Art Directors Club of Houston

Michael Borosky | Founder & Creative Director, Eleven | http://www.eleveninc.com
Michael is a founder and Creative Director of Eleven, a 75 person agency based in San Francisco and has always had a soft spot in his heart for Houston, where he first began his career. After heading West, he worked for Michael Cronan Design, Pentagram and CKS Partners before helping found Eleven. He considers himself a hybrid of sorts, having spent equal parts of his career in both offline and online disciplines. He manages the interactive practice at Eleven and specializes in spearheading media-agnostic integrated campaigns. Throughout his career he’s helped solved problems for the likes of Levi Strauss, MCI, General Motors, Norwegian Cruise Lines and Visa and he’s currently involved with Apple and Virgin America Airlines.

Jeffrey Brown | Photographer | http://www.jeffreybrown.com/
Jeffrey Lamont Brown brings a fresh, reality-based approach to advertising projects for print and TV clients around the world. Recent awards include: being named one of the “200 Best Photographers Worldwide” by Leurzer’s Archive, PX3 Prix de la Photographie Paris, IPA - Lucie “Best of show” and Communication Arts Photo Annual. His unique style, known as “beautiful realism” has evolved naturally over nearly two decades behind the lens. It finds its roots in authentic experiences but goes beyond the real in different, and often subtle, ways. Sometimes it has a bit of a mystical twist; other times we give it an edgier look or a bit of humor. But always we produce imagery with amazing light and highly stylized visuals in keeping with our visual integrity Jeffrey believes that every shot, however comprehensively produced and tightly choreographed, contains “real moments” that serve his clients’ desire to present products and ideas in the most compelling way.

Molly Holzschlag | Web standards advocate, educator and author | http://www.molly.com
Molly E. Holzschlag is a well-known web standards advocate, educator, and author. Among her thirty-plus books is the best-selling The Zen of CSS Design, co-authored with Dave Shea. Molly is an invited expert to the W3C CSS working group and the former group lead of The Web Standards Project (WaSP). Molly works with designers, developers, implementers, and policy makers to promote interoperability, professional advancement, and best practices for a useful, beautiful, and meaningful World Wide Web.

Sterling Hundley | Illustrator | http://www.sterlinghundley.com
(b. 1976, American) The work of illustrator and painter Sterling Hundley has appeared regularly in the pages of Communication Arts Magazine, American Illustration, Print Magazine, the Los Angeles Society of Illustrators, 3 x 3, Graphis, Step by Step Graphics, the Society of Publication Designers, and the New York Society of Illustrators. In addition to winning three gold, and two silver medals from the Society of Illustrators, New York, Sterling has been awarded gold and silver medals from the Illustrators Club in Washington, D.C. Sterling and his work have been the subject of feature articles in Communication Arts magazine (2008), Print (Young Visual Artists, 2004), and RVA magazine (2008).

Sterling lives in Richmond, Virginia, and is currently represented by Richard Solomon Artist Representative in New York City. He is a Professor in the Department of Communication Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University, and he is one of five core instructors at the Illustration Academy held on the campus of Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida.

Ron Miriello | Creative Director, Miriello Grafico | http://www.miriellografico.com
Ron Miriello is the founder and director of Miriello Grafico in San Diego and a founding member of the San Diego Chapter of the AIGA and an AIGA Fellow. As a design director in Southern California community for 30 years, he has helped set a high benchmark for creativity and sees design as a language rather than a discipline.

More recently, Ron has been interviewing and photographing craftsmen of everyday products in Italy for a book series about handcrafted products in a world of global mass production.

Miriello divides his time between the new Miriello Grafico design warehouse located in the Barrio Logan neighborhood of San Diego, California and Radicondoli (near Siena, Italy) where he develops his own projects away from the world of clients, deadlines and budgets.

Mark Adams | Creative Director, Merging Design | http://www.mergingdesign.com
With fifteen years of marketing communications experience, Mark Adams has worked for both agencies and clients, creating award-winning print, web, and interactive marketing solutions for scores of companies. After years of working for other agencies, Mark founded MergingDesign in 2002. MergingDesign combines branding, interactive design, and integrated marketing to help companies build their brand, tell their story, and sell their products. When not utterly immersed in helping clients refine and redefine their message, he enjoys extreme cooking, overanalyzing advertising at cocktail parties, and playing Halo 3 with his 14-year old son.

Kevin Burns | Art Director, Ann Lee & Associates | http://www.annleeassoc.com
Award-winning art director with over 16 years of experience in advertising and graphic design. Kevin’s love of pop culture, fashion and propaganda fuels his pursuit of design and inspires every facet of his work. He has created and designed advertising for a myriad of industries including oil and gas, business-to-business, real estate, technology, consumer, financial and new media. He has represented many high-end advertising agencies such as McCann-Erickson, Houston, Rives Carlberg, Houston, Goswick Advertising, Houston and BRSG, Houston, and has garnered numerous awards on a regional and national level.

Robert Campbell | Partner/Creative Director, 808inc | http://www.808inc.com
Robert Campbell is Partner and Creative Director of 808inc., a Houston-based creative and production studio specializing primarily, but not exclusively, in broadcast. Formerly a senior writer with BBDO Houston and Bates Southwest, he writes and directs commercials and other media for a variety of regional clients. In addition to receiving a Cannes Lion and numerous Addys, his work has been featured in Ad Age, Creativity, Adweek, TBS’s Funniest Commercials on Television and some BBC Documentary on advertising, which he hasn’t seen.

