Search
Menu
2020 Judges

  • Angela Bains

    Assistant Professor at OCAD University and Strategic Director at TransformExp, Vancouver
    With over 30 years experience in the design industry, Angela is the Co-Founder and Strategic Director of TransformExp, an award-winning design firm with clients like BBC Television, BC Liquor Stores, Swatch Canada and The Ritz-Carlton. She has also spent many years designing for social change, including for the Free Nelson Mandela Campaign and the first World Aid Day concert. As an Educator, Angela has been nominated for seven local and national teaching awards and won Teaching Excellence Award at BCIT. She has also developed several creative industry career events with the British Columbia Institute of Technology Student Association and has organized events to including her very own BainsExtraBold UK TYPE TOUR 2018.
     

  • Susanna Nygren Barrett

    Creative Director & Owner, The Studio, Stockholm, Sweden

    Originally from Canada, Susanna has a degree in fine art and graphic design from Vancouver and later completed a Masters Program at Yale University in Switzerland where she studied under the graphic design legend Paul Rand and renowned Swiss designer Armin Hofmann. After working as a designer in a multi-disciplinary studio, Karo Design, she moved to New York where she became the design director for Liska + Associates. In 2000, she moved to Stockholm where she became a partner and creative director at the design and branding firm BVD. Currently, Susanna is the creative director and co-founder of the Stockholm design firm, The Studio, where she has lead strategic design and branding assignments for clients locally and internationally for the past 9 years. Her work has been recognized through numerous design awards over the years such as the D&AD, The One Show, the AIGA, Type Directors Club, Red Dot Design Award (Best of the Best) to name a few. She regularly lectures at design schools and is often invited to jury design awards in Sweden and abroad.

  • Ian Grais RGD

    Founding Partner and Creative Director, Rethink, Vancouver
    Ian studied economics at UBC and then advertising and design at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, prior to co-founding Rethink in 1999. Ian’s passion for creative problem-solving, art and design has helped him become one of Canada’s most awarded creative thinkers. He’s been named the number one creative director and art director in the country numerous times, including being the only art director in the country ranked number one five years in a row. Today Ian serves on the Rethink Board of Directors, helping guide the company’s overall strategic and creative direction. 

  • Audrée Lapierre

    Head of Design at Officevibe, Montréal
    Audrée is a creative leader based in Montreal with over 10 years experience in crafting data-rich experiences and products. Prior to her current position as Head of Design at Officevibe, she co-founded one of the very first companies to specialize in information design worldwide. She has been a key player in pioneering this discipline; helping to establish its best practices and untapped potential for global communication. She has led creative initiatives for clients including Amazon, Google, HP, Canadian Cancer Society, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, National Geographic, United Nations and UNESCO. Her work has been recognized by AIGA, the Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards, FWA, Numix and Grafika.

  • Howard Poon RGD

    VP Director of Design at DDB, Edmonton 
    Howard has a reputation for frank feedback and has a low tolerance for complexity. He feeds his curiosity with a subscription to the Sunday New York Times and reading non-fiction. He’s currently obsessed with Greg McKeown’s Essentialism. As VP Design for DDB Edmonton, Howard collaborates with a cross-disciplinary agency team of strategists, creatives and designers to use insight-driven design to build exceptional brands. Over the years, his team’s work has appeared in Communication Arts, Applied Arts and has been recognized with international, national and regional awards. Last fall, DDB was recognized by Strategy Magazine as 2019 Bronze Design Agency of the Year. Howard is passionate about nurturing young talent. He was an advisor on MacEwan University’s Bachelor of Design Advisory Committee and he continues to ‘send the elevator back down’ as a design management sessional instructor at the University of Alberta Visual Communication Design for the past three years. Reach out to him on LinkedIn. 

  • Cai Sepulis RGD

    Partner and Art Director, TOQUE Magazine, Guelph 
    An illustrator and designer with over 15 years of experience in the field, Cai has worked on numerous national and international projects including Brickworks Cider, Second Cup, HotDocs, Penguin Books and Volkswagen. In 2017, she co-founded TOQUE Ltd — a regional lookbook and branding studio (and 2018 Applied Arts Winner) serving South-Western Ontario. Cai divides her time between TOQUE Ltd and freelance illustration projects. 

  • Dave Watson

    VP Executive Creative Director, Design at Mosaic North America, Toronto
    Design is a good idea. This string of five simple words has inspired and guided Dave's creative career. For 15 years, Dave honed his passion as part of the team at TAXI, blurring the lines of design and advertising, winning global acclaim and being named Strategy Magazine’s ‘Agency of the Decade’. In 2017, Dave left TAXI to become the Executive Creative Director of Design at Mosaic, where he leads one of the largest design teams in the country. His work for brands such as General Mills, Budweiser, MINI, TELUS and Nike has been recognized over 200 times by national and international award shows. In case you were wondering, Dave still thinks design is a good idea and he continues to preach the importance of design thinking and creativity to solve business problems across Canada and the US.

  • Fadi Yaacoub

    Broadcast, Creative & Digital Design Management Executive at The Star, Toronto
    Fadi is the Executive Creative Director, visuals and digital design at the Toronto Star. He joined The Star in 2015 after a career of 13 years in broadcast design at Radio-Canada Television in Montreal. He is a seasoned design veteran and digital media expert with a track record of successes leading diverse teams to achieve corporate goals. His achievements include establishing design departments, building tablet and mobile news apps, designing primetime newscasts, crafting brand identities, developing go-to-market strategies, creating advertising campaigns, winning awards and hitting numbers in both French and English markets across Canada. Fadi is adept at leading diverse and multicultural operational teams, as well as building a common workplace culture through effective leadership style. His main area of expertise is on the intersection between Product Design, Branding, Content Design and Driving Digital Transformation in newsrooms. He also talks on the future of visual storytelling, designing purposeful interactive experiences and coaching emerging new breed of designers.