Speakers & Guests
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Cassie McDaniel
Design Director at the Mozilla FoundationA decade ago Cassie studied Graphic Design at the University of Florida, wandered over to England and worked in digital design for a bunch of fancy brands, then moved to Canada and found her soul in personal, healthcare and non-profit projects. She has since become Design Director at the Mozilla Foundation, leading the design team for Mozilla’s many advocacy and education initiatives.
Cass and her partner-in-crime Mark are obsessed with all things near to their adopted hometown, and they are using design to put their Paris (Ontario) on the map. They are responsible for creating Jane & Jury – a design business and highly curated blog, Paris Lectures – a local small-town event series, Women&&Tech – longform interviews celebrating women’s careers in tech, and two remarkable baby daughters (best creations yet).
Cassie regularly speaks around the world and writes articles about the craft of design, teams and process. Her writing has appeared in A List Apart, SmashingMag, .Net Mag, Offscreen Magazine, Pastry Box Project, and more. She loves connecting with likeminded folks, so say hi!
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Mike Monteiro
Co-Founder at Mule Design StudioMike is the co-founder and design director of Mule Design, an interactive design studio whose work has been called “delightfully hostile” by the New Yorker. He prefers elegant, simple sites with clear language that serve a real need. He prefers that designers have strong spines. Recent clients include The National Audubon Society, Seattle Times, Open Society Foundations, and ProPublica.
Mike writes and speaks frequently about the craft and business of design. In early 2011, he gave a CreativeMornings talk entitled “F— You, Pay Me” that uplifted the downtrodden the world over, and got designers to start minding their business. His 2014 talk “How Designers Destroyed the World”, about designers and social responsibility, was awarded 2014 Talk of the Year by Net Magazine.
He’s written two books, both published by A Book Apart. His first book, Design Is a Job, published in 2012, about handling yourself professionally as a designer, is being incorporated as a textbook in design programs across the country. His second book, You’re My Favorite Client, looks at the client/designer relationship from the client’s side, and deals with how to find the right designer, better work with them, and manage their moody selves. Both are delightful and fun to read.
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Daniel Burka
Design Partner at Google VenturesDaniel is a design partner at GV, Google’s venture capital group. He works with the venture funds’ many portfolio companies to solve their design challenges. Daniel has had a varied career that included co-founding an agency (silverorange), design directing at startups (Digg and TinySpeck), and founding two startups (Pownce and Milk). When Milk was acquired by Google, Daniel ran a mobile-focused design team there before moving to GV where he gets to work on everything from robots to apps to wearable therapeutics.
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Chris Coyier
Founder at CSS Tricks, Co-Founder at CodePenChris is a web designer and developer. He writes about all things web at CSS-Tricks.com, talks about all things web at conferences around the world and on his podcast ShopTalk, and co-founded the web coding playground CodePen.
Chris is the host of this year’s MxF Fireside Talks happening on Wednesday night.
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Victoria Pater
Product Design Lead at PayPalVictoria is a designer of brands, products, and experiences. Her career started the same year the first iPhone was released. Since then she’s spent time at Orbitz, Modest (acquired by PayPal), and several in-house and design shops. She co-founded the Moxie Conference and Quite Strong, the female design collective. Victoria’s passion for mobile and spending those dollas on the internet has led to her current position at PayPal Commerce.
Outside the world of checkout flows and screens, you can find Victoria collecting modern furniture, planning her next vacation, or scheming on business ideas.
Victoria lives in Chicago with her “mature” dog, Milo, and her partner, Joe. They play board games and eat too much ice cream.
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James Victore
Principal at James Victore Inc.James runs an independent design studio hell-bent on world domination. He is an author, designer, educator and activist. Described as “part Darth Vader, part Yoda,” Victore is widely known for his timely wisdom and impassioned views about design and it’s place in the world. He expresses these views and teachings through his numerous lectures, workshops, and writings.
As a designer, Victore continually strives to make work that is sexy, strong and memorable; work that tows the line between the sacred and the profane. His paintings of expressionist designs can be seen on ceramics, surfboards, billboards and supermodels. James’ work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and is represented in the permanent collections of the museums around the globe. His clients include Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, Esquire Magazine, Moet Chandon, Yohji Yamamoto, the School of Visual Arts and The New York Times. In 2010 his work was published in a monograph titled, “Victore or, Who Died and Made You Boss?” (Abrams).
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Amy Schwartz
Design Director at Cards Against HumanityAmy is a designer specializing in branding, digital experiences, and games. She is currently the Design Director at Cards Against Humanity and Blackbox. She was the winner of Command X at the 2015 AIGA National Design Conference; other recognitions include the Emerging Designer Award by AIGA Chicago, Finalist for Young Designer of the Year by the Net Awards, and the recipient of the AIGA Chicago What’s Next Grant in 2014. She has been featured in numerous publications, including Frame Publisher’s Masterclass, Print Mag online, HOW Design and Brand New. Amy founded Liminal Space, a design initiative that promotes experimentation, community, and dialogue within Chicago’s thriving design, art, and technology scenes. Her past clients and collaborators include the Cranbrook Art Museum, Google, and Bright Bright Great. Amy holds an MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BA from DePaul University.
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Alex Cornell
Product Designer at FacebookAlex is a Product Designer for Facebook. He’s also a filmmaker and periodic musician.
In 2011 he cofounded Firespotter Labs (now Switch). He built and launched 4 products: UberConference, Nosh, NoshList and Jotly. As creative director and design lead, he worked on all aspects of the products, from the interface design to the marketing videos. Some exciting highlights were winning TC Disrupt in 2012, making the frontpage of the Wall Street Journal, and launching a redesigned UberConference.
After a great run, in 2014 he left Firespotter to start Moonbase. They focused on startup promo videos, many of which can be seen on the site.
Prior to Firespotter, he spent three years studying design as apprentice to Scott Hansen (ISO50/Tycho), as well as writing for the blog and running the studio. Based on his work on the blog, he released a book in 2012 with Princeton Architectural Press. You can buy it on Amazon. He also uploads music to Youtube sometimes, where he has over 5M views. Some time ago he graduated from Duke University.
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Becky Simpson
Author and Founder of Chipper ThingsBecky is an illustrator, author, graphic designer and founder of Chipper Things, a paper and lifestyle brand that celebrates friendship and play. As a 2015-2016 Adobe Creative Resident, Becky spent the year learning how to build and manage this online store that features over 70 products with her illustrations. Becky is also the author and illustrator of The Roommate Book and I’d Rather Be Short. Her work has been featured on The Great Discontent, How Design, Refinery29, Adobe Create and more. Becky’s dancing has been described as “Elaine-like” and “Are you serious?” You can find her eating tacos and illustrating flowcharts in Austin, Texas.
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AJ Leon
Founder at Misfits Inc.AJ used to be an unremarkably average financial executive in Manhattan, until he decided to start changing the world instead. He is a writer, designer, entrepreneur, nomad, and humanitarian that has initiated social projects in South Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Malawi, The Philippines and England. He is the author of The Life and Times of a Remarkable Misfit and publishes essays at Pursuit of Everything about living with intention, doing work that matters and changing the world. He founded the Misfit and organizes the annual Misfit Conference.
