Alumni

As a  Senior Exhibition Designer, Diana  was in charge of the exhibition design development for the Peru Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai, which was awarded Gold for medium size pavilions at the Expo Awards, organized by the Bureau des Expositions (BIE).

"My role in the project was to work on the client side, to ensure that the visitor experience complies with the tourism, exportation and country promotion goals set for the project. As the creative mediator between the government and the main design & execution contractor, my job was to offer conceptual direction, theme interpretation and exhibition design supervision during each of the project’s phases until the exhibition was installed and running. Definitely, my favorite part was to think about the message we wanted to bring to Expo, and find in our ancestral wisdom a valuable content that contributed to the Expo theme Connecting Minds, Creating Future."

Trevor Steels is a Senior Designer at Sparks, a company that designs brand experiences. In 2020, he worked as a creative lead for the Google Assistant project for CES 2020 (Consumer Electronics Show). The objective of this project was to shift the story from the ubiquity of the product to telling a grounded product story across surfaces, software, and real-life experiences by showcasing the Assistant as the most helpful digital assistant, creating a museum-worthy space and experience where attendees can spend meaningful time interacting with the Google Assistant, telling an engaging story that showcases real-world scenarios of what the Assistant can do for a person in every aspect of life with an emphasis on user privacy.

Ted Nordlander has been an exhibit designer/developer at Argyle Design since 2013. Argyle specializes in designing children’s museum exhibits and hands-on experiences. One of Ted’s favorite recent projects has been the Sonic Box, which is one of many exhibits Argyle designed for the Wonderhub in Saskatoon, Canada. The idea behind the Sonic Box was to create a self-contained, mini exhibit where visitors could make music together. The Box is comprised of a number of different music activities including a few custom-created musical instruments. 

“We wanted to have instruments that were played in novel ways without requiring any previous musical skills and that would sound "good" together. Visitors spin, pull, bang and dance to create music together. The sounds in Box include bass tubular bells, ethereal choirs, electronic beats, and exotic slide guitars. Being a musician myself, the exhibit was a blast to work on, combining my love of experience design with my love of music-making and sound design.”

Sarah Frankel is currently a Project Lead at Exploratorium—a public learning laboratory exploring the world through science, art, and human perception. At one of her previous companies, ESI Design, Sarah worked as a Production Manager. One of the first projects she started working on when she joined ESI was The Statue of Liberty Museum, so she got to be involved from conception straight through to installation and opening day.

“I work with our design team to ensure ideas are feasible, responsible, and cutting-edge, and then I get to work with vendors and fabricators to budget, prototype, fabricate, and install. It’s a crazy all-encompassing job that changes every single day, which is why I love it.” 

Adam Carnes is a Creative Director at Pinnacle. At one of his previous companies, Derse, Adam worked on the 5G Innovation Zone for Samsung  and AT&T as an experiential design lead, client and partner liaison, and on narrative and content development. 
In keeping with the innovation, Zone’s exploratory, ‘testbed’ nature the exhibit will portray a feeling of ongoing innovation and discovery through its content and design aesthetic. From first glimpse visitors will feel as though they are getting an exclusive peek at innovation in the making.

Jongwook Won is a Senior Designer at Tangram. Tangram designs for trade shows, retail and special events, and its projects are at the intersection of art and technology. 

“As a Senior Designer at TANGRAM I got to work on projects from the concept phase to the execution. Designers at TANGRAM work on every stage of the project, which is fun. One of the projects I worked on was US Open Nike Town in New York.”

Muoi Le is an Associate Experiential Design Director at Momentum Worldwide. Momentum Worldwide helps   brands imagine, create, curate and manage their total brand experience. Muoi had a chance to design the   Time Shop for —a pop-up space for family and friends to spend quality time together, take pictures and send out cards. The client was Chick-fil-A®.

Matt Laska is an exhibition designer, machine operator and owner of Laser Art NYC, the premier laser cutting studio of the brand experience industry. Laser Art NYC produces dimensional letters and logos for brand activations, trade shows, red carpet events and experiential environments. Matt is also an artist and the founder of Winter Village Ornaments. He uses the manufacturing equipment from Laser Art NYC to make Christmas and Holiday decorations. His little ornaments have become very popular in the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, where he lives. Every year, Matt is a vendor at the Easton Winter Village, where he spreads peace and harmony through these tiny works of Pennsylvania folk art.

Isabella Bruno is an exhibition and experiential designer at the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington D.C. ONe of the exhibitions Isabella worked on was Elephants and Us: Considering Extinction that opened in 2019, and will remain on display indefinitely. 

The exhibition asks visitors to consider the role of U.S. ivory consumption in contributing to a decline in elephant population and the U.S. efforts to combat the species’ loss through legislation, conservation and scientific study. Our interpretive strategy was informed by front-end research that gauged visitor awareness of the vulnerable status of elephants (high) and the role that the United States has played in both the exploitation of and the effort to save elephants (low).