor, Tungsten, and Retina. He started designing letterforms in 1986 at the age of sixteen and became a professional type designer in 1990. He has taught type design at...