Below is an overview of some of the speakers who have agreed to share their perspectives at the International Conference from 26-28 October.


Kiko Farkas, AGI (Brazil)
Since the eighties, Kiko Farkas' passion for telling stories through various media has led him to work as art director/editor on a number publications in his hometown, São Paulo, Brazil. Founded by Kiko in 1987, Máquina Estúdio has grown as a one of the top studios in Brazil, working for the most important cultural institutions and publishing houses.

Andrew Ashton, AGI (Australia)
Studio Pip and Co., established in Melbourne Australia in 2003, strives to help clients communicate points of difference and connect with their desired audiences with clarity. Founder Andrew Ashton has helped many large and small businesses realise their versions of fresh, engaging, and effective communication.

David Barringer (United States)
An author, freelance writer, graphic designer, photographer and artist, David Barringer is currently writing about graphic-design culture and issues for design periodicals (Voice, I.D. Magazine, Eye Magazine) and anthologies (Looking Closer 5, Designing Magazines, Design Entrepreneurs).

Base Design
A creative group whose overall mission is the development of brand identity systems for companies, institutions, products and individuals, Base Design specialises in creative direction, art direction and graphic design. Base "thinks globally but operates locally" with offices in six cities: Brussels, New York, Paris, Barcelona, Madrid and Santiago.

Yoon Hoseob (Korea)
A prominent design educator at Kookmin University in Seoul and green design activist, promoting sustainable projects and the indivisible link between environment and design, Yoon Hoseob he has led a personal crusade of implementing various green design causes and has become a symbol for green design integrity in the region.

Sheila Levrant de Bretteville (United States)
A graphic designer, artist and educator, Sheila Levrant de Bretteville's work reflects her belief in the importance of feminist principles, user participation in graphic design and diverse local community issues. Since 1990 she has been the director of the Yale University Graduate Program in Graphic Design.

Laurence Madrelle, AGI (France)
Principal of LM Communique, Paris, and past president of Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI), Laurence Madrelle teaches visual communication at the École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de la ville et des territories. His has created award-winning work, visual identities and signage for many cultural institutions and cities.

David Pidgeon, AGI (Australia)
Design By Pidgeon has built a reputation for creating unique design solutions for range of clients. David's journey in design is greatly influenced by the way he sees the world. He pursues diversity in clients and output, which in turn employs a curious mix of playful yet intelligent; precise yet intuitive output. His experiments in typographic form is one of the creative threads that draws all his work together.

Rick Poynor (United Kingdom)
A British writer on design, media and visual culture, Rick Poynor is the founding editor of Eye. He is a co-organiser of the "First Things First 2000" manifesto (1999), a co-founder of the weblog Design Observer (2003), and is a former visiting professor and research fellow at the Royal College of Art in London. Poynor's latest book, Jan van Toorn: Critical Practice (2008), is a monograph about the radical Dutch designer.

David Small (United States)
With a PhD from the MIT Media Laboratory (1999), David Small's research focused on the display and manipulation of complex visual information. His thesis, Rethinking the Book, examines how digital media, and the use of three-dimensional and dynamic typography, will change the way designers approach large bodies of information. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, Documenta11, the Centre Pompidou, and the Cooper-Hewitt.

Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFares (Lebanon)
Born in Beirut, Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès holds degrees in graphic design from Yale University School of Art and Rhode Island School of Design and specialises in bilingual typographic research and design. She is currently the director and founder of the Khatt Foundation, Center for Arabic Typography, while pursuing a PhD at Leiden University and working between Europe and the Middle East as a typography and design consultant.

Hilton Tennant (South Africa)
Hilton Tennant started his career designing and creating title sequences for South African television and formed his own company, Tennant McKay, in 2002. In 2005 they collaborated with fellow Rex to represent Africa in the Coke M5 online project.

Troika (United Kingdom)
Troika is a multi-disciplinary art and design practice founded in 2003 by Conny Freyer, Eva Rucki and Sebastien Noel. Troika develops a variety of self-initiated and commissioned projects that are both engaging and demanding to the user, from printed matter to product design and custom art installations. In 2007 Troika were named one of the top 50 hottest UK names in design by The Guardian and in 2006 were given the NESTA Award for innovation.

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