David Lerch | Creative Director, Axiom | http://www.axiomdg.com
Creative Director for Axiom, a hybrid agency specializing in branding design, advertising and multimedia. He has over 15 years experience in the field working on with such clients as Microsoft, Cameron, Shell International, Ion, The Houston Grand Opera, and FotoFest. Axiom was the only non-Dallas firm to be chosen to design the coveted Rough magazine for the Dallas Society of Visual Communications. His work has been been featured in Communication Arts, Graphis, Print, Dallas Society of Visual Communication and AR100. Recent projects include rebranding and launch of a new seismic company identity and packaging design for a private coffee label. He lives with his wife and two kids.

Chris Lockwood | Illustrator, Herring Design | http://www.herringdesign.com
Chris was born in Eritrea, Africa, and raised mostly in Texas. His career started out as a graphic designer but as evolved steadily into illustration as the technology improved and became more accessible. His work includes everything from industrial drilling equipment to the backs of cereal boxes. Chris has done work for scores of local design firms and agencies all the way to several big Midwest and East Coast agencies including DDB, Draft Worldwide and Crispin Porter and Bogusky. Chris served on the Art Director’s Club board in the early nineties. After 19 years on his own Chris recently joined Herring Design as one of their staff illustrators. When not at work or drawing robots, you can bet he’s on his bicycle somewhere.

We’ve booked the judges for the 2007 Houston Show - they’re a great group of people looking forward to seeing the work entered in the Show. The board is thrilled to get this talent down to Houston.

Jude Buffum | http://www.judebuffum.com | http://headcasedesign.com
Jude Buffum is better known as the beard-sporting half of Philadelphia-based design and illustration duo Headcase Design, whose work has been featured in such publications as Graphis, Communication Arts, Print, and American Illustration. He has designed books for such pop-culture phenomena as the Broadway show “Wicked” and HBO’s “The Sopranos”, as well as the best-selling book The Baby Owner’s Manual. An alumnus of the Tyler School of Art (where he has been teaching since 2001), Jude has also forged his own style of painting inspired by the pixelated 8-bit graphics of classic video games and created a line of pixelated plush art toys called “BiTZ”, both of which have been exhibited in galleries from Philadelphia to Los Angeles.

Chris Buzelli | http://chrisbuzelli.com
Chris Buzelli was born and raised outside of Chicago and on the waters of Lake Michigan. After graduating from Rhode Island School of Design, Chris moved to New York City to start his career as an illustrator. His oil paintings have appeared in many publications including Rolling Stone, TIME, Playboy, New York Times and PLANSPONSOR Magazine. Chris has also collaborated on numerous projects with design firms and agencies including Saatchi and Saatchi, Cole & Weber United, Arc Worldwide, Fallon, and BDM. Recent projects include ad campaigns for, United Airlines, Seattle Woodland Zoo and The Tropen Museum in Amsterdam; decals for Vespa Scooters; a wine label for St. Supery; and a CD cover for CBS records. Chris also shows his work in various exhibitions and galleries throughout the country. He currently teaches a class at RISD and lives in NYC with his wife SooJin and their dog Sota.

Mary Fallon | http://www.catalyststudios.com
Mary Fallon is Senior Art Director at Catalyst Studios in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Mary has over 13 years of experience in the design world. Starting out as an illustrator for clients like General Electric, Psychology Today and the Chicago Tribune, she eventually founded her own design business, Papasea. She was looking for something new when Catalyst Studios snatched her up. Catalyst is known for providing not just good design but first and foremost a strong base of strategy and ideating, and Mary continues to be their go-to AD in this capacity. She also brings to the job a sense of fashion and a deep understanding of emerging technologies and how they can be tapped and twisted into unexpected strategies for clients such as Target, Kohl’s, Best Buy, and O.P.I. Nail Lacquer. As Catalyst’s clients put it, “We hire Catalyst Studios because you give us ideas that nobody else can.” Mary is a big part of this, continually problem solving, ideating and creating in a new, fresh and exhilarating way.

Chris Silas Neal | http://www.redsilas.com
Christopher Silas Neal is an illustrator and designer, born in Texas and raised in Florida and Colorado. His work has been published by a variety of magazines and book publishers and, has been recognized by Communicatin Arts, American Illustration, AIGA, Society of Illustrators, Society of Publication Designers, Art Directors Club of Denver, Print Magazine and Society of News Designers. He exhibits drawings at various galleries across the country. He currently works and lives in Brooklyn and teaches Illustration at Pratt Institute.

Gary Ness | http://www.8streetstudio.com
Gary Ness is a photographer working in Minneapolis, Mn. He holds an MFA in photography from the University of Minnesota and has an extensive regional and national exhibition record. He received a Film in the Cities Photography Fellowship in 1986 and his work is in collections at the Minnesota Historical Society, Cedar Arts Forum Collection in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and in the University of Northern Iowa permanent collection. He has taught photography through the University of Minnesota School of Art, the Minnesota Center for Photography, and the Complete Scholar program at the University of Minnesota. For the past 17 years, he has been working in commercial photography. He is currently the Director of Photography for 8th Street Studio - a commercial studio specializing in food, fashion, and product photography. His clients include Target, Red Wing Shoe, ShopNBC, and numerous agencies. He loves the endless creative possibilities of photography and is always looking for new ways to see the commonplace. He lives with his wife and four children in Minneapolis.